Review: Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories

4 stars. Oh come on! This was really delightful! Sometimes you don't care how groundbreaking or sophisticated or perfect a story is because you're having so much fun! And I happen to love found footage - originally, epistolary books, starting with Kate Klise and moving up through the Princess Diaries series and landing somewhere around Night Film. So this was right up my fucked up little alley.

This outstanding short story anthology evokes one of the best things about horror: the journey. The feeling you shouldn't be reading/watching/consuming, but you are doing it anyway. The "I can't look away" feeling followed by the relief when it's over only for the unease to return later, when you're in bed, in the dark, and one foot happens to be hanging off the bed, exposed to open space and whatever might be waiting for it under the bed.

Related: there's also something really millennial-coded about these stories, and maybe about found footage in general. We are maybe the most computer literate generation: we grew up alongside the internet, we experienced firsthand online discovery, and the shock of weird rabbit holes, of stumbling across something we had no business viewing. Found footage taps into that, I think.

Of course some stories are better than others, some are cheesy, some are a little too derivative. Let's all argue about which ones we love! My personal favorites: "Junk Pickup," "Ghost Town Adventures," and "Green Magnetic Tape" for its sheer cleverness. I would've read a thousand more. This is a must-read for fans of horror, found footage, and creepypastas.

Open, click, press play... if you dare. 

Found on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph