#WinterChills ‘Found-A Found Footage Anthology of Horror Stories’ edited by Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias

About the book…

Between April and August 2021 eighteen horror writers disappeared. Gathered together for the first time, these are the stories they were writing at the time of their disappearances.

Reader caution is advised. Advance readers of this anthology have reported nausea, feelings of anxiety, paranoia and hallucinations after reading the texts included.

Published by Verrmillion2One Press in 2022, ‘Found’ is edited by Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias

It is available in both paperback and e-book formats, I purchased the paperback after being intrigued by the concept and wondering how a visual theme would translate into the written word.

Introduced by both editors, this anthology defines what found footage is, and what it is not. This is not 18 stories based on video or recorded film a la VHS -although I would not be mad at reading an anthology like that-however, it takes found footage as a starting block allowing each writer to decide for themselves, how they will spin off from this central idea.

It includes found VHS tapes, uploads to social media, text messages, diary entries, Reddit threads and so much more, playing fast and loose with your perceptions of reality, truth and relaibility. It will give you whiplash !

In a ‘post truth’ world where trusting the evidence of your eyes is becoming increasingly difficult, whilst maintaining your humanity and creativity amongst a rise in A.I productivity, this is a breath of fresh air. Yes it will twist your nerves, knot your stomach and make sure that the doors AND windows are all secure, but isn’t that what we want from horror? To push back, and remind ourselves of our base human nature?

‘Found’ does it in spades. From the elegant creation of ghosts, haunted items, body horror, insidious messages from television, unknowable beasts all  created through the written word, you leave this book feeling that the genre has never been in better hands, with a slew of writers you are aware of applauded and a massive interweb search for those you were not because, trust me, you will want more.

The evidence is there on each page, you have the short story around which Clay McLeod Chapman has based his forthcoming ‘Wake Up And Open Your Eyes’ which is seriously worth the admission price alone. His fact based horror echoes so many of our realities, especially this year where begging your loved ones to see sense has never been more dangerous or insidious. What price truth when love and family become intertwined? It opens a door and let’s something in which desperately wants to stay…

Bookends, Holly Rae Garcia’s tale of obsessive relationship with a body horror twist between a woman and the man she believes is her boyfriend, and Ali Seay’s exploration of how you can never really know your partner, even after a life time together, really illustrate just how carefully Gabino and Andrew wove the contents together.

Alan Baxter creates this horrible beast laden tale of murder and death which showcases his uniquely Antipodean way of writing, you can feel and hear the desperation through the witness statements from the Novak Roadhouse Massacre.

Lives become unravelled and undone, in the Bluebeard-esque ‘Green Magnetic Tape’, things are found which should have been left well alone in ‘Junk Pickup’, and diaries are *absolutely not to be read * in ‘Dear Penny ‘ by Jeremy Hepler-sometimes in the effort to make things better and to understand more, we create a situation which is the exact opposite, Things, situations and people become undone….unravelled one might say.

Courtroom transcripts allow the reader to observed as though part of the process in Ally Wilkes’ ‘Summons’, whilst rehabilitation and recovery is not always the desired end result in ‘The Veiled Lady’. Snuff films take a darker turn than I EVER imaginable as the finding of ‘Face Down Death Volume VIII’, in a video shop all too familiar to many , many readers, creates a sense of knowing which can never be unknown.

This is the thread which binds all these tales-what is seen/read/heard is experienced by the prism of the individual mind which is needed more than ever amongst the homogenous offerings of many platforms which ostensibly espouse individuality, whilst refining, monetising and capitalising on it.

Table Of Contents

‘Two Months Too Long’ by Holly Rae Garcia

‘Face Down Death Volume VIII’  by Josh Rountree

‘Junk Pickup’ by Fred Fischer IV

Disappearance at Coal Hill’ by Nick Kolakowski

‘The Veiled Lady’ by Angela Sylvaine

‘Spew Of News’ by Clay McLeod Chapman

‘Ghost Town Adventures’ by Joe Butler

‘Regular Saint’ by Donna Lynch

‘Walls and Floors and Bricks and Stone’ by Georgia Cook

‘Accidents, Of A Sort’ by Kurt Fawver

‘Grace Issue’ by Bev Vincent

‘Summons’ by Ally Wilkes

‘Green Magnetic Tape’ by Tim McGregor

‘The Novak Roadhouse Massacre’ by Alan Baxter

‘This Video Is Unavailable’ by  Robert Levy

‘Dear Penny’ by Jeremy Hepler

‘The Pall’ by Aristo Couvaris

‘A Small Hand-Built House’ by Ali Seay

About the editors…

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, professor, and literary critic living in Austin, TX. He is the author of the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-winning ‘The Devil Takes You Home’, as well as ‘Zero Saints’ and ‘Coyote Songs’and he’s the editor of ‘Both Sides’ and Halldark Holidays.

His work has been nominated multiple times for the Bram Stoker Award as well as the Locus Award and won the Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel in 2019.

His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Electric Literature, and LitReactor. He also writes regular reviews for The New York Times, NPR, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, Criminal Element, Mystery Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other venues.

Twitter @Gabino_Iglesias

Andrew Cull

I’m a writer and director. I wrote and directed In The Dark (www.louisepaxton.co.uk) and The Possession Of David O’Reilly (UK title : The Torment).

My debut novel, ‘Remains’, is out now.

I welcome feedback and love to hear from people who have seen my movies and read my stories. Feel free to get in touch!

Twitter @andrewcull