#The Holmwood Foundation

[theholmwoodfoundation]

UPDATES

Sorry for the social media slowness in recent days. We've been wrestling illness and finalising the last three scripts of Season One ready to send for recording!

Keep an eye out for an updated final cast list in the coming week! Featuring some surprising and possibly familiar voices.

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

I don't go here but happy October?

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

Francis Ford Coppola did not get 40 million dollars (yeah I know that's not actually that big of a budget, That's not the point) to insult every single one of these characters for the Holmwood Foundation to fall short of $29710. They are at 80%. They need under $6000. We did not bring them this far to fail. In comparison to Re: Dracula, which raised $28688, there are less than half as many people supporting this project. Re:Dracula was also fundraising at the height of the first Dracula Daily craze. The fact that we have reached 80% even with these disadvantages speaks volumes about how much we all believe in this project. We have to just reblog posts about the Holmwood Foundation like crazy and try to get them on the blogs of people who maybe were into Dracula Daily and just kind of lost touch. We only have to be annoying about this until Thursday morning, Eastern Standard Time. It's worth it. We have time.

[vyla-and-the-pods]

Hey, shout out to every podcast creator on this hellsite that regularly posts and interacts with the community. I have never been in a space where I can so easily interact with the people creating the content I love and it means the world to me when you not only interact with my posts but also show me the process in behind the scenes specials or just quick pictures on Tumblr. It feels so much more fulfilling that I'm not supporting some big corporation who doesn't pay their employees a liveable wage, but Paul down the street who had a dream and a microphone 💗💗💗

[see-arcane]

Extremely late to the party, but look! Holmwood Foundation fanart!

In case you missed all the spam, this is about a cool little horror podcast project that's on its final couple days in which to raise funds for a full series, courtesy of @theholmwoodfoundation. They have episode 1 out as a teaser and it's extremely worth the listen if you're a Dracula fan who would like some media from people who actually read, understood, and enjoyed the book.

Their Kickstarter is here and they could really use a push in donations and general hype! It's got vampires and ghosts and supernatural archives and queer main characters and coerced camping trips on the moors, give or take some uninvited ghouls. Give them a listen and a hand if you can!

[alyona11]

The result of the stream! Really happy with how it turned out and in just 3 hours! Thanks for coming, do support @theholmwoodfoundation there are only 3 days left for their Kickstarter project to raise enough money! The goal is really close! And check out the pilot episode if you haven't yet.

[dathen]

✨🔥💞🔥✨🎉🎉🎉HAPPY HOLMWOOD FOUNDATION IS FULLY FUNDED DAY🎉🎉🎉✨🔥💞🔥✨🔥

[georgiacooked]

quick sketch of a scene for @theholmwoodfoundation pilot that our actor for Jeremy, Seán Carlsen, owned 100% with his voice work. It made us laugh on the day, it makes me laugh now. Poor, poor Jeremy.

Please go give us a listen, we have to be very very annoying about it for the next 30 days while we Kickstart the full season.

[sherezades]

A couple more memes because I kept thinking about the first episode ❤️ Please donate to The Holmwood Foundation's Kickstarter to make Season 1 possible!!

[nausikaaa]

noticed a fun coincidence between Isabel Adomakoh Young in @re-dracula and Rebecca Root in @theholmwoodfoundation

[theholmwoodfoundation]

Inspired by our friends @224bbaker who posted theirs on their BlueSky - they very kindly allowed us to follow suit!

So here is our PowerPoint on why YOU should listen and support The Holmwood Foundation!

Convinced? The Link to our Kickstarter is here:

[chemicallywrit]

HELLO

I AM POURING ALL MY AUDIO DRAMA SUNDAY ENERGY INTO ASKING YOU

PLEADING WITH YOU

TO HELP FUND THE HOLMWOOD FOUNDATION

THIS IS THE LAST THREE DAYS OF THEIR KICKSTARTER AND THEY’RE STILL OVER 20% AWAY FROM THEIR GOAL

PLEASE IT’S A SEQUEL TO DRACULA AND I LOVE THEM YOUR HONOR

LISTEN TO THE PILOT

IT’S REALLY GOOD PLZ GIVE THEM MONEY

[skeletonsloverockcandy]

Malevolent, TMA, and Dracula Daily fans! Lend me your ears!

Are you looking for a new spooky horror podcast? Then might I recommend, The Holmwood Foundation?

Malevolent fans, do you like possession and co-dependency? How about traveling on a cross country road trip over the English countryside with a decayed magical possessed severed head? Do you like fighting the Horrors™️ with impractical weapons like a stolen camping stake? Then you’ll love Holmwood!

