First of all, thanks to William Morrow and Netgalley for the eARC of Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay. Paul Tremblay is one of my favorite authors writing horror today. I was eagerly anticipating Horror Movie and it does not disappoint with a very cool narrative that flips between two different timelines. The premise revolves around the titular Horror Movie that was filmed in the 1990s but remains unreleased except for several scenes. Due to its rabid fanbase, a remake is propositioned with the original suriving cast member, who is played by the slasher-esque character the Thin Kid. I really love how Tremblay builds this wonderful world between the filming of both movies, but by the end, it only resolves a few questions the reader has. In my opinion, this lack of resolve only heightens the climax of the novel and makes The Thin Kid, who is the narrator of the novel, an iconic and unforgettable horror character.

DNF for me. This one jumped around a lot, and the writing itself actually really bugged me. It was too wordy with too many long sentences and too overdone.
There’s some texture here with sections of each chapter being dedicated to a screenplay. But overall, I just wasn’t interested and didn’t care for the writing.

I finished this book over a month ago and I'm not sure how to write the review. Even though I've read several other books since then, I'm still thinking about Horror Movie.

I don't want to say too much, because this is the kind of book you don't want to know too much about before reading. However, I will say I loved the format. The book goes back and forth between the past, when the original film is being shot, to the present, with the reboot of the movie. Tying the present/past together is the character of The Kid, who is the only living actor from the original film.

The book is super creepy. I hope someone turns this into a movie because I think this would even be better and scarier on the big screen.

4.5 stars.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for an advance digital copy in return for my honest review.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay would make a perfect horror movie! Seriously, it would. This book is a little bit of an enigma. It took me some time to wrap my mind around it. This book is a slow burn and I struggled with it initially. But then it won me over! The unsettling quality of this book, the struggle to wrap my mind around it, and the perspective of the surviving cast member of the film crew proved to be a unique, riveting, and mind blowing reading experience. 📖

June 1993 - A group of filmmakers make an art house horror movie titled Horror Movie. The movie was fraught with incidents and only three scenes were released to the public making it a fan/cult favorite.🎬

Now, three decades later, Hollywood is hoping to cash in on a reboot. “The Thin Kid”, the surviving cast member is going to be involved in remaking the film......🎥

As I mentioned, this was a slow burn and yet I could not look away. This was a book that at times I wasn't even sure that I was enjoying while reading. I kept changing my mind, I liked it, I didn't like it, I was impressed by it, I wasn't sure about it, I thought it was brilliant, etc. Horror Movie is unnerving, unsettling, unreliable, shocking, riveting, horrific, and creepy. All the things that I enjoy in horror books and movies.🎥📓

Paul Tremblay is a gifted writer and flexes his skills in this book. He does a tremendous job of creating atmosphere, tension, dread, and unease in this book. This book is highly original, well thought out, and I will say it one last time, unsettling.😮

I couldn't finish this one, I tried because I love horror! But the MC was sooo annoying and immature that I couldn't get past it and the fact that it was such a slow burn.

I haven’t read anything by Paul Tremblay before, but something about this one really spoke to me - the premise, the indie filmmaker in me, the love of horror, the unique writing, maybe all of it.

Much like the film within the book, Horror Movie won’t be for everyone. We jump around in the timeline a lot while also getting snippets of the movie’s script here and there (a script not written like a normal script, which I actually loved), and the knowledge of something going/being horribly *wrong* is left in tiny breadcrumbs scattered throughout. I was so intrigued by the sense of foreboding, by wanting to know what happened, that I finished this in a day.

Unfortunately, I was not a fan of the ending. I won’t spoil anything, but man I was a little disappointed with the choice to go THAT route. I get it, I just didn’t like it.

But hey, so many horror movies these days don’t stick the landing either. Maybe it’s fitting.

This book is quite the thriller. It's a trip down memory lane you'd rather not go down. As for being a reader, I spent a few nights awake reading this beyond my bedtime. I think that anyone who enjoys the horror genre will also enjoy this.

After reading the synopsis for Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, I couldn't wait to read it. Who doesn't like a good lost footage horror movie book?
However, this one missed the mark for me. I found the screenplay parts took me out of the story. There were several times where I quit reading because of the slow pace.
The end chapter gave me a little of what I had hoped the rest of the book was. If there was more like this throughout, it would have been more enjoyable for me.
2 out of 5 stars.
I would like to thank William Morrow Books and Netgalley for an advance copy of Horror Movie in exchange for my honest review.

What. A. Trip!
This book has me hooked from the beginning and left me guessing until the very end. You feel off-kilter through a lot of the story, trying to piece together what exactly happened during the original filming of Horror Movie, but never knowing until the end. This was my first Tremblay and I will definitely be picking up more of his work after this. This was spooky and a surprise ending.

The writing style took me a bit to adjust to. Once I did I could enjoy the story more. It had some nice horror effects. The ending was probably the best part.

[Snack Size Review] Horror Movie, by Paul Tremblay

Quick Bite: Super cool story, but the script is a slog.

(*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*)

What it’s about: In the long-ago 1990’s, a group of 20-somethings camped out at an abandoned school, filming a movie with a small cast and a smaller budget. Their goal was to make a horror movie like nothing that had been done before, and they absolutely succeeded. Not because the movie was a blazing success, but because of the horrific on-set tragedies that befell the production. Only three scenes and a script were ever released, and those only on the internet. Today, a big-name studio wants to remake the movie and completely revive the original group’s vision. There are a few big reasons why that is a very bad idea….

