This is my first Paul Tremblay novel, having recently watched and enjoyed M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation of his "The Cabin at the End of the World". I'm glad I finally gave one of his novels a shot, as there is plenty to like in "Horror Movie" for both genre fans and lovers of literary fiction.

In "Horror Movie", we learn about the titular independent film having been made in the early 90s but never released due to an on-set tragedy. Over the years, its status as a possibly Cursed Film has grown online, so its of no surprise when decades later, Hollywood is attempting a reboot with the involvement of the original's sole survivor –the amateur actor behind the mask of the movie's main monster, known simply as the Thin Kid. Said actor (introduced by Valentina, the original "Horror Movie" director, to Cleo, it's writer, as just a "Weird Guy" she met at a bar once) is also the novel's main narrative voice, purportedly writing an audiobook of his life as related to everything "Horror Movie" related, both now and then.

It's through Weird Guy/Thin Kid's vantage point, intercut with pieces of "Horror Movie"'s screenplay, that Tremblay weaves the mysterious tale of what happened during its filming as well as what might be in store for those who attempt to finally bring it to screens.

Although the novel is at its root a satisfyingly scary monster origin story, I also enjoyed how it navigates and satirizes the current Hollywood landscape, exploring things like nostalgia, method acting and modern fandom in ways that felt organic to the story. Now... let's see who is brave enough to attempt to turn "Horror Movie" into a real film!

Tremblay is a master at taking great ideas and turning them into mediocre books. I realize how shitty that sounds but it's not ENTIRELY meant to be shitty.

I've read every book Paul has published and I don't think I've rated any of them over 3 stars. The concepts he writes about are brilliant, the ideas he has for his stories are genius, but his writing and storytelling just don't get me all the way there.

I've read some other reviews for Horror Movie and the word slow-burn is used in a few of them. I think if you're using the term "slow-burn", it's because you're too nice to say "boring".

Don't give me a "slow-burn" for 250 pages and then make the last 35 exciting. I'm not going to make it to the last 35 pages and I'm going to think your book is boring.

I read what I could, will try to find an audiobook of it somewhere and listen to it. I do like Tremblay as an author and I'm probably just a cranky, old fart.

A dark twisted journey in the making of a horror movie and the lore behind it. Intentionally disjointed to have the reader feeling as uncomfortable as the viewers, we jump between the script, the past, the present, and bits in between. It’s hard to discern what’s film vs. what’s reality. As usual Tremblay leaves you wondering is this supernatural, or just the stuff of human depravity. Dark and disturbing then ending will have you pondering it well past you turning the page.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a wild ride. I loved the suspense, the mystery, the story within a story. It all flowed together so nicely to create something truly terrifying. The horror was understated. It lurked beneath the surface. It was so fun waiting for the other show to drop. And when it did...oh boy. It was amazing. I so enjoyed this book and will be reading more of Tremblay's work in the future.

In 1993 a group of young people began filming a "horror movie" but unfortunately the film was never finished or released. Now 30 years later the man who played the "thin kid" is the only living member of the cast/crew and is involved in the reboot/ remake of the film. As he recounts the original production, the book in interspersed with parts of the original screenplay and filming. It's a slow build and gets creepier as it goes.

Tremblay is an exceptional author. That said, this critical satire on movie adaptations and the affectation of method characters is surprisingly monotone, and unfortunately shallow. It’s made for audiobook format, so if you buy the hardcover or e-book versions, complement the reading experience with a rawer experimentation on the modern epistolary format, which pokes fun at recording sessions and voice actors (albeit unnecessarily?) Paul Stan no doubt, but again, his bailiwick is short fiction with increasing apparentness, and this long novella feels drawn out and only semi-fulfilling. Satisfying ending, though.

Woah. This book was crazy!

I liked the format featuring excepts from the Horror Movie script and the overall narration from the Thin Kid. This entire story was very visual, as a reader you almost feel as if you are watching a movie.

The ending is something that as a movie fan, I expected but it was still very jarring (but in a good way.)

If you like 90's teen slashers or monster movies, you will love this book.

It does have some gory descriptions that I personally didn't love (I can be a bit squeamish sometimes) but if that's your thing then I think it won't make a difference.

It was fine but overall nothing special. Everything felt predictable and cookie cutter which was a bit of a let down. Very much lacking in the spooky department.

Paul Tremblay's Horror Movie is a solid novel using the cursed film trope.

The story centers on the sole survivor of a doomed '90s film project, "Horror Movie." As Hollywood gears up for a reboot, our protagonist is pulled back into the film's unsettling world. I like the way the book was constructed, using three narratives: present-day reboot efforts, excerpts from the original script, and flashbacks to the production's mysterious and violent demise.

