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Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Guest Post: Gemma Files
THE BLACK TAPES PODCAST
By Gemma Files
Hi, all. I'm here to talk about my favourite current not-so-guilty pleasure, The Black Tapes Podcast, a docudrama co-produced by Minnow Beats Whale and the National Podcast Alliance, which pits charmingly open-minded host Alex Reagan—supposedly a graduate of This American Life-like mothership podcast Pacific Northwest Stories, which all the show's minor characters claim to recognize—against prickly yet charismatic professional debunker of the supernatural Dr Richard Strand, whose “black” VHS tapes chronicling as yet disproven cases form the basis for each episode. By episode three, a sub-plot about Strand's private life develops, introducing the idea that Strand may have had something to do with the mysterious disappearance of his second wife, Coralee, but that comes and goes. In and between revelations, Alex and Strand develop a working partnership that's very appealing, not to mention mildly flirtatious, whether they're covering incidents of demonic possession, cursed ouija boards, or the tragic back-story behind a festival during which tourists from all over America arrive in a small Midwestern town, ready to spend the next few days cosplaying as a murderous ghost with an upside-down face. 
The show's structure mimics that of an investigative/reconstructive podcast like Serial almost perfectly, hitting a sweet spot between found footage, talk show, oral storytelling tradition and Internet creepypasta, alternately funny and disturbing, yet always engaging; its characters are persuasive, its mysteries inventive spins on vaguely familiar urban legend tropes, its stories realistically open-ended—none of it ever solved outright, but nothing dropped completely, either. This latter thread has become increasingly prevalent, especially in Episode Twelve, which ends with Alex positing the idea that all of Strand's black tapes may eventually start to fold together and form one massive haunting/ball of paranormal activity. There's really nothing not to like in this package, from my point of view, though I'm a bit annoyed that they've switched to a bi-weekly rather than weekly delivery model, mainly because the show's so good that I really don't want to have to wait fourteen whole days to scratch my Black Tapes itch.
Best of all, The Black Tapes reminds me strongly of everything I love best about radio...all the wonderful and terrifying possibilities raised by a medium in which the audience's imagination must meet the creator halfway, or nothing happens. It's a strange sort of alchemy, akin to the central challenge of horror in general: the creator promises to scare (or at least disturb) you, while you in turn promise to lay yourself open to the possibility and let them try. Like live theatre, radio creates a sort of sacred space where metaphors and implications can become momentarily “real,” almost physically so.
“Why, this is Illyria, lady,” the first person our heroine Viola meets after arriving onstage tells her, in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and as long as we're entertained, we don't challenge that statement—instead, we go along for the ride because we trust that the rewards will outstrip our investment, a gamble which delivers more often than not, possibly because the human brain is the most amazing narrative-producing machine that any of us have access to. And as Dr Richard Strand so often points out, after all, people already want to believe, which makes everything so much easier.
Though I have difficulty separating out my favourite Black Tapes moments, the best stand-alone installments thus far are probably either Episode Three, “The Unsound,” or Episode Five, “The Devil Inside.” Both constitute a good mid-stream introduction to the show as a whole, forming the equivalent of classic early episodes of The X-Files like “Squeeze” or “Ice.” “The Devil Inside,” with its bi-locating mental patient antagonist, is a particularly wild ride that forms a steadily darkening bubble around you for the duration of your voyage, leaving you with a pleasantly dreadful aftertaste in your mental mouth.
Thus far, The Black Tapes' creators have put roughly twelve episodes under their belt, which means it's about two thirds through its first “season”; all are accessible either by subscription or one at a time, through the main site, Stitcher and RSS, and are available either in iTunes or Android format. So check them out, and enjoy: the show is perfect for bingeing, either at home or on the move—theatre of the mind's eye, conducted in a dark room, either literal or figurative.
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About the Author
Former film critic and teacher Gemma Files won the 1999 International Horror Guild short fiction award for her story "The Emperor's Old Bones", which appears in her collection The Worm in Every Heart. Both it and her earlier collection, Kissing Carrion, feature stories adapted into episodes of The Hunger, an anthology TV show produced by Ridley and Tony Scott. Her first novel, A Book of Tongues: Volume One of the Hexslinger Series (ChiZine Publications), won a DarkScribe Magazine Black Quill award for "Best Small Press Chill" in both the Editor's and Readers' Choice categories. A Rope of Thorns (2011) and A Tree of Bones (2012) complete the trilogy. She is also the author of We Will All Go Down Together: Stories of the Five-Family Coven. Her latest novel, Experimental Film, will be released in November. You can find out more at http://musicatmidnight-gfiles.blogspot.com.
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