Horror can be in some ways comfortable – the ghost train or a movie where we know there will jump scares, gore and people deciding to split up at the worst opportunities – we come away surviving, feeling good and teasing each other for being scared. Horror can also be very uncomfortable, pushing your boundaries, exploring the themes we tend not to talk about and get under your skin. The horror movie can get dismissed by some as shlock but when the people behind it know what they’re doing it is a powerful experience you won’t easily forget. In Paul Tremblay’s excellent horror novel Horror Movie we get a fascinating story of an infamous unreleased film being rediscovered and wonder if something dark and dangerous is being re-awakened. It crosses these worlds of horror and creates something truly absorbing.

In June 1993 three young friends agreed to write, direct and star in an independent movie named horror movie. It was a film aiming to really scare the audience and avoid the cliches of commercial films. It was never released and many of the production crew involved died over the coming years. Over the years people heard about it, saw the odd clip, the script and three scenes that took the horror world by storm especially with its eerie history. Hollywood could only respond in one way a reboot. The one surviving member of the crew is the man who played the infamous monster ‘The Thin Kid’. As he navigates the modern world of Hollywood, we get to see the original film’s creation and the moments leading to its legacy. A dark legend is about to be born.

This was an absolutely fascinating story with an excellent use of stories within stories as we move between the modern day world of horror fandom and grimy business deals, the lean days of being young in the 1990s and wanting to make a point on the world and between both we get to read the script of Horror Movie which while we can’t see the scenes we get to feel why this film has created such a buzz and why its viewed as scary. All three are in dialogue with each other and we are being slowly led to its most infamous moment without any warning what we will find.

In the modern-day Tremblay captures fandom in all its glory and occasional obsessiveness to prove a point. We get a glorious scene of a convention that feels rather true to life, but we also get to see our unnamed character being brough into the movie for the sake of legacy/marketing. He sees through the glamour fairly easily - everyone claims to know someone related to the film and very few seem more interested in the art rather than making post of money. Here our narrator is quite snarky; in many ways he is just another actor famous fr playing the monster (although in his case the film was never released). There is a sense of someone enjoying the attention, perhaps a little obsessed with the character being delivered right and we sense someone just a little too happy to scare people because he enjoys it; especially when he gets a chance to resume his biggest and so far only role. You’ll enjoy his scenes but wonder if we are in safe hands.

This contrasts really well with the other parts of the story where we see independent film making and also the actual film itself, we witness through the scenes from the script. Alongside our narrator we get two magnetic characters in the form of Valentina the director and Cleo the writer. They’ve been plotting and writing this movie together for a while and decided on our narrator who was not an actor would be perfect for the role, more for his height and we realise his character than latent ability to act. For these characters its not the cash it’s the art, the message and the desire to go for it 100% that comes across and that obsessiveness to push as far as it goes spreads across the crew. A key aspect is a strange rubber mask that Cleo tells them she found in an abandoned school that they use for many key scenes. Its very much method filmmaking on steroids, the script is shot in sequence, our character is hidden from the other cast and there is a sense of something dark driving the two. We start to see this influence our narrator’s actions; they take bigger risks and push themselves to their limits with startling consequences. Horror here is both the witnessing of these acts but also the filming that there is something else going on. Why are they taking risks, what is the secret agenda here and as we know this ends in tragedy what actually will come about. Our main character seems quite happy being the monster which starts to make us wonder why he was chosen in the first place. Tremblay captures this trio really well, we worry about them and slightly distrust them. It’s a trio that perhaps shouldn’t have come together despite how much they all fall into the process.

The glue of the story is Horror Movie’s script. Tremblay here does something really cool with the form of a script. Its incredibly tight writing – the dialogue in this film is sparse, the skills is in the stage notes that explain the scenes, adding in tensions and very much film talking to an audience’s thoughts. There is a stunning sequence where the film just watches a hallway and the way Tremblay talks to us for several minutes in the scene directions, makes us feel the wait, the anxiety and how it would play in a cinema is beautiful and talks to how we watch a movie on so many levels. It does the feat of both explaining why this film is so revered even unreleased – this is not your shlock horror and it also reminds us that art comes out of our thoughts and fears, and we wonder exactly what those thoughts can lead to. Eventually it comes together very powerfully with a scene that is both horrific and gut-wrenching that means no one will forget this film even if the movie is never shown. It ties the various plotlines together and reminds us of the power of art. There is a little final scene you can read as confirming something dark is at work or a joke being pushed uncomfortably too far, and it leaves you having to decide what you want to happen, as all horror movies tend to do.

