Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay is a creepy horror about remaking a cursed film 30 years later. The novel is about transformation. It asks the question, can we make a transformation happen? Or are we made to transform no matter what? Masks are the big metaphor in the piece. The main star and our narrator is a masked man in the movie. In real life, he hides behind a mask of uncertainty and self-doubt. The story is set in the present day. It includes flashbacks to two different periods. The first period is 1993, when the first cursed film was being made. The second period is 2008, when the hype started for the cursed unreleased film. The reader also gets to see the full screenplay inserted into the narrative. There is some controversy about whether it is the original or if it was altered. Tremblay is very good at stringing the audience like a puppeteer pulling strings. The audience knows early on that the first movie ended in tragedy. All members of the cast and crew are dead except for the narrator. The novel is structured like a slow-burn mystery where everything is revealed at the end. The horror in Horror Movie happens almost all at the end. You will get the creep factor early and it stays throughout the book. The narrative is slow. Some readers may feel disappointed because not all questions are answered. But that is the essence of true horror. The pace is slow, but the creep factor kept me entertained and interested. The ending is wild once you know everything that happened in the film set in the past, the novel gets even crazier. The ending is the payoff to all the sustained horror throughout the novel. Horror Movie was published on June 11, 2024.

Plot Summary: Horror Movie is getting remade or reboot, there is in debate because the movie was never made. Back in 1993, an accident happened that doomed it a cursed film. Then in 2008 three clips from the original film were added to YouTube. Screenplays of the film have been bootlegged claiming to be the original. The movie has a huge following for not being a movie. The star of the film and the only surviving member of the cast and crew played Thin Kid. Thin Kid was the masked horror from the film. He has since been a vagabond. He will show up at horror conventions from time to time. Since he is the surviving member, he will be a producer of the original film. He will also make an audiobook bridging the old film with the new film. The reader is listening to the audiobook the Thin Kid is narrating. The past meets the present. The new director of the reboot wants him to reprise his role as Thin Kid in some scenes. The horror is not over the Thin Kid as he haunts again.

What I Liked: This book has a scene of a prolonged scare that is the highlight of this book. I want people to read this book just for that scene. It feels like every horror movie. The camera lingers on one spot for too long. This usually leads to a jump scare. This scene encourages the audience to linger a little bit more. It describes what the audience feels during the moment. They get scared for a second. Then, they get scared again as the scene lingers. The writing was particularly good during this scene nailing some of my mannerisms as I get uncomfortable. I liked the unreliable narrator. The Thin Kid, as an older man, is a chameleon. He never shows his true self until the end. I liked how the information was doled out in a little bit from time to time. My favorite character was Cleo. Her character trait is inviting death. She goes up and down the stairs with her hands in her pockets. She can’t stop herself if she falls. It’s dark. The evolution of the Thin Kid on film is very creepy as is the actor portraying him.

What I Disliked: The screenplay took a lot of license. There were factors to why this was so badly formatted. It is the first screenplay, and they knew their friend was directing it. But it broke so many rules. It felt off. It seemed straight out of film school where they hammer the rules nonstop. The creepiness was enough to turn the page. However, I was still clamoring for a bigger moment to move the story along. I do wish some of the questions at the end were answered. Like what did the group originally set out to do with Thin Kid? How much of the screenplay changed? Since it was revealed to not be the original. This book is from the writer of The Cabin at the End of the World. That book ended with a lot of questions unanswered. I should have known.

Recommendation: Horror Movie was creepy and entertaining. The novel has one of my favorite scenes that is hilarious as it keeps going. The pace could have been better. It should have teased the ending accident more effectively. It could have hinted that one of these kids will not make it. The pacing of this novel was slow. This style reminded me of My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. In that book, everything happens at the end. I’m going to recommend you check out Horror Movie. Not everyone is going to love this book. The pacing is slow. However, there is a huge payoff at the end. The novel does have a heavy trigger warning for abuse. If you are sensitive to that, I would not recommend this book.

Rating: I rated Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay 4.1 out of 5. I have read Cabin at the End of the World and liked it slightly more than this. Paul Tremblay is a fantastic writer and I can’t wait to read more.