Book Review | Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories

FOUND: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories is an anthology of 18 horror stories. Edited by Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias, the stories are inspired by the found footage horror subgenre.

If you experience side effects such as anxiety, nausea, or even disturbed sleep […], we recommend taking a break from reading until your symptoms have passed. You have been warned. 

First of all, I love the cool nostalgic book cover. And I’m happy to say the inside is just as fantastic! I’m a fan of found footage horror movies – REC, Hell House LLC, Cloverfield and The Taking of Deborah Logan are some of my favourites – so this book is right up my alley. The stories are told in a variety of mixed media, including emails, text messages, letters, interview transcripts, and more. They involve many spine-chilling things like urban legends, viral videos, strange autopsies, and otherworldly elements.

A crash investigator watches a cursed dashcam video that leads to a shocking ending in Accidents, of a Sort (Kurt Fawver). This story creeped me out so much I had to take a break from reading! Another story that disturbed me is Face Down Death Volume III (Josh Roundtree) where a child watches disturbing videos of what appear to be real deaths as he searches for answers. Walls and Floors and Bricks and Stone (Georgia Cook) shows written communication between two pathologists as they record the discovery of something unexplainable in a number of corpses.

An uncanny video shows the exploration of an abandoned town, but there’s more than meets the eye in Ghost Town Adventures (Joe Butler). I can easily imagine this story as a movie! In Junk Pickup (Fred Fisher, IV), a teen finds a puzzling videotape while hunting for junk with his father, with dire consequences. Two Months Too Long (Holly Rae Garcia) captures the way a relationship turns hostile through text messages and emails.

The rest of the stories are just as fab, not a single dud in this collection. Highly recommended whether or not you love found footage horror!

About the editors: Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias

Cover photo by Noom Peerapong