Horror Movie is a powerful experience of a read, lean, zips between past and present and we find our understanding changes on each visit. Its unsettling as we can’t quite pin why things are being as pushed as far as they are, and we really start to invest and be wary of the characters we meet along the way. It is a story in dialogue with horror and movies itself and reminds us the really good great stuff will always make an impact. I strongly recommend this for the spooky season.

I love the recent trend of ‘found footage’ books. Yes, they were once called Epistolary Novels, but we don’t have letters so much these days, do we? So here it’s a narrative that alternates chapters with a movie script that never was. Writers play with words to create effect after all, right?

If you’ve been anywhere near the horror bookshelves in recent years, you’ll know Paul Tremblay. Not just a lovely person, but a talented writer who genuinely knows how to spin a good yarn while ramping up the tension, so that we (the Constant Readers, you might say) just can’t stop reading his work.

Here we have a narrator without a name. In the titular movie, he was just ‘The Thin Kid’, and now he’s finally telling the truth about the novel’s own creepypasta film experience.

Yes, it’s a love-letter to pretentious film students and the vagaries of young-adult life. Absolutely, it riffs off the slasher phenomenon and just what makes horror tropes work. But like the original Blair Witch Project, we have a tiny crew making bad choices that seemed good at the time (so the Constant Reader can shout Stop, No, Don’t Go Down that Path), until we somehow find ourselves deep in the metaphorical woods without a map. And the monster is there with us.

This book is absolutely a rollercoaster. There’s one entire scene which is the pause… right… at the top… because you know the drop is coming… and it’s the sound of a writer at the absolute peak of his power. Poor Constant Reader hasn’t got a chance.

I read this in two sittings only because I had dogs to walk, and the vibe of the book was with me every step of that everyday errand. I revelled in this ride and am already looking forward to going again. If you love horror, you know you need to pick this up.

Very good chiller that will have you guessing and second guessing right up to the chilling climax.
Great characters, great writing, highly recommended

I have a love hate relationship with Tremblay novels, most of the time I'm all in but occasionally they don't fit my bill at all.

Horror Movie threw me, I spent much of the novel undecided. I felt the pacing was slow but actually this was necessary, there's a very sinister vibe that builds throughout the chapters.

In this case the horror is human, at times uncomfortably so, having the movie script spliced in gives us a window into how Cleo/Valentina wanted their audience to feel about the unfolding events. I thought I might dislike that format but instead I loved it!
Although the rest of the story is apparently a nameless main character narrating an audiobook, I completely forgot about this after the first chapter- right up until it was referenced again in the last.

Horror movie is so unnerving, Tremblay examines human behaviour and the ways in which young adults are susceptible to peer pressure.
I was constantly torn between whether to feel sympathy towards the main character or disgust at their patheticness.
The real scare is not only in watching the creeping transformation of Thin Kid from shy outcast to serial killer in the movie script, but also the insight to the bleak minds of the characters who dreamt it up to begin with.

It's definitely a character study rather than an action packed slasher, but for those looking for a little depth and a lot of tension I definitely recommend Horror Movie.

In "Horror Movie," set in the summer of 1993, a group of young guerrilla filmmakers creates a notorious, disturbing art-house horror film. Despite its cult status, only three scenes were ever released. Decades later, Hollywood plans a big-budget reboot and turns to the sole surviving cast member—the man who played 'the Thin Kid.' He vividly recalls the secrets of the original screenplay, the bizarre on-set events, and the blurred lines between reality and fiction.

As he navigates the world of Hollywood personalities and fan conventions, the Thin Kid reveals a chilling tale of past and present, exploring what the camera captures and what it hides. Revisiting these buried demons comes at a high cost, as the monster the world never saw finally comes to light. "Horror Movie" intertwines mystery, horror, and the dark side of filmmaking in a gripping narrative.

Horror Movie is classically chilling nightmare fuel. It slowly gnaws at your bones and lets the doubt and fear crawl in.

