Hot off the digital presses at The Dark Magazine, today I read Michael Wehunt’s new story, “The Pine Arch Collection”.
A tribute to found-footage style horror films like The Blair Witch Project, the story is presented as a thread of emails among filmmakers and a mysterious horror film group calling itself Pine Arch Research, which is “based—locally.” A representative of the aforementioned group emails filmmaker Aly Duarte an invitation to submit work to the Pine Arch Collection, a horror film series to be later uploaded to YouTube, “Cult status guaranteed.” Initial footage shows Aly’s house in a fog with strange black arms reaching up to her bedroom window. Aly is spooked by the invasion of privacy, but like any not-famous artist, she is flattered by the solicitation for her work. She passes the email on to her friend and colleague at Georgia State University, Bobby Power. Bobby is also wary of their tactics but is intrigued until seeing the video, which gives him an understandably dreadful feeling.