I was incredibly excited to get this ARC!
Michael is a new to me author, but the cover lured me in and the description sealed the deal.

I love the cult film feeling to the book.
There are absolutely parts of this book that put me on edge and creeped me out. Some parts were a little harder to read just structure wise, but overall a great read.
Overall it unnerved me and made me side eye people around me, so it definitely hit its mark.

2.5, maybe a 3 rounded up.

Horror is best when it’s a little weird- however, The October Film Haunt was TOO weird. I fear the way elements of horror used here weren’t quite strong enough to make me scared, only confused- except for the descriptions of Coleman’s lung cancer. Reading that while dealing with a lingering cough from a cold left me with true fear. There were too many characters, too many points of views to follow, but I’d have to say the fictionalized version of Trevor Henderson was my favorite. There’s something about a creator being faced with his creation that is truly haunting.

Jorie Stroud was once an avid horror fan. Found footage, slashers, demons- she’d seen it all, and with her friends she had formed a blog devoted to exploring the places these were filmed. The October Film Haunt. But it’s been almost a decade since she shut the website down. One fabricated story led to the death of a teenage girl, and Jorie carries the guilt with her still. She hasn’t touched anything in the genre ever since.

But when a mysterious tape arrives in the mail, and figures dressed as the cultists from the film Proof of Demons start showing up near her home, Jorie has now become the protagonist of a brand new horror movie- one she might not make it out of alive.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the e-arc! The October Film Haunt comes out September 30!

I wanted to love this book so much, but I’m going to be honest.. I had to restart it 3 times because I put it down and completely forgot the plot. I love a slow burn, but this was really… really slow. It had so much potential and it fell flat for me :/

The October Film Haunt has a lot of great ideas, but unfortunately they don't result in a great story. Strong start, but things get muddled, almost as though the concepts weren't quite conveyed to the page.

This end up being a DNF fairly quickly for me. For whatever reason I couldn't get into the story. I feel like it could be more me than the actually writing itself.

This one was a huge disappointment for me. I went in thinking it would be something I’d love, but from the very first page, it was confusing and frustrating.

The writing style drove me up the wall—everything was described in the strangest, most nonsensical way. WHY is everything “buttery”? It felt like the author just threw random adjectives onto the page. The writing was choppy and disjointed, which made the story hard to follow. Instead of creating atmosphere, the overdone descriptions made the book feel like a string of run-on sentences with no clear point.

I kept skimming, hoping to find the good stuff, and while there were brief flashes of intrigue, nothing creepy or atmospheric ever really materialized. The concept had potential, but the execution fell flat. By a third of the way through, I knew it wasn’t going to get better, but I pushed through anyway. In the end, I regretted not DNF’ing—so many questions were left unanswered, and the conclusion just wasn’t worth the effort.

Thank you @stmartinspress for the #gifted copy.

Thank you to St.Matin's Press for an early copy via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
3.5 Stars

I was pretty excited to get a chance to read this book close to the spooky season. It started out with a bang and lots of nods to the horror flicks of the '80s and VHS tapes. In addition, very quickly on an old doll shows up as an ancillary character. That brought the creep factor for me.

Three friends who have a shared love for the cult/horror films, set out to visit the sites of the films most notably, Proof of Demons. Things take a turn, one friend eventually dies, the other two are estranged. Even worse, a teenage fan dies in connection to the film haunt led by the friends.

Now one of the original October Film Haunt creators, Jorie, lives with her young son in an inherited house up in Vermont. Every description is modeled after classic horror films. Lots of mentions of jump scares without the reader actually jumping. When a VHS tapes show up, it looks as though the October Film Haunt is being resurrected and the remaining two of the trio get back together to determine if it's crazed fans, a reboot of the film, or someone making a new film. Lives are at stake and soon someone will die.

What I found is I recognized most everything that was put out there relating to these past popular horror flicks but I am unfamiliar with the cult type following or films that this book seemed so dedicated to. There were many characters introduced that had some sore of connection to the original Demons movie but they became muddled to me, possibly because the book felt overly long. I ended up a bit lost in this one.

Regardless of my own issues with the storytelling, this book definitely has a reader it was meant for and I'd recommend this book to the die-hard horror film aficionados.

This was a DNF for me, unfortunately. The premise had so much potential, but I just failed to connect to or get invested in this one. To be fair I won't be rating it anywhere else.

This started out strong but then the slow burn was too slow for me.
Interesting idea and it felt like reading a book within a film series.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

It is so hard for me to figure out how to rate this book because even with its shortcomings, it was unique, and I can see so much potential in it. The things that made it hard to get through were the pacing, the weird sentences that weren't always clear about their intended meanings, and the filler/length of the book. I think with some editing, this could be a much shorter and more promising story.

I am always grateful to read horror books before they come out, even if I don't end up loving them, so I don't regard the time I spent on this one as a waste. I just wish it had been more condensed and that it hadn't skipped around so much-- It was hard to keep up with what was going on at certain points, and that's coming from someone with multiple graduate degrees who is used to reading challenging materials.

