Borrasca is an immersive podcast, which means that it’s an audiobook on steroids. Normally I don’t like these since the vast majority of them are poorly made, but Borrasca and a few select others use the medium excellently, allowing the soundscape to handle nearly all of the environmental storytelling without becoming obstructive.
Fair warning: Borrasca is a dark and twisted story involving themes like abuse, drugs, sex trafficking, and kidnapping, so don’t go into it unprepared. That said, it has a bright ending — if a bit controversial in the neccesity of some of its added bitter realism that I’ll address under the Spoiler Section.
Sam Walker, the main protagonist, moves with his family to the pristine town of Drisking as a middle schooler when his father transfers to the local police department. It doesn’t take long before he hears the scream of Borrasca — a metallic, ear-splitting screech that rings down from the mountains surrounding the small town — a sign that someone has recently gone missing, or so people say. Rumors about the mountain reach him in a matter of weeks; stories about skinned men who kidnap victims in the woods and someone known as the Shiny Gentleman who carries out their execution.
These stories are just that in the eyes of police; stories. When Sam mentions them to his father, who himself is an officer, he is quickly shut down and told to ignore such idiotic fairytales. After all, most of the people that “go missing” in Drisking simply ditched the town for brighter horizons… or so the leadership of the town claims.
Then, Sam’s sister Whitney vanishes, and his life begins its slow, devastating crumble. Though the official story is that she ran away with her boyfriend to escape her father, she never once returned a call, sent a letter home, or contacted any of their relatives. Sam doesn’t buy it, but as a middle schooler, there is little he can do.
Five years pass after that day before Sam finally goes to an Ambercot party to impress a girl; a tradition held by the town to “celebrate” whenever the screeching on the mountain sounds. No one really knows why they do it, but it gives the local high schoolers a reason to party in the woods and look for the new names of the missing carved on the Tripple Tree, so the tradition endures. Sam’s world implodes as one terrible decision leads to the next, introducing him to the Women In White, having his best friend vanish, hunting in vain through the deep backwoods filled with ominous Mile Markers, and uncovering the deeply twisted history of sweet, idyllic little Drisking. Every time you think it can’t get worse, it does, spiraling down into an abyssal pit of horror, nihilism, and the nauseating practices propagated by those who should be trusted above all others.
Although Borrasca begins with a slightly supernatural tilt to the atmosphere, it falls back on realistic explanations for all the events, even if that realism is on the stretched side here or there. At first, I was disappointed that yet another story was an “almost supernatural”, but Borrasca did an excellent job delivering gritty suspense and a need for resolution, having me listening to episode after episode – sometimes well into the night (which probably wasn’t the best idea given the content…)
Spoiler Section
Favorite Scene:
Jeez, I really set myself up for this one. When I started listening to immersive podcasts, I hadn’t planned on reviewing them, so I didn’t mark down favorite scenes as they happened. There are so many intense moments in Borrasca that’s it’s difficult to just pick one, but I’ll settle for this:
S1E2 — The Woods Are Full
The whole episode does a great job of setting the mood for how this story is going to be told. When Sam’s sister Whitney disappears, it becomes clear that Sam won’t be the one destroying Borrasca — Borrasca will be destroying Sam. It darkens the atmosphere significantly, especially with the addition of Sam’s desperate midnight hunt for his sister through the mountains. Stumbling across Mile Marker Four as the first sighting of a Mile Marker was also very well done, giving the listener even more reason to stick around for resolution.
Plot:
1: The plot flows so naturally, leading from one event to the next with no feeling that the author is attempting to direct it towards any one end. The last few episodes lose that a little bit, but not enough for it to damage the story.
2: Sam’s downfall into heroin is such a realistic outcome to seeing — and being unable to defeat — the horrors he witnessed in Drisking. I’m glad the author didn’t fall back on “just giving Sam more determination” in the face of this kind of insurmountable failure. That kind of trauma will send most people into depression, psychosis, drugs, or suicide, so having Sam endure this drug use and then come out of it in the end was infinitely more satisfying than it would’ve been if he “just fought harder”.
3: Here’s the controversial bit. Because of the complications around using women to give families children, Kimberly and Kyle (Sam’s two best friends) were completely unaware that they were siblings, and so in their teens, they pursued a relationship with each other. Even after these revelations are made however, Kimberly and Kyle stay together at the end of the story. It’s made “less creepy” by stating that Kimberly, like many of the women in Drisking, is infertile, but it doesn’t do much to lessen the ick. To be clear, this is unfortunately a realistic outcome to the story since people who endure the kinds of horrors that both Kim and Kyle did are likely to wind up in this position with multiple severely skewed takes on morality, so I can’t fault the story for sticking with that realism. Still, it definitely lessens the sense or scope of victory in the finale because even though Sam recovered from his traumas and drug abuse, Kim and Kyle never truly did.
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