Creepypastas

The Filmmaker

A lot of these stories start off with, "I don't know why I'm writing this." Well, this isn't one of them tales. In fact, I knew full well I should be writing this, even though I was told not to. I can't in good conscious not tell this story.

It all started on the third day of submissions to the local Horror short film festival in western Sydney. It wasn't a large festival and there had not been many entries, however, some of the films entered were actually pretty good. They ranged from thrillers, action, to science fiction, and it didn't matter in this festival what genre it was. All that mattered was that the film did not go over 15 minutes and it was scary to say the least. Now, this is where the tale starts. There was one film submitted that did send chills down our spines, striking us at our very core. Maybe it was just the way it was filmed, a shaky camera style just like that of the Blair witch project... Or maybe it was the fact that it was filmed in a first person's point of view style, but in truth this didn't matter.

"Who submitted this one," John asked, inspecting a brown envelope with the words "The Filmmaker" written across the front in a faded red ink. John was the head of our committee for the screening of these movies. As he opened up the envelope and peeked inside, he noticed there was only a single USB drive within. It was pure black which made some of us giddy.

"This could be exciting. An unknown movie for a horror film festival. Someone is actually making an effort to scare us," I said with a light laugh. We all loved horror films, the jumps, the scares, and the gore, all of it. Some could say it had made a lot of us immune to the sight of gore. Hell, if anything we truly enjoyed it.

"Hurry up and plug it in, I want to watch it," John would say, passing the USB drive over to me.

I took the USB drive and plugged it into my laptop and no sooner as I had plugged it in, the movie started to play as if on auto play, adding a small hint to the creepiness which had already brought a smile to my face. The screen went black, and the title, "The Filmmaker" appeared in red writing across the center of the screen before distorting to show us the setting. The movie seemed to start off in a bedroom. It almost looked like that of any teenager's room, a boy's room to be exact. The time was late at night and the boy seemed to be fast asleep in his bed. After a moment, the covers flicked off him as he laid down across the sheets, spread out in the same manner as a star. The background music was eerie, sending chills down my spine.

The Film had been shot in point of view style, as if watching the scene from that character's eyes. We could only guess it was the eyes of the killer in this horror film. We watched as he approached the side of the bed, the camera tilting slightly as if the killer had tilted his head while looking at this boy. I watched intently, gripping at my pants, wondering how this was to turn out.

"Wake up, Bradly. It's show time..."

The words range out in a sadistic melody from the Filmmaker's mouth, and then a hand was lashed out into view. The hand of the Filmmaker moved to the mouth of the boy, causing him to wake abruptly in a panic. The boy struggled, only to find his hands were lashed down. The camera slowly moved up and down to give us a look at the hands of the boy. They had been zip tied and a slight snicker left the lips of the Filmmaker.

"Shh, shh, shh... Now, now, Bradly, don't you remember? Didn't you say you wanted to be a star? I hope you remembered your lines."

A slight chuckle could be heard as the Filmmaker spoke again, his words sounding twisted and sadistic as he had brought up a finger over his mouth to make the "shh" sounds. Bradley struggled. His arms flailed about but could not see, set them free. It was no use, the zip ties were too tight. We could all see this and listened as the Filmmaker snickered louder. It was then that a knife had been brought into view before the camera, showing it off before us. Bradly stopped struggling now. His eyes grew wide as a muffled scream of anguish roared in his throat as he tried but found he was unable to escape.