This was an incredibly unnerving book full of dread as you recount the infamous events of a cult horror film that never was. The concept of this is fantastic, taking a new angle on the classic cursed film trope. I loved how we heard from our unnamed narrator, who played the original Thin Kid, but also got snippets from the screenplay. It adds this meta gloss of discovering the story within the story – the film and the book become this ouroboros, becoming and devouring one another. This speaks to the constant repetition of narratives sometimes identified in modern cinema, particularly within the horror genre. It can feel like the same ideas are being explored over and over again. Also, it adds a weariness to the book, a sense of doomed inevitability where tragedy will fall once again. You feel stuck within this endless cycle of death and destruction, unable to escape the story that is already written for you. It is exceptionally good horror.

I also loved how The Thin Kid’s narration was just decidedly off, even in his scenes outside of the film. We know so little about him, with a brief sketch of a time before the film, but we never even know his name really. He becomes a figure that we hear from constantly but we never really know truly. This allows Tremblay to build up some brilliant commentary about the nature of monstrosity, corruption and the kind of anger that smoulders. It is also a book that very much grapples with facing the traumas of your past and confronting them, feeling trapped by the past and again in that endless cycle.

There will be no spoilers here but there are a few scenes that have rooted themselves in my brain and refuse to leave, no matter how much I wish them to. Tremblay, you know what you did.

Horror Movie encapsulates what I love about horror – it is masterfully told and creeps under your skin.

"I'm afraid of thinking like her, or I'm afraid of thinking like her all the time. I could be wrong, but I think all of us at some point in our lives, especially when we're teenagers, feel like we want to die, and yet, at the same time, we're terrified of it. That's - that's part of the human condition, right?"

A dark, cinematic story of human depravity and weakness ripped right from the silver screen - all the gritty fear and intensify of a b-movie with the drama and feverish pitch of a blockbuster and the subtle, quiet horror of a bohemian arthouse picture.

Jumping between the meeting producers, the original cast, hearing people trying to act like they know about the original cult film and the messed up things happening while filming - during the retelling and the original, it gets a little confusing but eventually settles in to a flow, our narrator being a complicated fellow but undeniably compelling. He’s blunt, bitter and a bit rude, his storytelling like a simple one-sided conversation fuelled with cynicism and frustration interspersed by script snippets or complete moments of emotional flux and terror.

Every little detail was placed to induce a sense of doom even when nothing bad happened, it moved slowly, nothing really occurring but the setting felt haunted and unsettling until it takes a bloody, twisted turn. Living between the movie script and real life creates a confusing, murky reality where they start to blur into each other, our narrator and his character becoming the same person. It was an entirely fucked up book, and it was maddeningly delightful.

Oh boy, am I going to get shit for this one. I was so bored during this story. I loved Survivor Song but this - the format, the characterisation (felt there was next to none character development), how it felt like you were reading forever and getting absolutely nowhere. I know that I'm in the minority here but I just didn't think it was anything special. The lost horror movie trope has been done to death and I don't think it brought anything fresh.

I didn't like any of the characters, all shallow and one dimensional. I hated them all. Motivations weren't clear and felt the story got really jumbled at one point.

The script format was annoying. I wasn't really sure what the point of the story was? It wasn't all that clear.

I have to say this was my first Tremblay and I do not think it will be my last. For me I particularly enjoyed how the author deconstructs the genre of the slasher and rebuilds in a way that is new but with enough familiarity to give that extra layer of uncanny. I particularly liked the inclusion of the screen play sections that were a bit reminiscent of The Last Final Girl by Stephan Graham Jones.

In Horror Movie Tremblay does two things, for me at least, he provides an emotive horror novel but also explores the idea of ‘fandom’ or in this case cult like status that some movies (not always horror) can attain and how it makes those things take on a life of their own.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away but I have to say that I really enjoyed this one and as someone new to Tremblay I found this a brilliant starting point and will certainly be reading more of their work. If you enjoy horror with a bit of realism to it and that explores several layers then this is for you.


As always thank you to Titan Books for the copy to review. My review is honest and truthful.

A unique and grizzly take on cursed, obscure cult cinema.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay takes inspiration from the likes of The Exorcist, of which has numerous rumours surrounding the film being cursed, multiple deaths and injuries surrounding it.

The core story line is set in 1993 with our Unnamed narrator the star of a slasher movie in the works which, following an incident on set, is never released.

But Hollywood want a reboot of ‘Horror Movie’ and “The Thin Kid”, the only remaining survivor of the original filming, to take part.

