Unburied is a cleverly devised one-hander by Hermetic Arts that’s part homage to 1970s folk horror and part Umberto Eco-esque exploration of conspiracy theories.
Carrie Marx plays a horror movie fan who has been investigating the mystery surrounding a 1970s TV show that was filmed but never aired and for which no surviving footage has been found. Her investigations form a series of podcasts culminating in this, the ninth episode, due to be the final one. Subtly sinister coincidences begin to connect all the facts she unearths and all the while she muses on the relationship between horror, nostalgia, denial and the impermanence of recorded media.
How the writer of the TV show relates to a Victorian forebear, a 1930s séance and a deadly fire in a Plymouth theatre over numerologically significant periods wove together as a sinister character emerged that transcended all those events.
So convincingly detailed is the opening part of the show that the audience was lulled into relaxed fascination, which made the subsequent horrific manifestations all the more jolting.
A simple set, good use of projections and sound all added to the overall effect. A brilliant production, perfectly executed.