And Magnus Archive girlies, you like tape recorders and bureaucratic secretive organizations investigating supernatural artifacts and events, right? How about archivists actually doing an archiving job? We can only hope Then you too have lots to look forward to with the Holmwood Foundation! And don’t forget a healthy dose of queer representation to go with that 😉

For the Dracula Daily and Re:Dracula fans out there, this one is for you at heart! The story takes place 130 years after the events of Dracula with the main characters Madeline Townsend and Jeremy Larkin getting possessed by the spirits of Mina and Jonathan Harker after Dracula’s skull is uncovered in an archaeological dig and something dark and dangerous is released into the world trying to claw its way back. Follow Maddie and Jeremy under the guidance of Mina and Jonathan as they attempt to end the threat of Dracula coming back once and for all.

The Holmwood Foundation is currently being kickstarted with about 4 days left in their campaign as of writing this (10:30pm CST, November 9, 2024) and they are about 76.5% of the way towards their goal. I really want to see this podcast come to fruition and see where the story goes, so if you are interested, listen to the first episode that’s already out now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Acast, or anywhere you can listen to podcasts, and if you like it, consider donating to the campaign!

You can find the kickstarter here and the first episode for the podcast here!

The Holmwood’s original posts can be found linked here and here

And a list of the episode titles can be found here!

Just to clarify, I'm not being paid to promote this or anything, I just have an unhealthy obsession with Dracula content and a desire for More that I can't get if the story doesn't come out :(

But it's so good guys, I promise it's so good, please listen to it I love it so much 💕

[starstrider-productions]

Why set Dracula: 2004 in 2004?

Earlier this week, we revealed that our next project will be Dracula: 2004, an exciting new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula set in the early Noughties. But the question is, why 2004? It can’t just be for Britney Spears, right?

Well, as much as I love Britney Spears, she’s not the only reason I chose the year 2004 as the setting for this version of Dracula. If you want to read a 1,500 word (!) essay on the advancement of technology, the themes of gothic literature, and why I love Dracula, then you’re in the right place. Buckle in for an outpouring of English-teacher-nerdery (yes, I really am an English teacher in real life!) and prepare to be lectured to.

The thing about Dracula is that it’s already been done to death (pun unintended) a thousand times. You’ve got the classic gore of Hammer Horror; the Ye Olde Copyright Issues of Nosferatu; the romance of Coppola’s remake; the odd (but strangely compelling) Van Helsing, starring Hugh Jackman; and more recently, Renfield and Last Voyage of the Demeter. And that’s not even broaching the world of audio fiction, with Murray Mysteries, RE. Dracula, Dracula: The Danse Macabre and The Holmwood Foundation, all of which came out (or are coming out soon) within the past five years. The point is, the market is absolutely swimming with vampires. We’ve got piles of absolutely fantastic vampire fiction coming out of our ears, even only focusing on Dracula content. So why the hell am I making more?

Well, firstly, I am personally of the belief that you can’t have too much of a good thing. I am a particular fan of the “two cakes” metaphor (pictured below) for the precise reason that there is almost certainly a nerd out there who, like me, will look at yet another Dracula audio drama out there and think “Two cakes!” If you are that person, then congratulations: you are my target audience!

(Image credit to Tumblr user @stuffman)

Secondly, most of the settings for Dracula adaptations appear to fit into one of two settings: original time period, or thereabouts (thinking of Danse Macabre here) or modern day (such as Murray Mysteries). To be absolutely clear, I adore these shows and am not in any way criticising them! But when I was rereading Dracula back in 2022, it occurred to me that there was an untapped market: 2000s nostalgia.

Ah, the smell of hair that has been aggressively hairsprayed and backcombed within an inch of its life! The sheer impracticality of wearing a dress over jeans, and doing it anyway just because it looked cool! The technological gleam of the Blackberry phone’s 5000 different keys, ready to incomprehensibly speed-text at a moment’s notice!

Most people are either old enough to remember this, or young enough to want to. The Noughties were an absolutely fascinating time period, one that many people look back on with a certain degree of fondness (especially considering the current state of the world). It also happens to bear a striking resemblance to the late 19th century, for reasons I am about to explain.

Bram Stoker first published his horror novel Dracula in 1897. At this point in history, Britain was a global powerhouse, having colonised half the world and with the British Empire at its height (and, many would argue, at its worst). Stoker explores one of the contemporary anxieties of the British public in great detail: the fear of the Other. While this is a common theme in most Gothic fiction, Stoker characterises the Other through the villainous Count Dracula, a man from the “uncivilised” Eastern Europe who (literally) drains dry the "honourable" people of Britain, taking advantage of their kindness and generosity. He even goes so far as to “invade” the very island, proceeding to torment and prey upon innocent women, and must be driven back and killed by the "noble" British (and Dutch/American) protagonists. Count Dracula could be said to represent the contemporary British fear that the people they had colonised and exploited would turn on them and thus invade their country.

