Paul Tremblay is such a unique storyteller. It takes a lot of visualizing to stay focused until the end and I have to admit, I skipped to the end to see if I wanted to continue. I did not see where the story was going and it was quite a shock. Definitely not a book I would casually recommend but great for horror lovers.

The whole time reading this, I was thinking "Paul Tremblay's doing a Stephen Graham Jones thing", and then wouldn't you know it he shouts out SGJ in the acknowledgments at the end. It works! He doesn't seem quite so AMPED about horror films as a genre as SGJ that he has to lay on the movie facts and tropes quite so thick, and the lighter hand is effective. Tremblay effectively manages two timelines and a semi-unreliable narrator to keep up tension, though the last act does take some turns that are a little out there. I enjoyed it.

This one unfortunately wasn't for me. I loved his Head Full of Ghosts, but I'm finding these books that are just using depravity make me dread picking the book up and this was no exception. I wanted to like this, but even the twist at the end fell flat for me.

Tremblay is one of my favorite authors and I love that his work is always a crazy mix of “you know exactly what you’re gonna get” and “you never know what you’re gonna get.” I know when I’m reading a Paul Tremblay book I am going to have an unreliable narrator and an open ending that leaves me second guessing everything. But somehow, even knowing all of that, his books always seem fresh and surprising to me. I don’t even try to make predictions when I’m reading because I know nothing I anticipate will match the brilliance of a Tremblay ending. His books get to me that much.

Horror Movie was no exception. A few reviewers are calling this slow burn, but to me I felt like it got to the point quickly and kept me hooked from the beginning. A group of young people are making their own horror movie and, from the jumping back and forth in time, we learn pretty early on that it was unfinished and is considered by the horror community to be a “cursed film.” We are revisiting that “curse” with an unnamed man that played a character called the “Thin Kid.”

To me, this book was an amazing, oftentimes really uncomfortable look at how society can turn people into literal monsters, how sometimes you live with the pain of feeling so left out and “othered” for so long that it changes you. It had that classic “holy shit, did that just happen?” ending that Tremblay’s books have become known for and I honestly absolutely loved it.

*Huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review*

**3 out of 5 stars**

I went into "Horror Movie" by Paul Tremblay with high expectations, having heard great things about the author's ability to craft a compelling and unsettling narrative. While the book did deliver on some of those expectations, it ultimately fell short of being a truly unforgettable reading experience.

The premise of a notorious, unreleased horror film with a cult following is intriguing, and Tremblay does a great job of building tension and suspense as the story unfolds. The protagonist, the man who played "The Thin Kid," is a complex and well-developed character, and his struggles to come to terms with the dark secrets of the film's past are both haunting and relatable.

Where the book stumbles is in its pacing and character development. At times, the story feels overly reliant on info dumps and exposition, which can slow down the pace of the narrative. Additionally, some of the supporting characters feel more like caricatures than fully fleshed-out people, which makes it difficult to become invested in their stories.

The themes of trauma, grief, and the blurring of reality and fiction are all well-explored, but they feel somewhat heavy-handed at times. The writing is atmospheric and effective, but it doesn't always feel like it's serving the story rather than just trying to be creepy.

Overall, "Horror Movie" is a solid read that will appeal to fans of horror and suspense. While it may not be Tremblay's best work, it's still a compelling and unsettling story that will keep you turning pages. Just be prepared for some slow patches and a few underdeveloped characters.

This was a great idea for me but it was a bit too much for me to. I wanted to love this book so much but it fell dark in the way I was not expecting. Not for me.

Where do I even begin? Reading this felt like watching an unsettling movie where you just want someone to get out alive, but then they go back in to save a friend from a haunted house and never come back out. The visceral frustration I felt jumping back and forth from the movie script, past interactions between characters, and the current whereabouts of our main character drove me up the wall in the best of ways. This style creates a very slow burn that forces the audience to question how monsters are created and who they really are. It helps that we are primarily in the protagonist’s head who, while incredibly unreliable, paints a deeper picture of the monstrous nature of humans and society. This is also the sort of book that you may have to put down a couple of times and will probably have to read more than once to soak everything in.
Tremblay is the type of author who writes books you either love or hate. For me, his writing always makes for atmospheric audiobooks and I wish I had listened to Horror Movie rather than reading it. The story would have come alive for me much more and my rating would have been a bit higher! For me, this one came in at 3.5 stars as the concept was incredibly cool, but the format was lacking for me. Had I listened to this, it likely would have been a 4-star read!
Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this ARC to read and review!

