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

Ep 00: The Elmwood Strain - Season 1 Trailer

December 24, 2020 • 4 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 upsetting for...
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1. Mighty Sabertooths — A School Shooting Survivor Returns to the Dying Hometown She Escaped

January 18, 2021 • 25 mins
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, Lucas, an...
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2. ElmRot — A Dying Town Being Swallowed by the Forest and the Rot Growing at Its Edge

January 25, 2021 • 24 mins
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. They...
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3. Dope and Drive — Her Friends Are Alive and Dealing a Drug That Came Out of the Rot

February 1, 2021 • 19 mins
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 the to...
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4. Triple Fudge Slumber Party Style — A Reunion, a Cookie Tin, and Something She Did Not Consent To

February 8, 2021 • 26 mins
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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5. Johnny F*cking Appleseed — The Drug Has Not Worn Off and the Abandoned School Is Waiting

February 15, 2021 • 33 mins
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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6. Little Shop — She Decides It Ends Tonight If She Can Survive Long Enough to End It

February 22, 2021 • 25 mins
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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7. Barf Powder — The School Is on Fire and Forty-Two Ghosts Have Been Waiting Ten Years for This

March 1, 2021 • 26 mins
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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8. Elmwood Pride — She Has Spent Ten Years Refusing to Remember Her Brother (Series Finale)

March 8, 2021 • 24 mins
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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The Violet Hour Presents: The Gloom - Episode 1

July 1, 2021 • 33 mins
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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The Violet Hour Presents: Hollow - Episode 1

June 30, 2022 • 26 mins
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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