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I’ll start off by saying I’ve had my sights on Paul Tremblay's work for a long time, such as A Head Full of Ghosts, however this is my first. After reading Horror Movie I am certainly looking forward to reading more!

This was a slow burn but I love the premise and admire the use of multiple formats of story telling, such as movie scripts which Paul Tremblay pulled off well!

I was in a constant state of unease and dread throughout which is what a good horror novel should do.

Horror Movie is also a rather short novel and so makes for a quick, easy read.

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Thank you to the publisher and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC

As an author, Paul Tremblay challenges me as a reader and he does that rare thing for me. He elicits emotions that make me feel uncomfortable. It’s not that I don’t get emotions when I read books, I do! It’s just that I get all the right emotions in the right places. With Paul Tremblay books my emotions are all over the place and I regularly find myself utterly confounded.
In Horror Movie, Tremblay tells the story of a horror film that never got made but through the release of a few scenes and the script, the film has garnered a state of almost fanatical notoriety.
Told from the point of view of the only remaining survivor of the film, the Eponymous Thin Kid, Tremblay tells the story of the original film, its aftermath and the present fervour to reboot the original film (even though it was never actually made).
Using different mediums, such as the original film script, an audiobook narration of the historical events as told by the Thin Kid and the current meetings that will hopefully see the film brought to the big screen , Tremblay tells the story of Horror Movie and the events that finally lead to tragedy (not a spoiler as this is on the blurb)
Throughout Horror Movie, Tremblay deconstructs the slasher trope with almost surgeon-like precision and much like Victor Frankenstein, builds something that whilst familiar, is almost entirely alien.
As I said. Tremblay instils in me mixed emotions when it comes to his book, I swing wildly between this is absolute genius to this is metaphysical bullshit, and everything in between. The book is a bit of a slow burn when it comes to the story, telling the story of the original film and how it was made, the processes the character endures to become the embodiment of the part that he is playing, it then swings between two different timelines to what happened in between the final timeline of what is happening now.
Throughout it all, you are never quite sure what is actually going on, everything is ambiguous, even the fact that we never know the name of the protagonist. Were the events of the past real? Or are they a phantasmagoria of memory and the imagined - I don’t know! I didn’t know when I was reading it, and I don’t know when I have let the book settle and be digested. However, this is the beauty of the book and how it grips you tightly around the throat and never lets you go.
In between all this there are some ministrations on what makes a horror fan as Tremblay breaks the fourth wall to scrutinise how the horror aficionado consumes their medium of choice and what makes them tick, and as that lens is pointed at you the reader, it makes you feel slightly uncomfortable.
In the end, I found myself staring at the page attempting to work out what the hell I had just read, and I am still not quite sure. It’s one of those books where I don’t actually know if I enjoyed it or not. However, what it did do was get me thinking and it elicited emotions, so make of that what you will!

Sometimes the monsters are in our head, sometime we are the monsters. A cult horror movie, a reboot, the mix of memories and maybe allucinations.
A disturbing, twisty, chilling, and intriguing novel.
Excellent storytelling that kept me on the edge and feeling tense.
Well done.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

First of all, a massive thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for my Arc of this novel!

You can never accuse Paul Tremblay of playing it safe. Never one to rest on his laurels, Tremblay novels are renowned for tinkering with format and perspective, carving open new avenues towards readers’ hearts. ‘Horror Movie’ is no different, flicking between the past, present and the original screenplay of a horror film’s creation with fluidity and purpose. It seems that no matter what this man tries he has the ambition and nuance to pull it off, and ‘Horror Movie’ is Tremblay’s jewel in the crown, the novel that propels him from being one of the most successful contemporary horror authors and into the stratosphere of the all-time greats. ‘Horror Movie’ brushes against decades of horror with a deft touch, culminating in a timeless classic.

The story follows our main character, unnamed other than his screen name of the ‘Thin Kid’, across three plains of existence: the original attempted 1993 filming of a low-budget horror film, the modern-day reboot, and the screenplay narrative of the film. All of this is compiled in an audiobook narrated by our main character. If that sounds like a lot, just be impressed that Paul Tremblay pulls it off with exceptionally more clarity than how I can describe it.

Dread is at the forefront of our minds from the very beginning of this story. The word ‘cursed’ is bandied around to describe the original shooting of ‘Horror Movie’, and in typical Tremblay fashion it is left to us to gradually determine the level of truth in that theory. What is evident is that something went wrong in the original shooting of the film, very, very wrong, and Tremblay does a great job at giving credence to our ever increasing concerns.

