Since making the shift from comedy into horror, Jordan Peele has brought genre stories to the big screen and the small – Get Out, Us, Nope, Candyman, The Twilight Zone, Lovecraft Country, Wendell & Wild, etc. Now he’s out to bring horror directly to people’s ears, as he is executive producing what he hopes will be “the scariest podcast of all time”. That podcast is called Quiet Part Loud, and Variety reports that it is going to launch exclusively on Spotify on Tuesday, November 15. All twelve episodes of the show will be available to listen to on that day.
Produced by Spotify’s Gimlet Media and Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, Quiet Part Loud is set before the Trump presidency and centers on
Rick Egan, a fear-mongering, right-wing radio host who loses his platform in the wake of 9/11 for spreading xenophobic rumors surrounding a group of missing Muslim teenagers. Eight years later, the washed-up Egan is slumming it on the convention circuit when a mysterious woman offers a tantalizing revelation: one of the missing teens has reappeared. Egan embarks on a crusade for vindication and ultimately makes a Faustian bargain with a demonic, shape-shifting sound monster known as “The Blank” — which thrives on hatred.
The voice cast includes Tracy Letts (The Sinner) as Rick Egan, Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) as the mysterious woman, and Taran Killam (Saturday Night Live) as The Blank. Arian Moayed (Succession) is also in the cast.
Peele is executive producing Quiet Part Loud with Win Rosenfeld of Monkeypaw and Mimi O’Donnell of Spotify. O’Donnell is also directing the show, working from scripts written by Mac Rogers and Clay McLeod Chapman. Geoff Foster, Amy McLeish, and Katie Pastore are the producers.
Peele provided the following statement: “I’m always looking for new ways to explore and innovate in genre storytelling. The potential in audio was tremendously appealing: By stripping horror of all its visuals, you can focus on just conjuring dread and unease in your listener’s ears on this intimate and visceral level. I wanted us to make the scariest podcast of all time.“
Quiet Part Loud will use “immersive audio and sound design to present ‘a haunting parable and an unflinching examination of the current state of fear and divisiveness in America’ that ‘explores the roots of our conspiracy-obsessed culture where disinformation now runs rampant.’“
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