The Magnus Archives is a horror podcast that I have been listening to off and on for the last few months. I only listen to podcasts when I'm doing something else. A quote that has stuck with me from My Brother, My Brother and Me is that podcasts are the mustard of life. They add some spice but you don't eat them by themselves.
So, the Magnus Archives are for cooking and cleaning. I add cosmic horror to folding the laundry.
The framework is that we are listening to recorded statements from the archives of the Magnus Institute, a paranormal research center in London. The primary voice actor and creator of the series is a guy called Jonathan Sims, who has a voice like Vincent Price after one too many cups of coffee. He named his character after himself, which had to be creepy at times.
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Initially, the Magnus Archives seems like a monster-of-the-week job. Urban fantasy and modern horror. However, as the podcast goes on, there is a broader story revealed. Not only is there a bigger picture, there aren't any actual monster-of-the-week stories. Everything ties together. Every story is a mythology story, to use a term I'm pretty sure the X-Files coined.
More than that, the Magnus Institute isn't an impregnable fortress. The first season has the institute almost destroyed by a literal supernatural infestation, as the statements start coming from inside the institute itself. There are ongoing characters who are being pulled into the nightmare hellscape that is the true reality of the setting. Oh, that was fun to write.
Okay, full disclosure, I haven't come close to listening to all of the Magnus Archives. However, I have read up on it so I am familiar with the overall setting and story arc. And it's an almost Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The supernatural horror all comes from the Powers, the manifestation or the origin of human fears. (Which is why I feel it isn't full Lovecraftian since it does directly connect to humanity. Cthulhu doesn't care about us. The Powers do) And their influences and actions are disturbing, often visceral and ultimately inescapable. Good stuff.
Jonathan eventually learns that he is becoming the avatar of one of the powers, the Eye, the fear of being watched. An incredibly amusing aspect of this is that people who give him testaments are compelled to be truthful and coherent. Thus, there is an in-story justification to why all the statements are structured to be good stories.
I don't listen to a lot of podcasts, let alone horror ones. So I don't know how the Magnus Archives measures up. However, I am enjoying myself
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