The Girl in the Video by Michael David Wilson
Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing (April 28, 2020)
106 pages; $12.95 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann
We all know Michael David Wilson from the infamous podcast, This is Horror. Michael is the one with the exceptionally wonderful British accent. If you haven’t listened to an episode, question what it is about your life that needs assistance and then at least start listening to This is Horror on a regular basis. It’s a great way to get your life back on track.
The Girl in the Video is Wilson’s first published book of any kind and I know exactly why Max Booth III picked it up for Perpetual Motion Machine…
Pssst…because it’s awesome.
This book is seventy-one pages long so the potential to spoil a reader’s discovery is real and I will not be “that person.” The official synopsis is brief, so I will be too:
A married man gets an unusual video sent to his private messages on social media. He succumbs to curiosity (as so many of us would) and watches the video. Unfortunately, the contents of the video demand more from him than just his casual curiosity and the whole situation spirals out of control.
This book.
First of all, it struck me as a cautionary tale to us all. The internet is a wild and weird place. It brings people from all over the globe into this tiny universe where you can have access to anyone, literally anyone, with just one click. Which, in the right hands, can be a great thing. But like everything else in the world, a few “bad apples” can spoil the bunch.
Very rotten, bruised apples.
If you’re like me and you endured the Netflix documentary, Don’t F*ck With Cats, you know as well as I do how easy it is for people with too much time on their hands to find out a lot of information about someone — right down to exactly where a person lives just by digging around on social media. Also, equipped with the simple camera installed on a smartphone, mentally unstable and harmful individuals can do so much damage in a really short amount of time; a terrifying and shocking reality.
These are the horrifying facts at work in The Girl in the Video. It’s hard to bear witness to everything that happens in this dark story. I wanted to reach through the pages and scream a voice of reason or warning so many times, which is a sign that I was emotionally invested and a sign of brilliant storytelling.
Fans of cyber-horror, stalker thrillers, and edge-of-your-seat drama will want to pick this one up and binge-read it immediately upon release. Tuck Michael David Wilson’s name in your pocket for future reads as well because I’m sure there’s more to come.
