Alt-Media: Undertow: Narcosis

2022, Realm

While The Harrowing was running week to week on Spotify, I found this one that was already completed. I am liking these shortish, horror audio dramas. They are along the lines of the B-movies we watch during our 31 Days of Halloween events. Horror has an audio drama, has its pro's and con's. Without the need to have big special effects and grand set pieces, they can explore a wider range of ideas. But they have to make sure they can convey the horror of a situation entirely through dialogue and sound production, and are not always as successful as they hope to be. And a good or bad voice actor can make or break immersion entirely.

Veronica West is a deep sea diver, head of a team that just proved themselves top of the game, and destined for greatness. And then she gets a call that a childhood friend has passed away, but not any death -- she was lost diving in caves under the Bay of Fundy (caves? isn't all just mud down there?). Her husband is hoping Veronica can help recover the body. 

So, Veronica returns to the island of the coast of Maine, a place she hasn't been since she ran away. The place is both exactly how she remembered it -- a summer getaway entirely focused on the resort and its guests, run by the Macklin family, but also, something eerie is happening underneath all their friendliness, especially at such a tragic time.

What is happening is very Lovecraftian inspired, both in its chosen location, the New England aspect of America, but also the idea of something very ancient, very unknown lurking under the sea. This unknown is disturbed by human interlopers hoping to control it, but only end up losing everything. 

Narcosis is meant to take place under water for the most part, so they had to nail the sound portion of "being under water" communicated to us, the listener, via two-way radios and how the mics could pick up the ambient sound. They do a great job on that, but I have to admit, the ever present darkness of a visual media would have lent much more.

The ending of the drama ended being rather muddy as events on the surface are told to us via rather spare details and sounds that leave a lot to the imagination. Sometimes some description just goes a long way in making something audio-only coherent. Basically something rises from the sea and ... well, kills a lot of people. I was never sure quite what. Meanwhile the very close, very personal events under the water, in the caves, is what proved the best in the creepy, claustrophobic tale telling.

P.S. No credits here because they IMDB entry is so terribly done, its not differentiating between the different seasons of the entire "Undertow" series, and the actual individual entries for this season are ... empty.

But, great poster. Creepy AF.