Cosmic Horror in Audio – The Call of the Void

Have you ever been driving, and heard a voice in the back of your head say, you could just swerve into oncoming traffic. You don’t want to hurt yourself, but there is definitely something in you saying you could. It turns out this strange feeling has a name, it’s called – The Call of the Void.  Or “l’appel du vide” if you are fancy and French. It’s an urge to throw yourself into…well…a void.

This strange phenomenon is the title and backbone of a new audiodrama podcast called – THE CALL OF THE VOID.  In this show, a tour guide and a palm reader in modern-day New Orleans encounter an entity that longs to bring the world into perfect stillness. The podcast is cosmic horror to its bones, but it doesn’t have the Elder Gods of other Lovecraftian fiction, instead, the cosmic entity of this world is The Void itself.  A force that calls out from the darkness, begging people to jump into oblivion.  Our protagonists in this story, weave through a mystery that brings trauma, secrets, and dark histories to light as they struggle to defy this great eldritch power.  In this show, the phenomenon of The Call of the Void is more than a whisper in the back of your head, it is a fully-realized monster that feeds endlessly. And it is deeply manipulative, it pulls at the minds of our heroes, and sometimes shatters sanity entirely

One of the goals of the show’s co-creators, Josie Eli Herman and Michael Alan Herman, was to help bring Lovecraftian fiction into the modern era. To leave the overt racism and sexism of Lovecraft in the past and explore what it means to rise over trauma.  Many of the characters in the show experience anxiety, depression, or skull-numbing fear.  Coming to terms with the jagged edge of trauma is a major engine for this narrative. The Void represents this specific knife as it rips its way into the characters’ lives.  It highlights their anxieties and fears and begs them to “give in”.  To end it all.  Even as they stand against it.

All of this is done completely and totally in the theatre of the mind through immersive audio. According to the co-creators, each scene of the show goes through hours of sound design to make it feel like “television for your ears”. Josie and Michael strive to deliver a primetime television experience, completely in the head of the listener. You imagine what the characters look like and how they creep into the next room. You get to decide what The Void feels like inside your head. The result was an even more Lovecraftian experience than either of them imagined.  By only giving the audience sound, they are thrown into a world of unknowns. They have to navigate the horror just like the characters.

The creative team behind The Call of the Void is very small.  In fact, the writers, creators, producers, sound designers, casting directors, and social media managers are just two people, running around wearing many many hats – a married couple named Josie Eli Herman and Michael Alan Herman. A few years ago, they visited New Orleans during hurricane season (they didn’t know it was hurricane season, but that does explain why flights were so cheap) and began to construct the nightmare world of The Call of the Void. Since its initial launch in 2020, the show has had over 180,000 global downloads and has won several national awards including best vocal direction at the 2020 Audioverse Awards, best-supporting actress at the 2020 Audioverse Awards (for the performance of Amanda Buchalter as Simone Sommers), and platinum silver at the 2020 Hear NOW Festival to name a few.

The entire first season of The Call of the Void is currently available anywhere you listen to podcasts including Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts for free. The second season is about halfway released, so now is a perfect time to check out the show before the season 2 finale.

For more information including donor perks, please consider stopping by the show’s official website: www.acornartsandentertainment.com/thevoid