"Horror Movie" is a slow burn without being boring. It's written in Tremblay's unique style, which often leaves readers wondering exactly what it was they had just read.

This was a good, creepy story but not on the level of other cursed film books like Night Film, House of Leaves, and Silver Nitrate. Still, Horror movie is worth the read. Recommended.

A cursed movie that was never fully released is headed for a reboot with the only surviving cast member. What really happened on set all those years ago?

Told through flashbacks as well as inserts of the original screenplay, Horror Movie tells a disturbing story on the set of a seemingly cursed film. Our main character is the only surviving cast member, and the project has sort of grown a cult following over the years. I found the pacing to be extremely slow, and while the horror bits were truly disturbing, there were only really a handful of them spaced throughout the book and it didn't keep my attention very well. I do think this book has its audience though, and I feel like Tremblay fans are gonna eat this up!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Horror author Paul Tremblay has become known for his eerie books with vague, non-committal endings, to varying results. Sometimes it can leave the reader disappointed that he never really explains what just happened, while at others it proves that the scariest things are what we don’t know. His latest novel, Horror Movie, falls firmly into the latter camp, offering up enough answers to satisfy readers while still leaving them unsure of the story’s veracity.

In the Summer of 1993, our unnamed narrator is recruited by a group of friends for a role in their unusual, low-budget horror movie (also titled simply, Horror Movie). His character is referred to in the screenplay as only The Thin Kid, and in it he is taken by Valentina, Cleo, and Karson (the director, writer, and makeup artist, all effectively playing themselves) to an abandoned school where they have him put on a creepy mask and then confine himself to a small storage room. For whatever reason, he stays in the room over the next several days as the trio brings him food and water and then subjects him to progressively crueler forms of humiliation and emotional torture leading up to a chilling finale. But the making of the movie itself does not go off without a hitch, leading to more than one tragic accident that will lead to the whole thing being scrapped just before it can be completed.

In the years leading up the present day, everyone involved with the making of Horror Movie has passed away for a variety of reasons with the exception of The Thin Kid, who had lived in relative isolation long after the movie ended in disaster. Before she passed away, Valentina released 3 finished scenes from the film online, as well as several stills and the complete script, leading to the project attaining a cult following among horror and film afficionados. This in turn allowed The Thin Kid to begin appearing at conventions and then to Hollywood calling and asking him to be involved in a reboot. With the promise of a big payday, he obviously says yes, and the theory that Horror Movie is a “cursed film” will be put to the ultimate test.

Told in alternating timelines mixed with the script, the story doles out information gradually, keeping its audience on their toes throughout. A creepy and dread-filled atmosphere permeates nearly every page, helping the suspense to build as we move towards the tragedies we know are coming. Tremblay doles out pop culture references to help us understand the characters to great effect, though he also keeps them at enough of a distance that no one, including the narrator, ever feels fully trustworthy. The movie in the book is designed to make the audience feel complicit in the horror that transpires, and Tremblay doesn’t shy away from pointing the finger at us as well in the broader sense. Delivering intelligent ideas along with chills, Horror Movie will stick with you and will likely make for a great movie of its own.

Thank you to Paul Tremblay, William Morrow, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was nothing like I had ever read before. This will stick with me for a while. Maybe even give me nightmares.

I really liked the dual timelines. I feel like we get so much more information that way.

A cult classic horror movie gets rebooted. Alternating between the past, the script, and present day, the telling of the movie comes alive.

I thought this was an interesting premise. I didn’t even mind the idea of having the screenplay throughout. However, this was so very boring. None of the characters are super likable, but even beyond that, it just dragged on and on. I kept reading because I was like ok there will be a great twist at the end. But there wasn’t. I was like oh that’s it? It wasn’t even really a twist if you had been paying attention. I don’t think it is offensive enough to warrant 1 star, but I also think two stars is too generous (although that’s where I landed). Also, for a book called Horror Movie, there was not much scary.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay was an unputdownable story. This story managed to keep me guessing until the very end.
This is definitely an intriguing read which has kept me hooked, been impossible to work out and I’ve devoured in just one sitting. The writing as usual is engaging and entertaining.
And the characters keep you turning the pages.

Thank You NetGalley and William Morrow for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

** spoiler alert ** There's a section where the main character is at a horror convention, and this attendee comes up to his booth. The main character immediately thinks the other guy is a pretentious know it all. MC starts calling the know it all, I think, "hat guy" in his head, then makes a big public scene out of taking "hat guy" down a notch by proving him wrong about some movie conspiracy theory.

