The Magnus Archives: Let Me Tell You A Story

I’ve been feeling a little aimless around horror movies for the last couple of weeks, with nothing really jumping out at me right now, so I thought instead I’d take this opportunity to talk about another horror podcast I’ve been enjoying lately. Like the last couple I wrote about here, The Magnus Archives takes advantage of the audio-verite aspects of podcasting to good effect, producing a series of concise stories in a number of styles, with some careful overarching development happening over the course of the series.

The opening conceit is that we’re listening to archived recordings of statements made to the Magnus Institute, an organization for paranormal study located in London. You get the impression that the Institute is an old, somewhat fusty institution, not taken especially seriously and treated with a certain amount of distaste by younger, bolder ghost hunters. They’ve been around for a long time, and they do things the old-fashioned way, using old cassette recorders and antiquated filing systems to catalog the statements they’ve collected over the decades from people who have had encounters with the supernatural. When the series begins, we’re introduced to newly-hired archivist Jonathan Sims, who has been brought in to replace the late Gertrude Robinson, whose approach to cataloguing was haphazard at best. Jonathan is none too pleased with the task that’s been left to him, nor is he especially impressed by his coworker Martin Blackwood, who seems to be a bit hapless. Nevertheless, Jonathan sets to making audio recordings of older written statements, supplementing them with follow-up investigation where feasible, digitizing and uploading the results. At first, it’s just a matter of sorting through the archives (which don’t appear to be in anything resembling order, chronological or otherwise) and recording as he goes, occasionally stopping to include new statements as they come in. Getting the archives organized is a monumental task, and Jonathan’s frustration is palpable in every entry, along with a sense that he’s not much of a believer in the supernatural, a certain dismissiveness present as he offers his input on each statement.

But then, the further he gets into his task, the more he starts to notice things - the same names start cropping up across entries, different statements attest to similar phenomena…

…one particular entry strikes far, far too close to home.

There are five seasons to this show, and I’m most of the way through the first one, which consists of 40 separate entries. A quick glance at the other seasons (I’m trying to remain unspoiled) suggests similar lengths for seasons 2-4, and season 5 looks to be considerably longer. Each story is relatively brief - 20 to 30 minutes on average - and in the beginning it’s just Jonathan reading someone’s written statement, so it feels a bit like we’re listening to someone telling ghost stories. The result is concise (none of the stories really overstay their welcome, though some work better than others), sort of snack-sized bits of horror. The style varies as well, ranging from tales of the supernatural (“Angler Fish,” “Do Not Open,” “The Piper”), to cosmic horror (“Alone,” “Dreamer,” “Growing Dark”), monster stories (“Vampire Killer,” “First Hunt”), body horror (“The Man Upstairs,” “Taken Ill,” “Colony”) and even demonic possession (“Confession,” “Desecrated Host”). Plenty of stories defy easy genre categorization as well, and when they work (and they mostly do), they do the work of the best horror short stories - they get in there, lodge under your skin, and then finish, leaving you with as many questions as answers.

And if that’s all the show was, that’d be enough. But something I’ve noticed over the course of the first season is an expansion of the show on a couple of levels. First, as the season progresses, more voices get added to the cast. At first, it’s just Jonathan, alone in his office, committing these statements to audio. But then we start to get asides (in the form of interruptions) from his colleague Martin, an account from assistant archivist Sasha James, and then…unwelcome guests, intruding on the proceedings. It gives you the sense that a larger world is opening up around this beleaguered archivist, and in the second form of expansion, that larger world is probably not especially friendly. Certain names keep coming up in relation to supernatural occurrences - a long-dead antique book dealer with a taste for especially malevolent work, a mother and son duo who seem intent on tracking down said dealer’s books, a shipping company that specializes in unusual objects, among others. And when Martin and Sasha have their own face-to-face encounter with the protagonist of one of the stories, it brings danger to the Institute’s literal front door, in what’s looking to be a climactic showdown at the end of the first season. 

I’m a little skeptical about turning collections of discrete stories into an overarching narrative, because - as it did in The Lovecraft Investigations - it threatens to undermine the horror of each individual story and turn the whole enterprise into something else, like an action/adventure story with supernatural trappings. Horror works well, in my opinion, when it leans into the unexplained, and overarching narratives tend to explain things. But, at least right now, it seems to be working pretty well here. Part of this is because you get the sense it was built into the stories from the start, rather than being retrofitted onto the stories afterward. And it’s used sparingly, and very gradually over the course of the season, so it feels surprising when a recurring character pops up, creating a slight sense of paranoia, of things moving under the surface of the world that Jonathan is only beginning to discover. And, at least as of where I am right now, there’s no attempts to shoehorn everything discussed over the course of the season into some kind of unifying mythos, which I appreciate. It’s still something to be careful about, though, as one of the least effective entries of the season seems to pretty much exist to establish an antagonist for the last third of the season, rather than function as a stand-alone story. I get the sense that there is a larger continuity being established here that’s going to span all five seasons, but as long as it’s employed judiciously and doesn’t take over what makes the podcast good, I’m more curious than anything as to how it is going to play out.

There are a couple of weak points - that the accounts are (with a few exceptions) Jonathan reading written statements out loud means that they can threaten to feel a little samey (especially a problem for me since I tend to listen to three or four episodes at a go) in way that they wouldn’t if it were a more traditional interview format, and the voice acting is a touch stagey in a way that you wouldn’t expect from someone recording an account for posterity. It’s noticeable, but once the stories really get going you don’t really notice it. Or maybe the character of Jonathan Sims is just that pompous. It’s certainly a possibility. But regardless, if you’re looking for concise, creepy, unsettling horror, this is definitely worth a listen.

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