Thank you to the publishers at NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for sending me an e-ARC. I love how this book didn't shy away from darker or deeper themes, and how it incorporated all those spooky old VHS feelings into its narrative. In the end, I appreciated the ambient, experimental feel it gave me throughout the reading experience.

I loved the eerie, atmospheric first half of The October Film Haunt — it hooked me right away. Unfortunately, the second half felt repetitive and dragged a bit, losing some of the tension. Still, Wehunt’s writing is striking, and fans of slow-burn, experimental horror will appreciate the unique premise.

Michael Wehunt’s The October Film Haunt - out on hardcover and eBook on September 30, 2025 - is a dread-inducing story of guerrilla filmmaking, analog entities, and horror fandom told from multiple perspectives. The book's lead protagonist, Jorie, is a divorced mom in her thirties, living with her son in the forests of Vermont. She once co-ran a popular blog with her best friends about horror movie locations, where she wrote an infamous post about the Pine Arch Creature, the presumed demon from a found footage horror film with a cult-like following, Proof of Demons. In the years following the unintended consequences of her post, Jorie has abandoned her love of horror and all things creepy, settling for freelance editing and a cashier gig at the local grocery store. But over a decade later, she finds herself directly involved in the world of Proof of Demons when she receives a VHS tape in the mail, simply labeled “funeral watching”.

Simultaneously, Coleman - an elderly, married father - confronts his own mortality after a cancer diagnosis. Like Jorie, he also used to run a blog, in which he wrote letters to his long-lost brother, who went missing without a trace shortly after the pair fell out of a tree and saw through the earthly veil and into… Heaven? Somewhere else? This aspect of the novel reminded me a lot of the faux short documentary, “Hero,” from Todd Haynes’ Poison (1991), about a young boy who ascended into the sky. I really enjoyed this storyline of The October Film Haunt; it felt both metaphysical and brutally physical, as Coleman’s body deteriorates and his reality joins with that of Proof of Demons.

For the first half of The October Film Hunt, I could only read Wehunt's debut novel in the daylight, for fear of looking up from my Kindle while turning the hallway corner and encountering bedsheet-covered cult members (“Rickies”, nicknamed after the Proof of Demons filmmaker, Hélène Enriquez) or catching the gleam of a film camera lens in my backyard. Wehunt entrenches his story in the real, familiar world of horror - name-checking projects and filmmakers familiar to fans of the genre and even incorporating Siren Head’s creator as a character - and had me on the edge of my seat, trying to solve the mysteries behind Proof of Demons and wondering whether the story would stick to realism or take a turn for the surreal.

Like many hyped horror movies lately (Longlegs, Weapons), The October Film Haunt starts as something akin to a mystery or crime procedural, only to lean into elements far more fantastic and unmoored. This pivot has worked for me really well in the past, feeding on my fear of the unknowable and keeping me engaged with the mysteries therein. Unfortunately, as the stakes skyrocket for Jorie and her son, the tension of the story deflates. I often felt bored by the second half of The October Film Haunt. I grew tired of reading about the leaves in the trees and the position of the sun when I just wanted to know what would happen next and if demons are real or nah! I'm starting to think meta horror novels just aren't for me, as a fan of non-fiction; I hit a point where, if I'm no longer feeling pulled along by the story, I'd rather be reading about real horror films and the theories behind them.

Would I recommend The October Film Haunt? Sure. The imagery of the film within the book, Proof of Demons, is very vivid and memorable - graveyards, flickering creatures, visions of another plane, wooden crowns and bedsheets - and I think Wehunt deserves kudos for placing the novel so believably in reality, seamlessly incorporating Internet forums and viral videos. But if you don’t have a keen interest in horror movies and books about them, the stronger aspects of this novel might not resonate with you. On the other hand, if you’re too familiar with the genre, you might recognize certain plot beats all too well, guessing twists with 40% of the book still left. (As I did.) I would like to see The October Film Haunt adapted for the screen. Partly because, as Hollywood is wont to do, maybe they’d change the ending.

Thanks very much to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I read The October Film Haunt by Michael Wehunt as an ARC. The book follows several characters that are tangled up in a horror film that blurs the line between fiction and reality, and becomes more and more sinister as the film returns from the past back into their lives.

I think the biggest strength of this book was the surreal imagery and recurring creepy themes. At times I was confused what was going on in specific scenes, but there was enough atmosphere going on for me to still enjoy those scenes. The “rickies” constantly appearing in green sheets with crowns will be an image that sticks with me, and probably one of my favorite elements of the book

I do wish we could have seen more of the october film haunt’s trips to places because that sounded like a cool cozy horror idea. I also felt that the Roger character probably could have been cut because it had a lot of overlap with Trevor and i got them mixed up too often.

