Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay Review: "Everything Was Done for a Reason"

JUST WANNA PREFACE THAT THERE ARE NO SPOILERS IN THIS POST!

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay is the story of a small group of amateur filmmakers making an art-style horror movie in the 90s. A film that was never released but gained a fandom when the original director uploaded the screenplay and 3 scenes of the movie to YouTube.

We follow the only living person from the original '90s unreleased film as he helps create a remake.

I want to start this review off by saying it was not a bad book...but it also wasn't great either, at least for me. And if you like or love it, please don't take offense, we all have different tastes, it just wasn't for me. The first and only other book I've read by Paul Tremblay was "Cabin at the End of the World" and I loved that one. First I saw the movie adaptation by M. Night Shyamalan and loved it, after finding out it was a book I knew I had to read it! My experience with that book made me excited to try this new release by him and I have to say it was a letdown. But that's my fault, I made my expectations much too high. Again it wasn't a terrible read, the ending of the book made it worth it. It starts very mysterious and you're constantly craving answers, just wanting to know what happened during the making of the original, why it wasn't released, and why the heck was the screenplay written like this.

The book jumps between past and present timelines with pieces of the screenplay added throughout. And you do little by little start to learn everything that happened and where he is now in the remake journey. But geez, the movie they were creating was strange, it didn't have much of a story, they just started doing terrible gruesome things to a friend of theirs and the whole time I was wondering "Why?". Why are they doing these things to him, what is the story, and what is their end game? Throughout the book, the screenwriter and director, Cleo & Valentina, are referred to as geniuses. I don't want to be a hater, but why?

It made me wonder if Paul Tremblay wrote this book to criticize the Art House Style of Horror or the movie industry in general. The danger and trauma actors are put through for the sake of "art", or the lengths that method acting can go.

I do have to critique the screenplay a bit, it didn't seem normal, and there were a lot of descriptions and thoughts written in it but not much dialogue, I understand the setting of the scene, but that's not what that was. I felt the screenplay would have made more sense as a book.

Either way, in the end, I have to give it 3.25 stars. It was slow, and there were plenty of moments where I wanted the description of the script to hurry along and just tell me what happened. The book was eerie with weird disturbing acts and behavior, the ending was interesting and I liked it. I do recommend it if you like slow art house-style reads and are okay with not getting your questions answered. But if you want a spooky mysterious horror set where weird haunted-like things happen, or like a haunted or cursed video tape type thing, this ain't it! lol

I think that's what I expected and most likely the reason I didn't love this one. If you've read this one and felt differently or the same, please comment below with your thoughts, I'd love to hear your take!!

Disclaimer: I do not have a degree in English or Journalism, I am just a girl who likes to read and talk about them! Let's be Book Besties!

#paultremblay #horrorbooks