Southern Superstition: Untold Virginia Review

First impressions have become something of a trademark for me. In this generation of binge watching, binge buying, and binge eating, trying to pump out opinions about something before a full first season is complete feels kinda rebellious. But that’s okay, I’ve kinda got a thing for metal music lately.

In the realm of 2020 podcast debuts comes Untold Virginia, which has only roughly an hour’s worth of content to digest as of this writing. But a part of me feels compelled to give anyone first starting off in this chaotic and constantly growing industry some commentary while the iron is still hot. And there’s just nothing quite as thrilling as seeing all my predictions and criticisms be undone once a full season is released.

Untold Virgina is of the “podcast within a podcast” genre where struggling friends try to rekindle their life-long spark through documenting history and urban legends in their home state. Now my knowledge of the south is purely limited to the high school years and first jobs I had in Georgia and I was too busy trying to accurately count change in retail to find any long-lost mysteries filling my town.

Though early in the show, Untold Virginia truly takes a turn for the supernatural not too late into its first episode. Cannibalism is a key plot point of “The Caves of Colonial Jamestown” with its shady guest being uneasily optimistic about the topic. No one gets eaten, at least not to my knowledge, but the last few moments of the episode does set up a core plot point that I could see becoming an arc of sorts. 

In summary, the two leads get separated and…something happens in between that brief moment which burdens Ruth with a sudden illness and reluctance to explain exactly what’s wrong with her.

The real underlying suspense comes from this and, given the nature of the show, it’s fair to assume there is something more out of the ordinary than just a common cold in play here.

My guess? Possession, but that’s just a shot in the dark with only a few episodes to deduce what might actually be going on.

Right off the bat it’s all around a nice blend of history with a light horror hook that hasn’t quite reached its peak yet but I definitely see things getting more and more unnerving as things continue. I do like Virginia’s love for subtlety and vagueness and how the info-dumping provided by podcast guests are more or less background noise to what is a much more menacing threat.

And yet the real draw for me was less the urban legend and history angle and actually the relationship between the two leads that provides some excellent contrast between everyday conflict and something much bigger and scarier on the horizon.

Elizabeth and Ruth’s dynamic is as authentic as it is awkward so seeing the few times they’re actually getting along makes their bickering all the more somber to listen to. Ruth’s more stubborn and down to earth while Elizabeth is starry-eyed and ambitious, causing the two to clash fairly often.

I do appreciate the rookie aspect of it all, how incredibly amateurish the two leads are brings some grounded perspective and vulnerability to the storytelling, even if all their worst times of going off script involves them putting their hooks into one another. 

A lot of it is fairly subtle as well-cutting each other off, making quiet but snide comments-it really nails that uncomfortable energy of watching two strangers argue without being too theatrical. This is definitely helped by the acting which really gets that natural vibe across, a trait I just love to see in shows with this format. Deliberately coming off as a beginner takes a certain level of skill that’s one part acting and one part pretending like you’re not acting.

I can’t help but compare it to a short but fairly impressive science fiction audio drama, POD 115 that I checked out in the summer of this year.

It has most of Untold Virginia’s key points now that I think about it: a slightly unhealthy dynamic between the hosts, having at least one guest per episode, real life blending with genuine supernatural threats, and the “podcast within a podcast” framing device done by first-timers. Just a pinch of The Tunnels southern horror setting and realistic atmosphere and that’s pretty much Untold Virginia in a nutshell.

But with all that in mind, has the show entirely sold me on its concept yet? Yes, I think so, but it might be too early to tell.

An incredibly likely hurdle to face with such an early impression but Untold Virginia is certainly the kind of show that likes to lay out its foundation before really going for the kill and so far it’s ultimately worked in the show’s favor. 

It’s the mood and sound editing of episode three’s “Genealogy and Mayflower Roots” that shows what the podcast is really capable of and I honestly hope to see more of it as the season pushes forward. 

Though its scares aren’t front in center, there’s this very unsettling detail of Ruth’s labored breaths backing the guest’s monologue. With what little we know about her condition, I was seconds away from assuming Ruth was gonna rip the poor man’s throat out or collapse from exhaustion but the painful coughing fit she’s subjected to genuinely made me uncomfortable.  

Hopefully there’s something very fascinating in store that ties this all together. Perhaps a monstrous transformation or maybe this all leads back to that cannibal thing. Time will tell and maybe I’ll be there to see for myself.