Review: Havoc Town
Dec. 16th, 2025 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merrileemakes posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
voiceinmyearI recently finished Havoc Town, a limited season supernatural thriller audio drama in the Grim and Mild expanded universe by Aaron Mahnke.
Mahnke started his podcast empire 10 years ago with Lore, which is now a TV and book series and has many podcast spin offs. In 2021 Mahnke branched out from (pseudo)historical horror to straight up fictional horror in a series of shows in a shared universe.
Havoc Town is the third such show. It started off really strong, with a great cast and top shelf audio production. I really liked the dynamic between the two leads Corinne and Sylvie and the Walking Dead vibes of a mysterious outbreak.
The show kinda took a left turn from action to diary-land and by the time it was working through its second diary I was a bit over it. I was definitely just hanging in there for the Corinne and Sylvie moments. And the ending was... meh.
Bridgewater was a much better series but the standard it set is so high I felt like Havoc Town was worth a rec. I'm giving it a 3/5. Worth checking out if it sounds like your thing.
Content warning: Episode 3 has a conversation (around the 16 minute mark) that describes cruelty to and killing of a cat, because that's horror's thing at the moment. The conversation is not pivotal to the plot and can be skipped.
Mahnke started his podcast empire 10 years ago with Lore, which is now a TV and book series and has many podcast spin offs. In 2021 Mahnke branched out from (pseudo)historical horror to straight up fictional horror in a series of shows in a shared universe.
Havoc Town is the third such show. It started off really strong, with a great cast and top shelf audio production. I really liked the dynamic between the two leads Corinne and Sylvie and the Walking Dead vibes of a mysterious outbreak.
The show kinda took a left turn from action to diary-land and by the time it was working through its second diary I was a bit over it. I was definitely just hanging in there for the Corinne and Sylvie moments. And the ending was... meh.
Bridgewater was a much better series but the standard it set is so high I felt like Havoc Town was worth a rec. I'm giving it a 3/5. Worth checking out if it sounds like your thing.
Content warning: Episode 3 has a conversation (around the 16 minute mark) that describes cruelty to and killing of a cat, because that's horror's thing at the moment. The conversation is not pivotal to the plot and can be skipped.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-16 08:31 am (UTC)Hm. I find this comparison useful; I dislike Mahnke's mannerisms as I found Bridgewater okay but a honestly a bit meh, I think I'm gonna pass Havoc Town.