"Lore's just testimony nobody cross-examined."
The Premise
The Hunter Tapes is a narrated monster-of-the-week series — a podcast-style video essay set in the real world, mid-1990s. Every episode opens one file on one creature and walks you through what is actually known.
The monsters are real folklore. The vampire, the wendigo, the kappa, the thing your grandmother warned about — every one of them treated as witness testimony nobody cross-examined, never as invented lore. Where the old traditions conflict, the file says so. Where the record goes quiet, Frank says that too.
One creature per file. Real regional names. Real documented accounts. The famous movie version belongs in the file too — it's a late witness, vivid and less reliable, and it earns its place next to the older record.
About the Hunter
His name is Frank Mercer. Ohio. Ex-Marine, two tours in the Vietnam era, a posting through Okinawa — where the weird first brushed him, and where he learned that other countries had been keeping better files on these things for a thousand years. Ran a tow yard after that.
He's been hunting for twenty-four years. He records the tapes in motel rooms and the cab of his '78 wrecker truck, for whoever finds the box. He counts exits without noticing he does it. Numbers calm him down.
Frank never says "supernatural" or "paranormal." He never says "believe me." He credits his sources — named hunters, old texts, county records, letters — and when the traditions disagree, he weighs them out loud the way he'd check a used truck, then tells you which one he used. He's a hunter, not a reporter: he never debunks. A necropsy never once kept a barn safe.
Listen
The files are up on YouTube. New ones land as they're ready.