The story masterfully toys with identity to leave us in constant unease. It is no mistake that we only know our main character as the ‘Thin Kid’, the character he plays. On several occasions it is suggested that our main character does not have the greatest self-esteem, someone easily controlled and lacking a core sense of self. Even him taking the acting role feels indicative of someone transforming into someone they are not, someone who is valuing pleasing others over his own needs and wants. Fiction and reality blur and intertwine throughout the story, and considering what we learn of the character known as the ‘Thin Kid’ as the screenplay progresses, this becomes very unsettling indeed.

I have little to no knowledge about screenplays and how they are supposed to look, but the screenplay aspect of ‘Horror Movie’ was undoubtedly my favourite of the novel. Tremblay has shown before in ‘A Head Full of Ghosts’ that he has great knowledge of how directors can manipulate film shots to imply and produce specific results, and he showcases this knowledge once again in ‘Horror Movie’. Scenes are written with a unique clarity that managed to create truly vivid images in my head for how the film shots would really look, and I’m no film buff. We often read about bringing words from the page to life, but Tremblay expertly achieves the inverse in this novel.

‘Horror Movie’ has the impossible task of creating satisfying endings for three separate yet diverging stories and yet they all merge together into a truly devastating conclusion. Tremblay’s latest experiment produces a unique set of results that cannot be replicated. A diamond of a story, polished and sublime. ‘Horror Movie’ will shine bright for years and years to come, a beacon of light in the darkness that all of us horror fans enjoy inhabiting from time to time. This one is for the horror lovers.

A classic cursed movie story told in Trembley's inimitable style. Told in three threads, this blends various themes such as making a monster through your actions, the adult child divide and consequences of your actions reaching into the future. Really enjoyed this creepy read.

Layers on layers here, but at the bottom is Tremblay’s darkest book (and if you’ve read the others you’ll know that’s quite the achievement). There’s an all pervading atmosphere of dread, and it’s a bleak warning about the darkness in ourselves. One of the best horror writers currently operating.

Told in three different 'threads', Horror Movie is all about the making of a monster. Scattered throughout the narrative are sections of the original screenplay from a young group of filmmakers, while the majority of the novel takes place in two different timelines, one in the past where they are making the movie, and one set in modern time where Hollywood is pitching the last surviving cast member a big budget remake. Only three scenes from the original movie exist on YouTube, but that hasn't stopped cult status surrounding the 'cursed' movie. The author does some very clever things with the timelines, and it is very easy for the reader to get lost in which timeline they are following.
One of Tremblay's best.
3.5 Stars

‘Horror Movie’ is Paul Tremblay’s playful and sinister ode to
obscure cult cinema and the films that seem forever out of reach

I am a long term fan of Paul Tremblay and always look forward to what he might next dream up, my personal favourites being A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (2016) and Survivor Song (2020). My teenage daughter was also blown away by A Head Full of Ghosts, she commented that this brilliant book remained with her long after completion. However, I was not so struck by either The Cabin at the End of the World (2018) or The Pallbearers Club (2022), the former being a much-discussed polarising ‘love it or hate it’ type of novel, filmed by M. Night Shyamalan, and the latter an oddball, but frustrating, drama redeemed slightly by its numerous cool musical references. I am uncertain where I would place Horror Movie in my ‘Top’ Tremblay list, but it would most certainly rank in the top tier.
Tremblay’s career took off after the success of A Head Full of Ghosts, even though he had been writing for many years previously. His first short story collection initially published in 2013, Growing Things and Other Stories, was expanded and rereleased in 2019, with a second collection The Beast You Are arriving in 2023, which brought together an assortment of bits and bobs and a previously unpublished novella.

If you are new to Paul Tremblay then Horror Movie is an excellent place to start as it features the hallmarks in his best fiction, ambiguity in particular, without which most of his fiction would not exist. It cleverly plays around with horror film tropes, explores what phenomenon turns films into ‘cults’ and is blessed with an outstanding, highly engaging, unreliable narrator. In cinema the ‘story’ behind a film, sometimes because of conflict between actor and director, results in the ‘making of’ becoming as famous as the film itself. For example, there are many stories of the clashes between charismatic German actor Klaus Kinski and director Werner Herzog, particularly when filming Fitzcarraldo, which spawned the documentary The Burden of Dreams. The speed in which legendary b-movie director Roger Corman churned out films is another example where the behind the scenes escapades were more interesting than the actual film. But none of these can match the bizarre circumstances behind the unreleased 1993 version of Horror Movie.

