Month: February 2019

a decaying tall hous, three story wood house in the middle of nowhere, with a greying sky, but brightly colored surroundings, creating a sensation of naivety against the rampant onset of decay.

HartLife NFP’s “Unwell” is Both a Quiet Example and Direct Subversion of Midwestern Gothic

Elena Fernández Collins February 21, 2019

The creeping, quiet dread of the desolate Midwest—those distant areas where there’s nothing but corn, a gas station, and one ancient diner for miles—is the ideal setting for the terror and dysfunction that lives inside the Gothic family home, like …

background: like burned parchment. Upon it, thick Gothic calligraphy with the words "Once upon a time..."

How is narration in audio a useful tool?

Elena Fernández Collins February 18, 2019

The conversation surrounding the place of narration in audio fiction is one that has often plagued both my listening and my commentary, due to the huge divide on whether or not narration is a tool creators should still be using …

A drawn image of Puerto Ricans helping to build a community at the Centro de Apoyo Mutuo (Center for Mutual Aid). People are growing plants, fixing the building, telling stories to children, while there is a dark sky beyond. The Puerto Rican flag drawn on a wall is in black and white.

“The Response” Passes the Microphone to Disaster-Affected Communities

Elena Fernández Collins February 12, 2019

It isn’t easy to provide nuanced and descriptive reports on natural disasters without taking up a huge amount of time, but The Response manages, with apparent ease, to consider one angle to each of three natural disasters in the United …

Photoshop fantasy image. Foreground, an enormous statue hewn from rock of a naked woman with her arms outstretched to either side; to the lower left, two small people stand as silhouette, looking up at it. Background, a huge icy snowy landscape, empty into the distance but for the statue, and a sky showing sunset colors with an enormous moon, very close to the planet, hanging behind the statue.

Janus Descending Weaves Beauty into Tragic Horror

Elena Fernández Collins February 2, 2019

(The following review contains minor spoilers for tangential narrative elements.) The tragedy inside modern horror is an element sometimes not well-played for me, either overdone or undercooked. Janus Descending, a space horror set on a distant planet with evidence of …