Soaked in Tears
A found footage horror short film where YouTuber Cooper investigates the abandoned cabin where cannibal serial killer Adam Malone died in 1968. Armed with night vision cameras and a spirit box, he begins what seems like another routine ghost hunt, until the equipment captures something impossible. When his friend Ben arrives covered in blood and the spirit box begins looping a cryptic phrase, Cooper realizes he’s not documenting the paranormal, he’s being hunted by something. As the entity closes in through the darkness, Cooper discovers the horrifying truth: Adam Malone’s face was never found because something else took it first. And now it’s collecting again.
I’m a filmmaker specializing in horror shorts and feature work, with a focus on practical effects and psychological tension. I also run Film Cooper, a YouTube channel with 1.6 million subscribers dedicated to cultural commentary. Though my filmmaking and commentary work remain distinct, the platform has allowed me to develop an engaged audience and refine my understanding of what resonates with viewers, insights that inform my approach to crafting horror that unsettles through concept and execution.
I’ve made ghost hunting videos for years, so audiences know the format. You investigate, you look for the ghost, maybe something paranormal happens. This film weaponizes that expectation.
We’re investigating a cabin where cannibal serial killer Adam Malone died in 1968. Standard ghost hunt setup, night vision cameras, spirit box, the works. But the multi-camera surveillance structure is the key. Different angles capture different information, and the audience starts piecing together what we’re missing in real time.
The horror isn’t that the cabin is haunted. It’s that we came looking for a ghost and found something worse, something that’s been collecting faces since before Malone died. The entity isn’t the serial killer’s spirit. The serial killer was just another victim.
Found footage works when you commit completely, so every scare had to feel captured, not staged. The format becomes the trap. We’re not just filming. We’re being catalogued.