Norwich Creator Builds 15-Hour Horror Saga From His Living Room

In the year since he conceived A Man Among Monsters, Steven Cowan, 58, has created two 12-part seasons and a companion mini-feature, handling the production himself without a studio or outside backers.

From his living room in Norwich, Steven Cowan has spent a year turning an idea for a monster-filled world into more than 15 hours of finished horror storytelling.

Working as Professor Shadow, the 58-year-old has created A Man Among Monsters across two 12-part seasons, alongside bonus episodes in the companion mini-feature The Rat King. He writes the stories, performs the narration and brings together the score, editing, atmospheric imagery and video. Distribution and publicity are also his responsibility.

The 15 hours describe what an audience can watch or hear. Behind that running time is a year of production effort, beginning with the first idea for the series.

There is no studio behind it and no outside backer funding a production team.

A human voice in a world of monsters

A Man Among Monsters follows Adam Ashford, a bereaved man trying to survive in a world inhabited by vampires, werewolves, undead creatures and ancient beings.

His grief shapes the story. He has lost his wife and daughter, and his encounters with the inhabitants of this world force him to confront questions of trust, loyalty and whether he can find a reason to keep going.

The series develops those relationships across successive episodes, giving characters and their choices consequences that carry forward. Its companion story, The Rat King, extends the world through a separate narrative.

Cowan performs the narration himself. Music, imagery and video establish the atmosphere around his voice, creating an experience audiences can follow as either a visual production or an audio drama.

AI-assisted visual tools form part of the process of bringing the settings and creatures to the screen. The production also requires Cowan to record the narration, assemble scenes, shape the pacing and edit the material into finished episodes.

That work has to remain coherent across more than 15 hours of storytelling. Characters return, relationships develop and events in one episode affect what follows.

The work beyond the finished episode

For Cowan, completing an episode also means preparing it for an audience. He handles artwork, trailers, uploads, distribution and promotion, alongside publicity work and articles.

A Man Among Monsters has an IMDb listing and is distributed through video and major podcast platforms, allowing the same story to reach viewers and listeners.

The series forms part of Cowan’s wider Professor Shadow project, which, as of October 2026, has 162,000 Facebook followers and 89 million accumulated views on that platform. His YouTube channel has 14,600 subscribers, while his Spotify audience is growing.

For an independent production, those platforms provide a route from a living room to an international audience. They also leave the creator responsible for the practical work of getting each episode seen or heard.

Cowan describes his approach as “horror with a soul”. Within the supernatural setting, his interest lies in grief, loneliness, belonging and the choices people make under pressure. Adam Ashford’s struggle gives the series its emotional centre.

The ambition has required Cowan to sustain several roles over the course of a year: writer, narrator, editor, visual producer, distributor and publicist. More than 15 hours of finished production are the result.

His explanation for taking it on is simpler: “just a love of horror”.

Discover A Man Among Monsters and its companion story, The Rat King, through Professor Shadow.

Audience figures supplied by Steven Cowan, October 2026.