This is what I shared on Instagram & Goodreads. I will have a full review soon closer to pub day and before my "in-conversation" with Paul on June 22nd in Seattle:

📼HORROR MOVIE📼
..
Today is my birthday! 🥳 I’ve been saving HORROR MOVIE by @paulgtremblay for my special book treat and it did not disappoint. I don’t want to spoil any of the unexpected moments so I’m just going to tell you who will love this book:
📺🍿Readers who enjoy horror movies
📺🍿Fans of Paul Tremblay’s The Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, The Pallbearer’s Club, and A Head Full of 👻
📺🍿Short chapters & screenplays
📺🍿Fast paced binge-reads
📺🍿Found objects/Cursed
📺🍿Horror that punches you in the guts
📺🍿Horror that makes you FEEL
📺🍿Books that feel like A24 movies
📺🍿Scenes that make you flinch
📺🍿When you care so much you want to yell at the characters in the book
📺🍿ENDINGS
📺🍿Great quotes (see my Goodreads updates)
📺🍿Unique, thought provoking, and memorable

Would make a great movie. I wasn't a fan of any of the characters. This was very predictable, but the storytelling was great.

Preliminary thoughts: I really hope this never gets made into a movie because I don't know if any of us can handle it.

Typical brilliant Paul Tremblay book. Horrifying, wry, melancholy, and with great references and not just the inevitable horror movie mentions in a book about making a horror movie.
Readers familiar with the genre, both of movies and books, will sense some things coming and they will almost feel inevitable. Other things will remain a surprise. Still more things will remain unexplained.

Ultimately, this is an actor's recollection of being part of a cult, unreleased horror movie that was cursed during production, and cursed after. When we meet our narrator, and I just realized writing this that I don't think we ever learn his name wtf, he's the last surviving member of the original production. In the present, he's being swept up in attempts to "reboot" and make the movie as it was intended and to release it; in the past, he's recruited by a college acquaintance to play the Thin Kid in a horror movie she's directing because he is tall and gangly and will bend to her will.

The movie itself revolves around three teens that have the same names as the people involved: Valentina the director, Cleo the screenwriter, and Karson who does the makeup. They are part of the evolution of the Thin Kid, someone we meet before he's turned into a monster but we never know his name or see his face. We see the mask, and what the mask and the acts do to him. The making of the movie and the story of it changes them all. There is something unnatural at work here.

So that's scary, the movie within the book is unnerving, and it's always asking us questions about creation and art, about acting, about why we like movies and in particular why we like horror movies. Why sometimes we pretend we're too cerebral to think much of them, and other times why we think they expose the human underbelly. It makes us confront the perspective as the watcher and question the enjoyment we get from horror. Some of us know the answers to these questions and can live with them. Some of you are going to think about it.

Horror Movie is high-minded and intelligent without being distant or pretentious - I would actually describe it very similarly to the way the character of Cleo is: above it all but not thinking it's better than. It's easy to sink into this story and this narrator's voice, and when you get to the end it feels inevitable. Another fantastic book from Paul Tremblay. He's one of my all time favorites for a reason.

Content warning for gore, violence, and suicide.

The "cursed movie" subgenre of horror is one of my favorites and thus I have read A LOT of it, so I was extremely pleased that Tremblay crafted such a fresh and unique take on the subgenre. I wouldn't call it so much a slow burn as a deeply atmospheric exercise in dread that makes you feel like something is ABOUT to happen without the relief and release of something concrete occurring. I absolutely loved the screenplay and the intimate characterization it gave of its tortured author despite us never actually meeting her. Great body horror descriptions, too!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

I kept reading hoping I would like this book and I feel like it left me more confused with more questions! Was it supposed to do that or did I just not get it?

I had the hardest time getting into this book and I almost DNF’ed it. It did start picking up around 40%. However as I sit here in a daze after finishing it I feel like this definitely wasn’t a book for me.

This is a seriously slow burn book and takes forever to get going. Then it goes between present, past (movie mode), the normal past in between movie takes and the not so distant past where he goes and visits someone from the movie.

