28th Apr2023

‘The Timekeeper: Episodes 1 & 2’ Podcast Review

by Alain Elliott

The horror (fictional) podcast is something I haven’t fully got into yet. But that is not due to lack of quality. The few I have listened too I have very much enjoyed – Video Palace from Ben Rock and Bob Derosa is the first that springs to mind – but I just haven’t listened to enough. I could start to right that wrong with The Timekeeper.

The Timekeeper follows 17 year-old Charlie (Judah Lewis; The Babysitter, The Christmas Chronicles) and his friends who after discovering a co-worker has died, get sucked into a video game that may have caused the death.

There’s something about a horror audio drama when it’s made well. Listening on headphones, feeling fully immersed into the story. The sound production on The Timekeeper is great. You’ll hear things from one ear to another, you think you heard something quietly in the background, voices overlap one another. There’s some cool little sound tricks on display. It’s the kind of thing that I think sound designers and composers would love to work on. The original score – often piano-based – is really cool too. I can’t say how important it is to listen on headphones. I just don’t think you’ll get the same immersive experience listening any other way. Every sound, every note of music, every spoken word feels important. That said, the visual companion on YouTube is pretty cool and worth checking out alongside listening to it.

The story itself doesn’t start off as completely original but it will quickly have you hooked. The cursed video game idea feels very much similar to as far back as The Ring. That classic horror movie was perhaps the start (or at least the start of these stories being super popular) of cursed ‘things’ being a thing. And The Timekeeper is all the better for sticking to similar troupes to this classic. It’s a tried and tested formula that works when done right. And after ten minutes or so of the first episode I think most people will be hooked.

Three teenagers on a mission to discover something and fight the ‘curse’, does feel very much like another horror troupe – think, It, Stranger Things, you get the idea – but once again, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. It absolutely works. All three actors are good, Judah Lewis in the lead in particular, keeps the story moving along nicely. But Chandler Kinney and Arjun Athalye are good in the supporting roles.

With the four episodes coming in at around about two hours this is an easy binge listen and I’m looking forward to continuing the story. Fictional podcasts – especially horror-centric ones are something I hope continue to grow in popularity. There’s a definite skill to making them and I’d love to see some bigger names give them a shot. They can create a certain creepiness that I think is hard to produce visually. Not seeing things is sometimes much more frightening than seeing it and that’s something horror fans should know already. The Timekeeper is one to check out!

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