I’ve read a few of Paul Tremblay’s novels. He’s a horror writer with literary style—often a tough sell (at least in my experience.) Horror Movie is a compelling read. The conceit is that a group of young people decide to film, well, a horror movie. Things go awry, but not in a funny way. The story unfolds interlaced with the screenplay and with the overlay of the modern remake in the works. It’s easy to get lost between the narrative account of what happened in the original shoot and what’s happening in the script. Tremblay uses this technique very well, blurring the reality and movie aspects in a way that’s got to be intentional. I particularly like his asides about the redeeming value of monsters. I won’t say too much about the plot since you may want to read it yourself. It does riff on the “cursed movie” trope.
The truly remarkable thing to my regular readers will be that I finished a new book within a month of publication. Normally I run a couple to several years behind. And this novel contains several winks and nods to other horror movies. It pays to know the canon. In that sense, it reminds me of the movie Scream, one of the more self-aware horror classics. (I have had Scream out for watching again for several weeks now, but time has a way of slipping away.) Tremblay, like Stephen King, taught before becoming established as a horror writer. Maybe there’s hope for some of yet! I started writing novels in middle school—perhaps there’s still time. That seems to be one of the themes of Horror Movie, by the way. It has many elements of a parable.
I found Tremblay’s first horror novel, A Head Full of Ghosts, about four years after it was published. Indeed, I was working on Nightmares with the Bible at the time, so a book about possession was appropriate. Horror Movie is more a monster tale but it’s also about movies and reality. This is territory I often traverse since, it seems to me, movies are more than mere entertainment. Good ones are, anyway. And like some other books I’ve read lately, this one is also a reflection on fame (something I wouldn’t know about). How it’s not what it’s made out to be. In other words, if you’re willing, Horror Movie is the kind of novel that will make you think. I appreciate that Tremblay is giving us thoughtful horror and I’m looking forward to trying to keep up.