Paul Tremblay skilfully mixes this idea up by building a cult around a film which was never officially released, but certain key scenes have appeared on YouTube and due to the complex and strange history of the film (was it cursed?) it remains one of the most infamous unseen films in cinematic history. Due to the fact that most of those involved in filming this low budget horror film are now dead, its legend has continued to grow. When the Horror Movie novel opens the film is back in the media spotlight as a remake (technically a reboot) has been greenlighted, and the only surviving cast member will have a production credit in the new version.

This was a great premise for a horror story, which was also slightly reminiscent of Katya de Becerra’s superb YA When Ghosts Call Us Home (2023) in which a home movie filmed by two sisters turns the siblings into overnight film stars and questions arise over the remarkably realistic special effects in which the creatures look just too real. This is no copy though and Horror Story has a seriously complex narrative structure, so take your time in figuring out exactly how things connect together. It switches back and forth between the original shooting of the low budget film, with the present day filming of the reboot, but also includes sections of the screenplay in every chapter. Also, the core narration is for an audiobook that the only surviving cast member has written about the events. It's a lot to unpick but is cleverly and stylishly done once it starts to flow and we find out more about the only surviving cast member and the circumstances in which an absolute novice with no acting experience ended up in the flick.

The core storyline is set in 1993, featuring four main characters: Valentina (also the director), Cleo (the screenwriter), Karson (the male lead), and Thin Kid, who may or may not be human and does not have a speaking part in the film. The actor who plays Thin Kid is also the narrator and has made a life out of appearing at horror film conventions and milking this infamous role. Dodgy incidents on the set are implied throughout the narrative, with three pivotal scenes from the notorious movie resurfacing online years later, sucking in a new generation of fans and the clamour for a proper reboot. As the story unfolds, events on the original film set escalate, little is what it seems and Horror Movie deserves to be followed very closely.

I love books about horror films that suck in fandom, pop culture and the fact that viewers love tracking down films that are unavailable. Living in the UK, I am old enough to recall the long unavailability of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, A Clockwork Orange and the near mythical status they had amongst young horror fans who longed to watch films which seemed forever out of reach. Horror Movie beautifully captures that spirit and if a bootleg version of the 1993 version of Horror Movie ever appeared online I would jump to watch it, hell, I would even pay money to watch the reboot! This novel is Paul Tremblay in playful mode, his ode to cult cinema, but be warned, it is also incredibly dark and Thin Kid is one of his finest most monstrous creations.

Paul Tremblay has written another book, and once again you won’t know what to expect, and, perhaps unhelpfully, I am telling you to expect a masterpiece, his best yet, perhaps the defining horror novel of the decade, and as with all Tremblay art projects I can tell you so very little about this masterpiece, but god willing it won’t stop me trying.

As usual with Tremblay, the first challenge (and I mean challenge in the best way, like finishing a jigsaw, not navigating your way to the shops without a stop-and-chat with an awkward acquaintance) is to work out the form of the novel. This time we have the star of a notorious “cursed” horror movie, twenty years on (Think Brandon Lee if he’d survived The Crow) narrating his audiobook to us, switching between recalling the original events of the filming of the movie and his experiences with being asked to be involved in a present day remake (or more correctly, reboot, as is pointed out). Tremblay has a lot of fun here skewering the film industry. At one point a director talks about using both teenage actors and actors who were teenage actors in the 90s and adds with a wink that they’ll be “killing nostalgia dead,” which neatly summarises much of the efforts of recent horror franchises.

But one narrative device would not make a Tremblay book, so in amongst our protagonist’s tales we are given the chronological events of the original cursed movie itself through reading the actual screenplay – the jewel in the crown of this novel, which I’ll come to in a second.

We are not told what exactly went wrong in the filming of this movie, we are left to slowly put the pieces together, knowing that the truth is coming by the end. This has the sense of inevitable doom – like being tied to a conveyor belt straight to hell – that his novel A Head Full of Ghosts did, but this succeeds in being even more chilling, as there is unusual discipline for a Tremblay novel here. Perhaps this is because we only have one narrator (albeit one as unreliable as most narrators in a Tremblay book). The only time we are not with them is when we are reading the screenplay, but that is not a new narrator as such.