In 2004, Britain was at war with both Afghanistan and Iraq. This involvement in global politics – particularly so soon after 9/11, in 2001 – resulted in public backlash from multiple directions. Immigration was a topical issue: many Brits rejected the notion of refugees seeking asylum in the UK after escaping these war zones, viewing it as an “invasion” (sadly, not much seems to have changed here). This same disconnect between cause and effect is present in both the public of 1897 and 2004, particularly in the treatment of Roma people (although we have taken a detour away from Stoker's more unpalatable views on this topic).

But British politics are not the only connections we can draw between these two time periods. One of the key Gothic themes is science and technology versus religion and belief, and this theme is very heavily explored throughout Dracula, particularly through the character of Van Helsing. Bram Stoker would have been alive to experience ground-breaking inventions such as the traffic light, the telephone, the lightbulb, the steam turbine and fingerprint classification, all before Dracula was even written. With scientists and engineers learning how to play God at every turn, was it any wonder that authors of Gothic literature were inspired to explore this contrast, in other works like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or Frankenstein?

Similarly, 2004 was a time of exciting innovation, particularly relating to communication (a major motif in Dracula!). Not only was it in the thick of the early digital age, where internet access was fast-becoming universal and most people could now afford to carry a mobile phone, but it also signified the beginning of the social media era: Facebook was in development that year, and Myspace was gaining more users by the day. If you could go back in time and explain to your younger self the sheer scope of impact that social media would one day have on the world, would they believe you?

The sheer, terrifying enormity of change that occurred in both of these eras simply cannot be understated. In my opinion, there’s a reason that Buffy was so popular in the 90s and why Twilight burst into life only a few years later: change brings fear of modernity, fear of modernity brings a craving for tradition, and a craving for tradition needs monsters to feed it. I have altered some of the religions of the core cast in order to better reflect a more diverse modern society (there’s a whole different essay to be written on that choice alone) but the principle stays the same: with light comes shadows.

But wait, there’s more! One key reason why I selected 2004, of all the years, as a setting relates sharply to the social issues of Stoker’s time that I felt could not be adequately explored in a more modern Britain. In 1895, Stoker’s contemporary and acquaintance Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for gross indecency (relating to homosexuality), and one month later, Stoker began to write Dracula. Stoker – possibly to protect his own public image – condemned Wilde and ceased contact with him, but it’s plausible that Wilde’s influence remains within the character of Count Dracula.

Certainly, despite Stoker portraying the Count as a villain, who takes advantage of poor Jonathan Harker, he also writes the strangely possessive line “This man belongs to me!” when the three female vampires attempt to seduce Jonathan (and drain him). Count Dracula is both a man to be feared and repelled by… but also attracted to, a conundrum that Stoker (who many theorise to have been a closeted queer man) would have been intimately familiar with.

This brings us back to 2004, the year after Section 28 was repealed. For those of you who don’t know, Section 28 was first implemented by the UK’s Conservative government in 1988, and prohibited the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities. This meant, for example, that teachers weren’t allowed to teach children that being gay was normal and acceptable – they could acknowledge that queer people existed, but were not allowed to frame it positively. While it wasn’t illegal to be gay – and after 2003, it was even legal to promote it – it was still highly stigmatised in the UK, and many people were forced to remain closeted, similar to Wilde and his friends. Sexual repression is a substantial theme of Gothic literature and one that I very much wanted to explore in this adaptation, so I chose this era to reflect the concentrated and systemic efforts to suppress the presence of queer and trans people in the UK.

TLDR: To summarise, I chose the year 2004 as the setting for Dracula: 2004 because I felt that this era poetically reflected Stoker’s own – especially in the areas of global politics, technological innovation and societal repression of homosexuality – and felt that this would be the perfect era to explore some of Gothic literature’s most exciting themes: fear of the Other, science vs religion, and sexual repression. Additionally, 90s/00s music is FIRE and I also really wanted to get a Buffy reference in there. So sue me.

Dracula: 2004 will begin crowdfunding in April 2025! Keep your eyes on our social media for updates.

Care to take a bite?

[see-arcane]

Due to how events have transpired to bring fans of a certain undead classic novel together, all with the matching urge to Make a Podcast About It, I'm delighted to know that in the not too distant future, I could theoretically come across the question, "Who's your favorite podcast OTP? ;)" and my options will include

Jonathan and Mina (Re: Dracula of @re-dracula)

Jonathan and Mina (The Holmwood Foundation of @theholmwoodfoundation)

Jonathan and Mina (Dracula: 2004 of @starstrider-productions)

Can't wait for Dracula Season to have infinitely more Dracula for more Jonathans and Minas to Attackula

[alyona11]

Hey guys if you haven’t heard of The Holmwood Foundation (@theholmwoodfoundation) it’s about time to check it out. They released a pilot episode and it’s great is if you love horrors and Dracula! Do consider supporting the guys on kickstarter since it’s less than a week to go!

Here is a meme as a summary of the episode + a bonus picture: