This book was so unsettling. It may not be for everyone.
In 1993 Valentina, Cleo, Karson, and our narrator, the man who played “thin kid,” get together to make a movie known as Horror Movie, but the full movie is never really finished. Years later, a few of the scenes are uploaded to YouTube and a cult following appears. Now they want to reboot Horror Movies, but will its curse come with it.
This book felt like an adult version of a Goosebumps story mixed with the Slenderman case. I was not a fan of this story. It was very dark, disturbing, and made me very uncomfortable.
I liked the idea of making a horror movie and a curse following it. I like the idea of trying to reboot a 90s film, trying it again. This book was an interesting take on what makes someone a monster. But how the story was executed, especially the story behind “thin man” went too far to me.
Nevertheless it was well written and never boring. We get to see the original movie being made, the script and the current time period. The way the story was arranged kept the story interesting.

What in the world did I just read? That was unbelievable. My mind is twisted and blown!!!!! Absolutely loved this! I mean you get all the shocks, confusion, and emotions along with an incredible story!!!

In 1993 a group of students filmed a horror movie that never made it to release. Three scenes were eventually released and the film gained a cult following. 30 years later, Horror Movie is being remade with a big budget. The only surviving cast and crew member from the original film played "The Thin Kid" and he is asked to help with the remake.
The story jumps between the past, when the original was made, and the present day remake. The original screenplay is also included.
Horror Movie is fun, fast-paced, and totally creepy. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the book's screenplay will actually get made into a movie. I enjoyed this more than some of Tremblay's other books and was pleasantly surprised.
Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an advanced copy of Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay in exchange for a review.

This is my first Paul Tremblay title, so I went in with no expectations. Now that I’ve finished it… I feel like I didn’t get it. Like, I got it, but didn’t “get it”. There was some underlying meaning I just didn’t grasp. This felt more suited to a movie script than a book, which given the setting, may have been the whole point. Then, 60% of the way through, the narrator started breaking the fourth wall. It just felt very disjointed.

I couldn’t finish it fast enough. Overall, I wasn’t impressed. 2.5⭐️ founded up for originality.

Alfred Hitchcock once remarked, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” The upcoming novel Horror Movie is a terrifying exercise in suffocating anticipation. Paul Tremblay hardly needs introduction; he’s the man responsible for The Pallbearers Club, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World, to name just a very few. If you’ve read Tremblay before you expect atmospheric, you expect dark, you expect artistic ambiguity, and you expect him to find a way to crack open familiar tropes to deliver something new. His novel Horror Movie does all that and more by subtly manipulating its reader with deception, obfuscation, and, most interestingly, suggestion. Horror Movie is part love letter and part soul-searching exploration about what it means to be a horror creator and horror fan.

The novel follows an unnamed narrator in 1993 who is conscripted by some college buddies to portray the monster/killer in a low-budget film called Horror Movie. It’s clear that screenwriter Cleo and director Vera have some rather unorthodox ideas about how they want their vision to come to life. But this isn’t how we’re introduced to the story, no. We enter decades in the future, with our narrator being contacted and pestered by disingenuous, irritating Hollywood personalities about potentially remaking Horror Movie.

As readers, we’re not given a name for our lead, only that he was cast in the horror film as the killer. Since we only have the killer’s pseudonym by which to identify him, we have no choice but to start thinking of the narrator as “The Thin Kid.” The novel juxtaposes these two events decades apart, using their parallels to make some interesting statements about art under commerce.

Horror Movie achieves a sort of literary reverse cinéma vérité, allowing the reader to inhabit both sides of the camera. Tremblay is playing with forms here. Each chapter is punctuated by an excerpt from a seemingly amateur screenplay that does a lot of directing on the page ( We see, we pan, we hear); only the voice on the page doesn’t seem to be addressing the director, but rather the future audience of the film, like it knows how we’re going to respond to the film, almost like it’s coercing us to feel a certain way. When reading the script, the reader, like The Thin Kid, is under the manipulations of its writers. This only adds to the atmosphere of mystery around filmmakers Vera and Cleo, who are established as being wise beyond their years; the Thin Kid envies them for their intelligence, money, and friendships; each actor in Horror Movie has assumed a more or less autobiographical role in the film, all except for The Thin Kid. The Thin Kid’s role is as an outsider, an object, and a vessel to be poured into. His torment in the film is accepted with quiet, melancholic resignation, while the real-world Thin Kid subjects himself to the horrors of the film on his own accord but seemingly to his director’s delight. As the shoot goes on, it begins taking a toll on the Thin Kid, and it begins to change him.

Tremblay is a master, and it shows in the information he withholds. As I read, I spent chapters charging forward due to a perceived sense of malice and impending tragedy. We’re told that Horror Movie is famous, a cult classic, but as we read on we find its legacy as a film is more complicated and a direct result of the circumstances surrounding its production. Thin Kid’s torment is unbearable as the layered narratives start to blur the lines between the actors and characters. As the reader, you stop distinguishing them. You feel bad for The Thin Kid, this guy with low self-esteem who’s allowing himself to be manipulated by his friends because he’s desperate for their approval, but there’s a streak of darkness within him and a threatening victim complex. Ultimately, I couldn’t decide whether I considered this guy a victim or a monster, and that discomfort made for wonderful reading.

The book is fascinated with what it means to be an artist, an audience, a fan, and everything in between, what some people sacrifice and the credit others claim. Our narrator is disgusted by all the people who lie to tell him they were on the set of Horror Movie or know somebody who was. This act of stolen valor is unforgivable to him. We see the economy of attention lampooned regularly as being disingenuous and self-serving. One has to wonder how much of Tremblay’s experience with Hollywood staking thankless claim to his work as an artist led to this book.

Horror Movie calls to mind other meta horror books for me; Catriona Ward's manuscript jumping meta mystery Looking Glass Sound and Kea Wilson’s narratively complex tale of a cannibal exploitation film gone awry, We Eat Our Own, with its unusual changes in narration, feel like perfect companions to this novel if you want to binge read them on a weekend.

Paul Tremblay’s meta exploration of what it means to enjoy scaring and being scared, Horror Movie, hits shelves on June 11th 2024. Some places are offering fancier editions than others, but I’d recommend your local indie bookstore. I’ll link my two St. Louis favorites below.

As a fan of The Cabin At The End Of The World, I was excited to get a chance to read a brand new Tremblay book. It was intense. It was exciting. I highly enjoyed it. I don’t want to add too many spoilers, but Horror Movie may just a winner for new horror book for new fans to start at.

I really appreciated the twist that was done in this novel as it added depth and showed a different side of the cursed film genre. While I generally prefer shorter books in most cases, I actually wished that this one could've been somewhat longer as the ending felt a little jarring (which I'm sure was intentional). With the ambiguous aspect of the novel, while it did leave me in a state of whiplash, I can appreciate the potential conversation that could be sparked from it.

As a fan of "cursed film" horror, I went into this book with high expectations and was not disappointed. Paul Tremblay's books have a history of frightening me, and Horror Movie was no exception. Experiencing Horror Movie through the film script as well as living through the main character's thoughts and memories is a lesson in how monsters are made, and how there might be a monster inside every one of us. The blurred line between a scary movie and the horror of the real world becomes even more muddled as the truth of what happened during the making of the movie and the aftermath is slowly revealed. The horror of this book is surprisingly subtle, and it creeps its way inside of you until it is fully rooted. Like any good slasher, anticipation and dread keep you invested until the final page. Each unsettling twist and turn makes the reader wonder if we really know who the monsters us are.

I love Paul Tremblay so much and, for other Paul Tremblay fans this will have meaning, my favorite book of his is Head Full of Ghosts. I love a haunted house trope. Horror Movie is not that. Its an unsettling creature feature. I love that each Paul Tremblay book touches on a different aspect of the horror genre.

I found all of the characters unlikeable and I very much dislike artsy "if you don't get it, you don't get it" vibes... (looking at you Valentina and Cloe). Especially with the uncanny undertone, it was hard to sympathize/be on Thin Kid's side. The interjections of the script made the flow a little hard to get into, especially with the formatting (but I know nothing about movie script formatting). Cloe's set descriptions made me want to throw the script at her because you could feel the pretentiousness radiating off of it.

Overall this was a fun read and I think it will make a great summer horror selection. Love the author and already want more, please and thank you.

My thanks to Net Galley and William Morrow for this arc.

Unfortunately I DNF this and stopped at 25% on my kindle. This was not what I thought it would be. I liked the making of a horror movie premise but the writing style that jumps around in different timeline format then into a movie script was very confusing to follow. Can't recommend.

An ambitious addition to the horror novel genre, but doesn't quite reach the goal. Multiple timelines keep the plot moving, but at times the interweaving stories become muddled and confusing. We know early on that a horrible accident occurs on set of the titular Horror Movie, but the reveal is somewhat of a letdown, and the ambiguity might not be for casual fans.

The cursed media or cursed film genre seems to roll around every few years. I honestly didn't find anything real original or unique with this unfortunately.
The story is fine, and keeps you involved, but so does all of the other similar books.

This is a slow burn and wasn't scary, but more on the unsettling side. I like that Tremblay's books are never quite what I expect them to be going in and the The Thin Kid was a pretty interesting character.

Maybe I'm not artsy or smart enough to fully enjoy this one, though? I can't say I loved it. It is partly told through the past script of the famously never made "Horror Movie" and partly told through the present day as the only living star of the movie is being cast and included in a reboot. This wasn't my favorite format to read but I could appreciate what the author was doing.

By 70% I really just wanted for it to wrap up. It became a harder and harder to want to return to whenever I put it down.

Overall, I've had a difficult time liking Tremblay's newer work. I really liked Head Full of Ghosts but everything else hasn't really been a hit for me. I keep reading though, because he is talented despite the stories not being my fave. Hopefully I find a new one that I connect with in the future.

This was an odd little book, to say the least.
I read this book fairly quickly because it was hard not to. I had so many points within the book where I just sat there and went "wtf did I just read?"
Tremblay is a master at his craft and it shows in this book and its ability to test the limits of human depravity.

Well done, Paul. But also, wtf?

Damn.

This novel is a masterpiece of textual layering, a dark-as-the-human-heart homage to Gen X, a masterpiece of pacing and escalating tension. Horror Movie broke my heart and then forced me to sift through the shards and confront my own culpability.

Quite a feat for under 300 pages.

I probably should have read Tremblay before committing to providing feedback for his new book (to be fair, I thought I had but I got him mixed up with Peter Swanson). I ended up not being able to finish this book (note: I got through 40% before DNFing). I won't provide feedback publicly but I will provide feedback here.

I can't stand Paul's writing style, which is just my preference. I prefer Sager's type of writing style, with a more formal and beautiful type of style rather than the informal type that Tremblay has. I kept forgetting the protagonist was a dude (maybe because I'm so used to Sager's female characters?) which made the character seem not fully complete. The book was really odd and confusing, which I think was the point (to add mystery and intrigue) but it fell flat if that was its intention. Instead, I just didn't finish the book. I have enough books to read to waste my time trying to figure out why there is this nameless kid character wandering around with a mask and students throwing shit at him.

This was a very quick read that managed to keep me captivated from the very start. I thought the dual timelines really added to the story, as did the scripts woven into the prose of the story. The concept was great, the execution was great, and although I would consider this more of a slow-burn horror story, it captured me instantly and I felt like I could never put it down.

Some of the descriptions were so detailed that I found myself having physical reactions to it, and I think Tremblay did a great job of providing the reader with just enough information to be able to try to piece some things together but left enough out that the whole story was incredibly unsettling.

This is one of those books that you finish and you ask yourself "what the heck did I just read?" Between the unreliable narrator, tense change, character change, and the unique formatting it felt as though I was submerged straight into a horror movie, too. I really want to revisit this story as an audiobook and catch some of what I know I missed. This novel will strike well with horror fans with its dark and disturbing storyline and will keep readers on the edge of their seat until the very end.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

5 stars!!

This is my first foray into Paul Tremblay books, and I am over the moon about this!

I should start by saying that I am a huge fan of horror movies, and it is by far my favorite genre. I've probably seen more horror movies than I've seen any other genre combined. One of my favorite things is psychological horror and the type where you don't really know what is true and what isn't. That fits Horror Movie to a tee.

Its hard to describe what hit me so hard with this. I think it was the way that he wrote the story... the feelings of dread are so palpable it was like I was watching the movie instead of reading a book. We don't know why the characters are doing what they are doing and we are so confused yet I got so invested. The fact we get to read into the original script was a nice touch too. If it ever gets turned into a movie, I don't know if I even need to watch it. Everything was described so perfectly that I have the images forever burned into my brain.

I was entertained the entire time and the ENDING WAS A MASTERPIECE.

I feel like Mr. Tremblay asked me specifically what I want in a horror book, and this is the result. It was written for me and I won't accept any other explanation. I'll be recommending this to everyone who wants a unique horror experience.

This book just was not for me. I couldn’t get into the story. And I found myself not caring. I also wanted more of a thriller vibe and that was just not there.