The result of this feels like a tunnel we’re forced down; our seemingly honest protagonist (aren’t they all) relates a new scene from the past, replete with lashings of tasty foreshadowing, and then we switch to the indescribably sinister screenplay itself, and only come up for breath in the present day. It’s a claustrophobic narrative style, tight and fierce, and I felt like my arms and legs couldn’t move. As a disturbing horror experience, I’m not sure you can beat it.

Okay, I keep bringing up the screenplay. Let’s discuss it, and why it is such a genius device. To read a screenplay is not to be having the events narrated to you as if you are there. It is second hand. The thing that comes before the film. Yet reading it in this book, it feels like the events of the cursed movie are being played out. This is the ultimate narrative illusion, and is partly helped by a device cunningly explained at the outset whereby the writer of the screenplay was purposely fucking with the format; going off in tangents in ways that you just don’t get with a normal screenplay.

This, then, is a souped-up screenplay. It’s a meta screenplay. It will terrify you, but in one crucial scene – think of the scariest moment in It Follows, then think of the moment immediately before that moment – Tremblay will tell you what horror films are and what they mean to people, and he’ll give you the best five pages of the year in horror. Read it, come back to me, agree with me.

For all the terror and tight narration, Tremblay has a wide landscape he wants to paint here; perhaps his most ambitious of any of his novels: the experience of the horror film; its role in culture, its role in reality. One character speaks of:

…putting the idea of the movie, her movie, out into the world, planting it in people’s heads, letting it grow into a life of its own, calling it back fully into being.


But who is doing that? In most of Tremblay’s novels, it is the narrator that distorts reality. In A Head Full of Ghosts, the inability to trust the narrator is at the book’s heart. In The Pallbearers’ Club, we must oscillate between the self-denial of the memoirist and the beta reader. But here we are invited to question whether we, the horror book/film fan, are the ones who distort reality, not the narrator; whether us horror fans, with our love for film and love for horror, take the fictional into the real and warp the boundaries, and whether this might not be as beautiful as it is utterly terrifying. The director of the original cursed film at one point notes that

This movie will communicate emotional truths that can only be communicated by the language of film and of horror. If we do it right, the movie will speak to us now as it would’ve thirty years ago.


And anyone who understands horror films has felt this force; the pull behind the remake, the reboot, the pull of the original that ends in the kind of mythology that envelops certain films. When we watch a horror film, we must believe it in the moment for it to work – everyone knows that – but what happens when that bleeds out beyond the film itself? The consequences of this are significant for the main protagonist of Horror Movie, but what about us? That’s what I can’t stop thinking about after reading this book. Another character notes that

People can’t help but want their fiction and its players to be real…


…they may as well have been talking about me.

But then again, all that could be codswallop, because how can there be enough time in our swift lives to parse this book to the extent it deserves? To give you yet another quote,

The problem when you foolishly think one thing has meaning: you then think everything has meaning.


They must have been talking about a Tremblay book.

Overall, Trickster Tremblay has reached into his postmodern toolkit and brought us the defining horror novel of the decade: a terrifying love letter to the power of scary cinema. At one point we are told that “this movie is not for everyone. This movie is for some of us.” Perhaps, but this novel is for all of us who love horror, and it will echo down the decades.

Paul Tremblay delivers a unique but highly effective horror novel with this dread-infused take on the cursed film genre.
Decades after a group of filmmaker's efforts to make a horror film end in tragedy, the last surviving set member helps shepherd a reboot of the cult lost film.
Tortured by the events of the past, so begins an uneasy and twist filled reveal of the film's original production as the film's original villain The Thin Boy recalls the events that led up to the reboot's shoot.
It's a fascinating and eerie examination of what makes a human monster delivered with Tremblay's always deft hand.
The story unfolds across two timelines, taking in the current day remake as well as the original shoot. Tremblay also includes the film's screenplay, which in many ways parallels the horrors of the shoot itself.
Tremblay has a knack for delivering deep and engaging psychological horror novels and this is another example of that. Highly recommended.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024 and while it didn’t rock my socks off, I did enjoy it.
It’s the best kind of slasher: our narrator leads us through a slow unravelling of sorts. The interweaving of the different points in time was a great way to keep me interested despite the slow pacing at times — I wanted more present day action.
It was bloody, it was twisted, and it was fun.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.