Overall, fairly fun spooky book

Typically, I’m a huge fan of the cursed film/found footage type of genre, but something about this just wasn’t connecting with me. The multiple POVs and slow pacing made it very hard for me to stay invested, and I honestly started to get confused very quickly. I wish I liked this more because I loved the concept, though I also genuinely don’t think I understood what the movie itself was even like despite numerous repetitive descriptions, but I just really wasn’t into this one.

A promising and interesting premise, and a page-turner. I stayed up way too late reading this one. One of the best recent horror novels I've read from an author I'm not familiar with. An ambitious book that delivers.

This book is very good at creating an unsettling atmosphere. I can see how not everyone would enjoy it and feel like it’s too slow, but for me the pacing of the book was good due to the feelings it was trying to evoke. You find yourself wondering if what it describes is happening to you, that alone makes this very successful.

Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The October Film Haunt drew me in from the first- the cover, title, and premise is all SO eye catching and promising. The marketing, first and foremost, was so so well done on this one that I have to give it props as my absolute favorite bit. I don't think pairing this one with a King novel and Horror Story by Tremblay is too far off- this one survives entirely on vibes at times, for me. The plot was definitely more molasses/ treacle than anything else, but I think the right person will love this one. Despite those things, I adored Jorie, Beth, Coleman, and the entire project explanation. The Transfigurations are horrifying- seriously, close your eyes at those bits at night and tell me you're not afraid no matter how old you are. Everything combined had me so very stoked to try this one out that it just unfortunately fell flat for me. I'd have loved to see things happen differently because I truly was interested in the start, but sadly the slog and slow moving speed lost my attention. Thanks so much to the author and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read an early eARC!

First, I am a huge fan of the found footage/cursed media genre, so this book immediately appealed to me. A VHS tape ending up at the protagonist's with similar directing style to a horror movie that she covered in a blog that lowkey ruined her life? Instantly had me hooked. I had so many questions throughout the entirety of the novel, but part my confusion kept me entertained, wanting to figure out the story, and I will say, the book was incredibly suspenseful.

Let's start with the things that I loved about the book: I loved how suspenseful the writing was. The tension was bleeding off the page. I was hooked as the POVs ended, cutting off action that I desperately wanted to get back to. The battle between me thinking "is this a fandom that's gone too far, or are demons/the supernatural real?" kept me motivated to read and find out. The author making the decision to "make cuts" to the cast halfway through the book had me practically thrown out of my seat. I also really liked the interludes of articles and reddit posts - those are some of my favorite parts of cursed media/found footage books.

Now, the things that didn't quite do it for me: repetitiveness. October Film Haunt had a lot to say about cults/fandoms/things you participate in, the places that make you feel like you belong, and how far you'll go, but it also had a catchphrase with it "you belong, I belong" "will you see it through" and it kept repeating it to an amount that made me never want to see those words again. I think some repetitiveness is good, but this was a tad too much.

Second, POV switching. I don't mind a lot of POVs if they have a purpose, and most of the time, they did. However, there were a few that I feel did not have a significant impact on the book and just filled out space and I don't think I needed their perspective to grasp the story. Actually, I think some of the POVs took me out of the story and the suspense that was building in Jorie's POV, so it was counterproductive.

My last complaint is the ending. I feel like the ending was building to so much, and that I flipped the page, and it was the acknowledgements. I felt robbed. I went back to read the last few passages to see if I missed away, but no. In the end, it was ambiguous, or maybe I'm just not a diligent reader? I just think I had so much pent up energy for something to happen, wanting a climatic moment on page that's happening off screen that I can never see.

Overall, I don't think this is a bad book. If you like the found footage genre, horror movies, film techniques, you'll probably have a good time with this book so I do recommend it.

The October Film Haunt by Michael Wehunt is a triumph of modern horror—a kaleidoscopic fusion of genre-savvy lore, character-driven chills, and feverish psychological dread. Michael Wehunt builds a world where fandom morphs into obsession, myth bleeds into reality, and terror stalks from digital to physical spaces. This debut doesn’t just scare—it resonates.

Recommended for fans of:
1) Found-footage and meta-horror (e.g. Blair Witch, Night Film, Horror Movie)
2) Slow-burn atmospheric dread with deep emotional roots
3) Stories that deconstruct and reconstruct the horror genre simultaneously

Will you believe in what you made?"

This had an interesting premise and a great creepy feel. The isolation, the home location, the way there were pauses and delays - all of the atmosphere and the scary vibe were so well done it made the whole story feel so unsettling. But the multiple POV and a few of the overly descriptive situations lost me. I wanted to be sucked in and spooked but Coleman's POV along with others confused me. And as soon as one part confused me, it seemed like the confusion spread and I found myself struggling to keep up with the tears, the eyeballs and the meaning between the fuzzy 6 minutes. I wanted to connect to this one and I love Jorie's POV chapters because they were very creepy. The rest left me confused and wanting more.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book