If you’ve already exhausted your supply of horror movies for the Halloween season, Studio Hermitage has an all-new kind of scare for you to try. The company has released their first ever audio drama, Clawmoor Heights, a Victorian-inspired tale of love, betrayal, and horror that brings a terrifying touch to the world of radio plays.
The ten episode drama features a star-studded cast including Kate Siegel, Indira Varma, Byron Mann, Shannon Uphold, Jay Sullivan, Seán Patrick Judge, and Jovan Jackson, and incorporates all kinds of famous monsters, including the vampires that appear in its third episode. The drama’s synopsis is as follows:
Agatha Quinn must defend herself or lose her position within the truefolk guild of Crown Hall College. Her troubles begin when she agrees to tutor Tiberius Valgreave’s eldest daughter, Josephine, at Clawmoor Heights. Tiberius, afflicted with the blood cough, wishes for Josephine to inherit the estate and title of Baroness but fears she will sell it to the Dara family. He hopes Agatha can teach her about the importance of keeping the estate in the hands of Valgreaves. However, Agatha arrives during the announcement of Josephine’s engagement to Inez, and the last thing on the soon-to-be-wed’s mind is the value of history.
As Agatha fails in her agreement with the Baron, she entangles herself in the family’s personal disputes, uncovers Clawmoor’s hidden past, and falls in love with Stellen Valgreave, all violating the guild’s ethics. With her position as a truefolk as her only defense against the Ruin, she tells the story of her time at Clawmoor Heights, hoping to redeem herself in the eyes of her mentors and protect herself from the horrors of the Dramark.
The audio drama is part of a larger collective universe called Our Brilliant Ruin, created by Studio Hermitage as a kind of multi-story universe that seems to be growing in popularity these days. (The BBC did something similar for the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, creating a character who appeared across audio, comics, and YouTube shorts.) According to the studio, it features “the Dramark, an elitist society unraveling against the backdrop of a preternatural catastrophe called the Ruin.” What that ruin is, we haven’t found out yet, but it seems like the expanse of Studio Hermitage’s project is only just beginning to roll out.
The first five episodes of Clawmoor Heights are available for free on YouTube, with more coming soon. Check out the trailer below:
