Horror ABCs: Horror Movie
Written by Emmapanada: 2/11/2025
Hello and welcome back to the horror novel review series, Horror ABCs! In this series I go to the horror section of various bookstores near me and use a random number generator to find a random horror novel to read and review! Today’s entry is Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, his most recent horror novel release after the film adaptation of his novel The Cabin at the End of the World.
Horror Movie is my first introduction to Paul Tremblay. While I was vaguely familiar with a number of his other works, and I saw the trailers and heard friends talk about Knock at the Cabin, I hadn’t actually read or watched anything else related to him. After reading this book I decided to read some other people’s thoughts online and learned that Tremblay appears to be a bit of a controversial writer in the horror space. Controversial not in that he’s said or done anything negative, just in that his works are either really loved or really hated. Horror Movie, understandably, seems to fall on the side of being hated more than loved by many.
Horror Movie tells the story of a group of 20-somethings in 1993 as they attempt to film a horror movie of their own. The film, for some reason, was never fully released to the public, instead living on in 3 scenes and the screenplay which were released online in 2010. These pieces of the film gained online notoriety as Horror Movie quickly grew a large and ravenous online fanbase. However, everyone involved with the film has tragically died except for our main character, the unnamed man who plays the Thin Kid in the movie. Years after the release of the screenplay and scenes various producers in Hollywood want to remake Horror Movie and are seeking Thin Kid’s cooperation in its production. Over the course of various production meetings taking place, we learn more about the man who played the Thin Kid, as well as what happened during the filming of the movie.
The narrative of this book is disjointed, largely following 4 different timelines. One is set in 1993 while the group is making the movie. Another in which we slowly get to read the screenplay. The third where we can see what the main character has been up to since the filming of the movie, and finally the last which is set in the current year as he helps with the remake. The constant switching between the timelines regularly interrupts any conflict or tension that arises in the narrative, leaving those timelines on cliffhangers that never fully become interesting again once your return. The book regularly almost becomes interesting, hinting at various threads and plots and ideas that I would get excited about, but then would drop them or direct away from them to something much more common and less interesting.
One of my biggest frustrations with the book is with the screenplay timeline. I could never tell if it was written in such a misinformed way because the characters were young and uninformed, or if it was because Tremblay was awful at writing screenplays and understanding human behavior. Within the text the screenplay is written strangely purposefully and with intention, regarded highly in the current day timeline. As I read it however, I was regularly confused when it would paint a character as sympathetic and downtrodden in the dialogue and scenes description, but then have a note left in the descriptive text of the screenplay saying things such as ‘the audience hates this character, like us, and feels nothing but anger and disgust.’ I was regularly confused by the screenplay’s description of how the audience should feel in certain moments, and thought whoever wrote it clearly didn’t understand audiences. For a while I thought it was, again, simply the characters being ill informed and naive. However, the text says that the screenplay is beloved by people online, and so I must wonder if Tremblay is just that out of touch.
There are parts that I liked about this book. For the majority of it I thought I’d be giving this 3 stars. It was fine, I was engaged with the narrative, the various cliffhangers at the end of chapters would keep me interested, and the themes it was hinting at were interesting and I was excited to see how various plot points would connect or reveal themselves toward the end of the novel. However, the last few pages were such a disappointment that I considered giving this book 1 star. The ending was extremely abrupt, uninteresting, and uninspired compared to what the rest of the book had built up. Reading online I saw I wasn’t alone and a lot of other people felt the same way. The book does have people that love it and I feel it isn’t right for me to give it 1 star when, upon a reread with knowing where things go, I might appreciate it more. However, I have no plans to reread it.
For all these reasons, I give Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay 2 stars. A book that I enjoyed certain bits of, but was largely underwhelmed by. Others may find this much more interesting than me, and if you’ve loved a lot of what Tremblay has written in the past you may also really appreciate this one. I plan to one day read Head Full of Ghosts or another highly regarded work by Tremblay to better understand his methods and style, but for my first introduction to him I was disappointed.
The Emmapanada Rating Scale:
5 Stars means that I thought this book was excellent, and it had a profound emotional impact on me.
4 Stars means that this was a really, really good book. The characters and narrative were well established and explored, and I had an amazing time reading it.
3 Stars means that this was a solid book. I had my problems with it, but overall I would still recommend it to certain people and I think it’s worthwhile.
2 Stars means I was disappointed by the book for a number of reasons. However, there were still one or two things about the book that I enjoyed and I can understand that even though I didn’t enjoy it fully, I could see others liking it.
1 Star means that I really just did not connect with this book in any way.