I’m gonna give this a 3/5 because I loved the concept but I felt like I was confused about 75% of the time.

Every time I thought I knew where the story was going, I was surprised. Very tense and couldn't wait to find out what would happen next; I was very creeped out with the ending.

Wow! What a riveting read. I blew through this. I really haven't read anything like it and I'm glad for it. I especially loved the five minute scene iykyk! Maybe they will turn this into a movie.....do I want that?? 😱

Thanks for the ARC Paul and Publisher!

Overall rating: 4/5

Wow… Paul Tremblay just wrote a book that felt like watching one of those old school 70’s creature feature slashers and I loved every second of it. I have to give such high praise to multiple areas of this book but primarily to its structure. I love books that follow this back and forth, “now vs then” format but what made this even more unique was that it added in the screenplay scenes and an interview/blogger/documentary style narration. This added to the immersion of Horror Movie and kept you on your toes of what was happening next. The only downside is that I really wish this had a little something more to it. It was creepy, it was vile in some areas (okay the real pinky scene made me nauseous), it was suspenseful but it wasn’t a horror movie horror to me. Don’t get me wrong I loved every second and I can’t wait to get a physical copy of this so I can dive in again but the best part of horror is the fear and dread it can exude. Maybe this book was not meant to do that and in turn do so much more in so many different ways? Regardless, Horror Movie is a hit and I hope everyone enjoys meeting the Thin Kid he is such a character.

This was a creepy and unsettling book. Enjoyed the alternate POV between the screenplay and Thin Kid. I liked that he was nameless. It made it creepier somehow. Parts of this were totally unhinged and kept me coming back for more. The ending left some things to be desired but overall, it was solid and fans of 90’s horror should enjoy this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for my copy of this ARC

This book left me disturbed and confused, but in a good way. I love horror movies, especially slashers so l was hoping this book would give me that feeling those types of movies do. It definitely achieved that!
The book is told in parts of the past and present, and with pieces of the screen play scattered throughout the chapters. The order of the chapters threw me off a little but l'm assuming the timeline of things was purposeful to give the book it's confusing and eerie vibe.
The ending was interesting and left you with an unsettling feeling. As a whole, the book really makes you ponder the monsters inside us and who people really are on the inside. There were a few things I wished were expanded on like the origin of the mask and the meaning behind the teens doing what they did to the Thin Kid.
Overall a good choice if you love disturbing and unsettling horror movies!

While I love horror and I quite enjoy Paul Tremblay, this book was a DNF for me. Filmmaking and Hollywood are so far removed from my way of life, I have a very difficult time relating to the characters. The complaining and the egos drive me insane. The story of the mask intrigued me, just not enough for me to stick with it.

Super uncomfortable read that is basically just a bunch of bullying. I was expecting more of a creepy haunted film set vibe, instead I was reading about unhinged characters treating our MC like crap in an uncomfortable/psychological bullying way. Will not recommend sadly but appreciative for the opportunity to check it out.

It seems like a trend recently to have horror novels about cursed horror movies and what happens when people reboot them or try to finish the original production. Out of all the examples, Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay is definitely my favorite. It just had this extremely eerie atmosphere throughout the entire story that I really enjoyed.

The story takes place both in the early 90s when a group of guerilla filmmakers set out to make Horror Movie and in the present day when the movie is being rebooted. Only one of the original cast members is still around, and we get to see his view on how the movie became this cult phenomenon online even though only 3 scenes of it were ever released. It was fun to see the commentary on the horror community, horror conventions, and the experience of having a book adapted into a movie. There were definitely some comments in the book that seemed like Paul Tremblay referencing what happened when his book The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted into the movie Knock at the Cabin.

Something that I appreciated about the book was the feeling of ambiguity and going back and forth on what I thought was real and what was manufactured. Also, the book includes a lot of the script for the movie, but it isn’t written in the traditional screenplay format. It adds so much to the creepy atmosphere of the story. What happens in the movie is so unsettling along with all the things surrounding the production that started to go wrong.

I definitely recommend this book! It’s a fascinating take on the “cursed movie” subgenre. There are compelling characters, disturbing moments, a unique writing style, and interesting commentary on horror movies and Hollywood. Overall I had a great time reading this book.