Statement Begins.
Aug. 13th, 2020 10:32 amI've heard a few times about The Magnus Archives, but somehow I'd never managed to glean what it actually is. When ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
runicmagitek made an enthusiastic entry about it, I decided I'd finally investigate.
The Magnus Archives is a horror podcast. It's essentially a series of short stories, with an overarching concept tying them together: Jonathan Sims is the new archivist at the Magnus Institute, a London-based organisation investigating reports of the paranormal. He's extremely unimpressed by the state his predecessor left the archives in, and he's trying to organise the place. This work includes making audio recordings of the various 'paranormal experience' reports the institute has received. Each episode is one of these recorded reports.
My relationship with horror is a bit of an odd one. I don't generally think of myself as a horror fan, but I do enjoy writing horror, and there are a number of horror or horror-tinged canons I've really loved: Silent Hill 2, Supernatural, Until Dawn, The Last of Us, Your Turn to Die, Higurashi, Oxenfree.
That's... more than I'd thought. Maybe I am a horror fan, after all.
In any case, I thought I might as well investigate The Magnus Archives and see if it makes the list. I've now listened to the first five episodes!
I was slightly put off at first by Sims' voice; it's not a bad effort, but it still feels obviously put on to me. Maybe the problem is that he's trying to speak lower than his natural range? In any case, I'm glad Sims drops it when recording statements, and I imagine the actor (confusingly also called Jonathan Sims) might become more confident in the voice as the series goes on. The concept is interesting, and I enjoy how snide Sims is; I wasn't expecting that!
The stories themselves can be very absorbing. The nature of the framing device - the archive deals with unresolved cases - means that there are always a lot of questions left unanswered, which of course works very well for psychological horror. I was particularly engaged by 'Do Not Open' (as a coward myself, I can appreciate a story about someone's life being saved by the fact he's a coward who just doesn't want to know) and 'Across the Street'. Also, the anglerfish story was EXTREMELY TROUBLING.
This is the first fiction podcast I've ever listened to, and I can see the value in having a collection of interesting short stories to listen to when I'm doing housework. (Or on public transport, in a theoretical world where taking public transport is no longer a health risk. I haven't been inside anything with wheels in five months.) Most of the episodes are between twenty and thirty minutes, so they're short enough to fit in here and there. I haven't fallen in love, but I'm intrigued enough to continue.
runicmagitek made an enthusiastic entry about it, I decided I'd finally investigate.The Magnus Archives is a horror podcast. It's essentially a series of short stories, with an overarching concept tying them together: Jonathan Sims is the new archivist at the Magnus Institute, a London-based organisation investigating reports of the paranormal. He's extremely unimpressed by the state his predecessor left the archives in, and he's trying to organise the place. This work includes making audio recordings of the various 'paranormal experience' reports the institute has received. Each episode is one of these recorded reports.
My relationship with horror is a bit of an odd one. I don't generally think of myself as a horror fan, but I do enjoy writing horror, and there are a number of horror or horror-tinged canons I've really loved: Silent Hill 2, Supernatural, Until Dawn, The Last of Us, Your Turn to Die, Higurashi, Oxenfree.
That's... more than I'd thought. Maybe I am a horror fan, after all.
In any case, I thought I might as well investigate The Magnus Archives and see if it makes the list. I've now listened to the first five episodes!
I was slightly put off at first by Sims' voice; it's not a bad effort, but it still feels obviously put on to me. Maybe the problem is that he's trying to speak lower than his natural range? In any case, I'm glad Sims drops it when recording statements, and I imagine the actor (confusingly also called Jonathan Sims) might become more confident in the voice as the series goes on. The concept is interesting, and I enjoy how snide Sims is; I wasn't expecting that!
The stories themselves can be very absorbing. The nature of the framing device - the archive deals with unresolved cases - means that there are always a lot of questions left unanswered, which of course works very well for psychological horror. I was particularly engaged by 'Do Not Open' (as a coward myself, I can appreciate a story about someone's life being saved by the fact he's a coward who just doesn't want to know) and 'Across the Street'. Also, the anglerfish story was EXTREMELY TROUBLING.
This is the first fiction podcast I've ever listened to, and I can see the value in having a collection of interesting short stories to listen to when I'm doing housework. (Or on public transport, in a theoretical world where taking public transport is no longer a health risk. I haven't been inside anything with wheels in five months.) Most of the episodes are between twenty and thirty minutes, so they're short enough to fit in here and there. I haven't fallen in love, but I'm intrigued enough to continue.
