Fright club: why are so many of us hooked on spooky tales?
The paranormal has hit prime time, with scary stories on podcasts and TV shows more popular than ever. We head to UncannyCon to meet fans and creators to understand the thrill of the chill
A Sunday afternoon in early December and London’s Southbank Centre draws its usual eclectic crowd: tourists, young families, culture lovers, out-of-towners. But as I move through the people, a pattern starts to emerge. The cavernous space is dotted with people wearing the same black T-shirts printed with bold white lettering. Many read “Team Sceptic”, even more say “Team Believer”. Some, curiously, bear the phrase “Bloody Hell, Ken!”
If you’re into the paranormal – ghosts, UFOs, demons, witchcraft, Bigfoot, etc – you’ll recognise them as slogans from the lexicon of Uncanny, a hit BBC podcast that first aired in late 2021 and has since snowballed into a many-pronged behemoth of ghoulish entertainment, replete with a TV show, a mammoth live tour and a bestselling book. (Ken, by the way, was the protagonist of the first ever episode, recounting his experience at the hands of a poltergeist in his student halls of residence.)
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