Bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness…
“Welcome, Weirdos!” And with that beginning to each episode, voice actor Darren Marlar brings true stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained — seven days a week!
Weird Darkness listeners have described the show as a cross between “Coast to Coast” with Art Bell, “The Twilight Zone” with Rod Serling, “Unsolved Mysteries” with Robert Stack, and “In Search Of” with Leonard Nimoy.
AWARDS & ACCOLADES:
* Named one of the “20 Best Storytellers in Podcasting” by Podcast Business Journal
* Named on of the “Top Paranormal Podcasts in 2024” by ZacJohnson
* Listed #2 in the “60 Best Paranormal Podcasts” of 2024 by Feedspot
* Consistently ranked one of the “Best Paranormal Podcasts” by PlayerFM and Feedspot
* Top 10 Finalist for “Storyteller/Drama” category in the “People’s Choice Podcast Awards“: 2019, 2021, 2022
* Top 10 Finalist for “True Crime” category for the “People’s Choice Podcast Awards” in 2021, 2022
* Top 10 Finalist for “Society/Culture” category for the “People’s Choice Podcast Awards” in 2021
* Ranked in the Top 5 of Podcast Magazine‘s “Best True Crime and Horror” podcasts
* Featured in a five-page story by Podcast Magazine in their March 2020 issue
* Featured at Business Insider in December 2019
* Darren Marlar’s narration of “The Tell-Tale Heart” won Bronze at HEAR NOW Podcast Palooza
HISTORY OF WEIRD DARKNESS…
It was in late September 2015 that the pilot episode “Mothman: The Enigma of Point Pleasant” was posted… not as a podcast, but as a video on YouTube. The next month it was decided to move forward with a regular series at two videos per week, focusing on subject matter such as ghosts, unsolved mysteries, true crime, conspiracies, and anything else that is strange, dark, or bizarre.
While Weird Darkness did find fans on YouTube, the growth was slow. A year later in October 2016 it was decided to also offer the episodes in podcast form by simply re-posting the audio from the YouTube videos. It was then that the show truly began to find its base and began growing… fast.
Another year later, and in October 2017 the difficult decision was made to stop making videos entirely and focus solely on the podcast. Doing this not only increased the quality of each episode, but allowed Darren Marlar to post more often – eventually creating new episodes every weekday, and archive episodes on the weekends. The show’s popularity exploded. In doing so, Weird Darkness generated over one-million downloads in the first six months immediately following the October 2017 change – and continues to grow even more quickly today with no hint of slowing down.
As of October 2021, Weird Darkness was garnering over 1-million downloads per month. In April 2023 the podcast was earning over 1.5-million downloads per month, ranking higher than the top 1% of podcasts worldwide!
Weird Darkness has also been recognized in the press by Business Insider, Podcast Magazine, Paranormality Magazine, Beyond the Bleak Magazine, The Ghostly Times, ParaFlixx TV, and more!
ABOUT THE HOST…
Weird Darkness is hosted by voice artist, Darren Marlar, who is also the creator of the podcast.
Darren Marlar lived in the Kansas City area for the majority of his childhood and teen years, and calls Olathe, Kansas his hometown. From elementary school onward he found himself entertaining people in some way or another. Acting on stage, singing in a variety of choral groups, being the front-man for rock bands, or as a soloist for competition and in churches, getting involved in community theater, and eventually discovering radio in 1990, in which he continues to be active still today.
In 1995, Darren married his bride, Robin, and they are still very happily married.
In 2004 Darren moved to the Rockford, Illinois area (northwest suburb of Chicago) and along with radio and acting in television and film, he also stepped into stand-up comedy (which he has since retired from).
Along with radio and acting, Darren Marlar is a professional voice actor. He has provided quality audio recordings and voice work to clients around the world. If his voice sounds familiar, it is due to having voiced thousands of radio commercials, TV spots, movie trailers, videos, podcasts, audiobooks, corporate presentations, phone prompts, audio theater projects, video games, and more! Along with the awards he has received for the Weird Darkness podcast, Darren Marlar was also awarded the “Excellence in Broadcasting Award” in 2014 by the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters for his commercial voice over work — and he is still in demand by his clients and creative entrepreneurs.
Of course, today Darren Marlar is most recognizable as the host of Weird Darkness.
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