1) Reading about 50 y/o petty, bratty men is a terrible experience 2) The whole interaction is confusing because every single character in this book was a "hat guy" to me. This novel was "hat guy" in book form. The whole time I was wondering, does this book know it is a "hat guy"? Was that part of the point? 75% of my brain was occupied with trying to figure out if this book knew it was being a "hat guy", the other 25% was being annoyed by the screen play chapters which...

The screen play chapters were the ultimate tell not show. They would literally be like - MC enters a dark hallway. We feel scared. We feel disoriented. Yet it feels familiar. Maybe we have been in the hallway before. Maybe it's a new hallway. Again, I could not tell if the book was trying to be funny, or taking itself seriously. Maybe that was the genius of the whole book, IDK. In any case, this wasn't a fun read for me, but hopefully it will be good for others!

An old horror movie, with a mysterious past, and a crazy fan base. All of these years later, only one cast member is still alive. And despite all that happened, he is here for the reboot. But at what cost?
Great to see Paul Tremblay back to a good old fashioned psychological, make you think, creepy story!

Wow! I mean….wow! Horror Movie just drags you back and forth along with it without giving you time to breath or think about whether what you are experiencing is real or a lie. We have to follow the last living member of the original movie through his present day dealings with new producers looking to reboot the never seen film, through his original movie making experience, and through his reunion with his former director somewhere between-all interspersed with a script from a movie that doesn’t let up. The writing style keeps you in constant suspense. The paragraphs are long and descriptions drawn out until the reader is too tense to stop. I started at 1:30 pm and couldn’t put it down until I finished. I feel so unbalanced. I need a pallet cleanser. I need to read about cute puppies. And babies.

3.5 stars rounded up

As someone who actually doesn't like horror movies, preferring horror books because I don't like to be visually confronted with someone else's interpretation of what I can see in my head, I probably was not the intended audience for this book but wanted to give it a shot anyway. I can see it appealing to a true horror film buff, but I found the long interspersed screenplay, written in anxiety inducing third person present tense, difficult to follow and the extremely slow burn not captivating enough to hold my interest.

Horror Movie was an artsy independent film made in the early 1990's about a group of teenagers who kidnap and torture a friend, turning him into the monster we all have lurking inside. After an on-set "accident", the film was shelved and never released. In the years that follow, tragedy continues to befall all the cast members involved, until only one, the actor who played "The Thin Kid", purposefully also never named, remains. Before succumbing to her illness, director Valentina uploads three scenes and the screenplay to the Internet and leaves a trail of intentional breadcrumbs to ensure her movie will live on without her. With the stage set, Horror Movie develops a rabid fan base, and soon Hollywood comes knocking, eager to film a reboot and finally release the movie that never was. The past 30 years had not been kind to The Thin Kid, who has become an aimless adult, never fully being able to detach himself from the monster masked persona he inhabited during filming. Screenwriter Cleo made sure of that with her grand plan, which was heavily foreshadowed, though no less disturbing when it came to fruition. What started off more as a metaphorical commentary on the monster we are all capable of becoming took a hard left at the end of the story, and the paranormal element thrown in out of nowhere felt out of place with the rest of the gritty and real storyline.

Nervous laughter haha what the fuck did i just read haha

I have so many thoughts after finishing this book and I don’t really know how to articulate them. Normally I never have to take a break reading horror but this book made me have to put it down and go on a walk so many times I genuinely felt so uneasy reading it. This was an insane take on the cursed film genre and I ate it up.

I love books told in multiple timelines and watching the past & present weave themselves together in this book kept me on my toys. I was itching to see what happened during the original filming of the movie that lead to all of the consequences we watch our main character deal with today.

I don’t know if I can recommend this to everyone but if you like cursed films, screenwritings, and dual timelines I think this is the book for you!

Thank you so much to the publisher & netgalley for this eARC!

Horror Movie, Paul Tremblay’s latest, is a cynical tome with interesting things to say about the genre of horror, filmmaking, and Hollywood’s obsession with reboots. The book follows the only surviving members of an unfinished film shot in the early 90s called “Horror Movie” as he takes meetings with producers and directors about rebooting the film. The chapters switch between those efforts, bits of the film’s original script, and behind-the-scenes happenings. Along the way, you’ll the mystery of what happened to the cast and why the film went unfinished will be revealed, but some questions will go unanswered. Unanswered in a highly enjoyable, Lynchian way, though.
The sense of unease you feel during the early pages of this book sticks around for its entirety. But the chapters that chronicle the reboot efforts and fan conventions introduce some humor that I appreciated. Horror Movie is a bit of a slow-burn with an ending that will likely be divisive. That said, if you enjoy the work of David Lynch, mystery, and cryptic tales that don’t resolve everything, I feel like you’d appreciate Tremblay’s latest.