A Word From The Nerd: My beloved nerdlings, this book was challenging. It flips between past and present, between straightforward narration and pages from an overly artsy, wordy script that regularly interrupts the story with way too many extraneous details.. Our narrator has his own perspective which, due to a lot of trauma, may be a bit skewed. It seems messy, even though the story focuses tightly on the original movie set and the lone survivor telling the tale. Ultimately, it comes together, sort of, with a bit of philosophical musing and a horror-movie-ish ending. It just feels like it takes too many words to get there.

The Nerd’s Rating: FOUR HAPPY NEURONS (and some extra-buttery popcorn, I’m in a movie theater mood.)

Another wonderful horror story by Paul Tremblay. This cursed film story really came alive with the superb writing. The Thin Kid will be living in nightmares for sometime. I was deeply disturbed by this story.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Let me begin by saying that I have absolutely loved all of the other Paul Tremblay books I have read. In true Tremblay fashion, this book was weird. That, however, is about the only similarity between this story and his others. I just wasn't a fan of this book. When it started slowly, I thought it would soon pick up the pace. It did not. I struggled...nay slogged...through seemingly endless pages. I just was not a fan. The story felt contrived. I was so totally confused by what was even going on in the first half of the book. The second half just left me wondering why this story, and why in this way? I look forward to reading his future works, but this was a miss for me.

This is my first full Paul Tremblay story that I've read (instead of audiobook) and I continue to be impressed and confounded by his storytelling.

This story is told from the persepctive of "the Thin Kid" who is the only surviving cast member of "Horror Movie" that was filmed back in the 90's but never released. He is now involved in a reboot for the film and is recalling the process of filming those four weeks with the original cast while also navigating the current world of fan conventions and current film making personalities. It was a unique back and forth timeline story that was interesting, unsettling, confusing, funny, and chilling that made me question what's real and what's fiction.

A compelling read made more page-turning through its dual timeline narration. I wish we spent more time getting to know the main character in between filming the original movie and the reboot to better understand his own obsession.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
Release Date: 6/21/24
Format: ebook
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I had high hopes for this one. I loved A Head Full of Ghosts by this author so between that and this cool cover, I decided to take a chance and request on NetGalley! I think the format and concept of this book was pretty promising, but it unfortunately fell flat in the delivery for me.

Let’s start with the positive - the format was unique! We have dual timelines going on between the original filming of Horror Movie and the current day reboot of the same film, but it’s spliced together with the actual screenplay of the film! I thought the addition of the screenplay was really creative and added some flair to the novel.

Where I really struggled, however, was the actual content of the plot and screenplay. Or was unsettling, yes, but very little happened and I felt like the tension build was a bit gimmicky & came across as pretentious. I think part of this was on purpose, but it was just a bit off-putting. The ending felt a bit anticlimactic to me as well.

All in all, this book wasn’t terrible but definitely was not for me. I do think some folks might enjoy it, but I’m not sure if I would be quick to recommend. Truly, I think this could have been much more impactful as a novella!

I'm a sucker for books with dueling timelines. This one was so masterfully woven together, and I loved the added bit of script as well.

This book feels like a descent into madness and I loved that. I'm only giving four stars because I felt like things were overly wordy sometimes, to a point that I had trouble processing and understanding what was being talked about. Horror Movie is deeply disturbing and upsetting at times, and is going to stick with you.

Honestly, the vibes are what give all the stars. The story is great, but great stories happen all the time. Great vibes and atmosphere in books? Much harder to come by. This is it.

I didn’t know it was possible to read a book while peeking through your fingers. This book ended up really creeping me out, which is not an easy thing to do. I loved the integration of the actual script throughout the story and the way he moved from past to present worked for me here. On top of being downright scary, this book had a lot of unexpected depth and will have me thinking about the roles we all play for a while to come.

Thank you to William Morrow Books and Paul Tremblay for the chance to read ‘Horror Movie'! The cover is incredible and I can definitely see utilizing it in a library display. I loved the two previous Tremblay books I read AND I love the idea of cursed movies, so I expected to devour this book. I enjoy the way his books are written, as his style adds to the growing confusion and tension that his plots call for. It was difficult to grasp who was at fault and what was happening, sometimes in a way that heightened my enjoyment (and sometimes in a way that made me put the book down). I suspect that was the intention but it left me wanting. I can see how this book would really work for horror/creature fans, but I doubt it will hit as well for horror/mystery fans (which I lean towards). I really wish I'd enjoyed it more but I look forward to hearing from patrons who are more likely to appreciate this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing the ARC of this title!

I went into this with pretty low expectations because while I've loved most of his titles, I really did not like PALLBEARERS. It made me hesitate to even request this title, but I did it anyway. I'm really glad I did! It was such a bizarre fever dream of a book and I was pulled in completely.

I can see this book being kind of divisive--it leaves a lot of loose plot threads unresolved, but I think that's by design. This isn't neat or even all that cohesive of a story; it's easy enough to follow the general plot but we're meant to be a mystified audience, I think, and we're meant to be left wondering what's actually going on more than once. I loved it for that. It really added to how unsettling it was. I love cursed media as a concept so this was already leaning positively for me!

Even if I didn't like Pallbearers much, I did really respect Tremblay's willingness to get experimental with the style and presentation of his writing. This read like a conversation that the reader is having with the narrator (the Thin Kid himself) or like an audiobook (which was the intended effect). The dread was so intense and I know I gasped more than once as I was reading it, and I always find it impressive when an author can make me do that.

One of my favorites so far this year, I think! And remember: a snarl is another kind of smile. :)