10 horror podcasts you haven’t heard yet

8. My Neighbors Are Dead

At this point, you might need a break. Horror can be an intense drama, what with all of the vast, uncaring cosmic gods and banal evil surrounding you. Still, just because something crazy is happening doesn’t mean you can’t laugh. Also, if you have the bad luck to be a secondary or even tertiary character in a horror story, you should really get in your laughs while you can.

My Neighbors Are Dead is a quasi-fictional podcast that claims to focus on these poor, disposable characters. Each week, host Adam Peacock sits down with one of these figures from a major horror film and talks about their role. He’s spoken with Butterball the cenobite, the “dog guy” from The Thing, and a bystander in Stephen King’s infamous 1986 film, Maximum Overdrive.

Haven’t we all wondered about the fates of everyone in a horror film at some point? We’re bound to follow a story’s protagonists, but I can’t help but ponder the fate of, say, a bus driver who’s suddenly stuck in zombified London. Even if someone isn’t the featured star, don’t they have a story worth sharing?

Of course, Peacock isn’t actually sitting down with an also-ran demon from a hell dimension (we hope). He’s actually chatting with different comedians and actors in an improv setting. Fans of horror podcasts have been steadily flocking to the show. The A.V. Club called My Neighbors Are Dead “comedic gold.” Meanwhile, Rue Morgue described it as “exactly the comedic palate cleanser we need heading into 2018.”