Film-maker and director Jordan Peele has created an original audio-only fictional horror series exclusive to Spotify, launching on 15 November.
The 12-episode short-form series titled Quiet Part Loud is produced by Peele’s company Monkeypaw Productions in partnership with Spotify’s Gimlet Media. In the announcement statement to Variety, Peele said that he wanted to “make the scariest podcast of all time”.
“I’m always looking for new ways to explore and innovate in genre storytelling,” Peele said. “The potential in audio was tremendously appealing: by stripping horror of all its visuals, you can focus on just conjuring dread and unease in your listener’s ears on this intimate and visceral level. I wanted us to make the scariest podcast of all time.”
The plot centres around right-wing radio host named Rick Egan who returns eight years after losing his platform after making xenophobic rumors post-9/11 around a group of missing Muslim teenagers. After one of the teenagers reappears, Egan sets out on a mission to find out what really happened and ends up crossing paths with a demonic monster known as ‘The Blank’.
Quiet Part Loud follows the success of Peele’s film hit-thrillers Get Out, Us, and most-recently Nope which incorporated elements of social or political commentary. According to the producers, the podcast achieves a similar goal by examining the “state of fear and divisiveness” in the US through elements of immersive audio and sound design.
All episodes of the podcast will be dropping at once to create a binge-listening experience and will feature cameos from stars like actor and playwright Tracy Letts, Inventing Anna’s Arian Moayed, Good Girls’ Christina Hendricks, and Killing Gunther’s Taran Killan.
In October this year, Spotify released another Gimlet Media audio-drama fictional podcast titled Case 63, an adaptation of the original Latin American podcast series, Caso 63. The podcast is exclusive to the streaming platform and stars academy award-winning actress Julianne Moore and actor Óscar Isaac.
“Case 63 was my very first audio experience and I was able to see firsthand how immersive and impactful podcasting is as a mode of storytelling,” said Moore in a statement to Variety. “It is a thrilling and timely story – incredibly mysterious and romantic, suspenseful and strange.”
