The Elmwood Strain

The Elmwood Strain

The Elmwood Strain is a psychedelic horror podcast and limited audio drama series in eight parts, from writer Rachel Woolley. Biological horror with Lovecraftian roots, set in the wreckage of a small American town. Paige escaped Elmwood ten years ago. She thought she got out. Then word arrives that one of the three best friends she abandoned has died under mysterious circumstances, and Paige finds herself driving back to the dying hometown she swore she would never see again. She finds the town being slowly swallowed by the forest, and what remains of it is in the grip of a strange new psychosis, lorded over by the friends she left behind. Crystal. Lucas. Jed. The people who knew her before. The people who knew everything. They have been waiting a long time for Paige to come home. And they have plans for her reunion. Directed and produced by Anthony Ladesich. Written by Rachel Woolley. A Violet Hour Media production. For fans of I Saw the TV Glow, Color Out of Space, The Invitation, Yellowjackets, The Last of Us, Annihilation, Hereditary, and Midsommar. Popular Topics Include: psychedelic horror podcast, biological horror podcast, scripted horror fiction, audio drama horror, fungal horror, cosmic horror podcast, Lovecraftian horror, small town horror, female-led horror podcast, trauma horror, indie horror podcast, folk horror, horror podcast like Yellowjackets, horror podcast like I Saw the TV Glow, horror podcast like The Last of Us, horror podcast like Color Out of Space, horror fiction podcast, dark fiction podcast, Anthony Ladesich, Rachel Woolley, Violet Hour Media.

Episodes

December 24, 2020 3 mins
Introducing THE ELMWOOD STRAIN, a new scripted horror podcast from Violet Hour Media. A traumatized woman reluctantly returns to her dying hometown to find the stoner friends she abandoned are hooked on a strange new drug—with bizarre, seemingly supernatural qualities. Subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. LISTENER WARNING: This program includes depictions of violence and other subject matter that may be upsetti...
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Psychedelic horror and survivor grief collide in the opening episode of The Elmwood Strain. Paige Johnson built her life around getting out of Elmwood. New city, new apartment, new locks on every door. Ten years ago a sixteen-year-old named Hunter Zedrow walked into her high school's graduation assembly with a homemade vest and a semiautomatic rifle and killed forty-two people. Paige and her three best friends — Crystal, Luc...
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Biological horror takes hold in the second episode of The Elmwood Strain, as Paige discovers the town she remembers no longer exists. Paige checks into the Elmwood Motel and finds the streets empty, the trees dying, and the few residents who remain looking at her like she is something they are trying to remember. Something is growing in the forest at the edge of town — pale, fleshy, expanding fast. The locals call it the rot...
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Folk horror and paranoid betrayal drive the third episode of The Elmwood Strain, as Paige discovers the truth about why she was called back. Crystal and Jed are alive. Paige finds them holed up in the wreckage of Jed's parents' house. Lucas, it turns out, is also alive — the call to her office was a lie, an invitation, a hook. Her friends are dealing a drug that came out of the rotting forest. They are also selling it. Half ...
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Psychedelic horror crosses into something darker in the fourth episode of The Elmwood Strain, as a reunion among old friends becomes something Paige never agreed to. She agrees to one night at Jed's basement with the people who used to know her best. A few drinks. A few cookies. A storm outside, the four of them in the same room for the first time in a decade. Crystal opens Paige's purse while she is in the bathroom. Lucas talks a...
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Psychedelic horror returns to its source in the fifth episode of The Elmwood Strain, as Paige is taken back to the one place she has spent ten years trying to forget. Lucas, Crystal, and Jed take her on quad bikes through the dead forest, past the dying trees, and back to the boarded-up shell of Elmwood High School. The place she has not seen in ten years. The place her friends say has been waiting for her to come home. Inside, so...
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Survival horror accelerates in the sixth episode of The Elmwood Strain, as Paige stops running and starts fighting back. Whatever her friends were trying to do at the school, Paige has decided that it ends tonight. She just has to survive long enough to end it. She is high out of her mind on a drug she did not consent to take. The town is moving against her. The forest is moving against her. The ghosts of Elmwood High are waiting ...
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Ghost horror reaches its climax in the seventh episode of The Elmwood Strain, as the school burns and the dead of Elmwood High finally move. The school is on fire. Paige is inside it. Lucas is inside it. The ghosts are inside it. And somewhere in the smoke, Crystal and Jed are still hunting her. Forty-two of them have been waiting in this building for ten years. They are not interested in being forgotten. Written by Rachel Woolle...
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Psychedelic horror reaches its emotional center in the series finale of The Elmwood Strain, as Paige faces the truth she has spent ten years refusing to remember. In the kitchen of Elmwood High School, where the worst thing that ever happened to Paige Johnson ended in 2014, she is finally going to face the person she has spent ten years refusing to remember. She is going to face her greatest sin. She is going to face her brother. ...
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Introducing THE GLOOM, a new scripted horror podcast from Violet Hour Media. An investigative journalist uncovers clues surrounding a decades-old cold case, where she eventually learns the horrifying truth about a systemic cover-up tied to her own past. Episode 01 - In Medias Res Samantha Williams, an investigative journalist, introduces the infamous unsolved early 1990s cold case of the Filmore Four, a group of teenagers caught up...
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Introducing HOLLOW, a new scripted sci-fi horror podcast from Violet Hour Media. A mercenary embarks on a corporate mission to track down a rogue leader and encounters the darkness of space, the darkness of colonization, and ultimately, the darkness within herself. Episode 01 - Leave Battle hardened corporate mercenary, Amelia Wallenrod, travels to the prestigious Luna colonies and is briefed on her mission to recover an important...
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The Fear Archive is a true crime and horror film podcast — every episode pairs a real case with the horror film it inspired. Following this intro is our Black Christmas episode, currently our top performing episode, approaching half a million listens. A traumatized woman returns to a place she escaped. Something wrong is already living there. It has been there the whole time. If you are deep enough into The Elmwood Strain to...
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