“A movie is a collection of beautiful lies that somehow add up to being the truth, or a truth. In this case an ugly one. But the first spoken line in any movie is not a lie and is always the truest,” (Tremblay 7).
Only three scenes from the 1993 indie horror film Horror Movie ever made it online, but that didn’t stop it from growing a fanbase. Three decades after it’s initial release, Hollywood comes calling in hopes of filming a reboot. The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member and he remembers when he was offered the role that would change his life and the lines that were crossed while filming, but he’s determined to help get the film made and honour the artist vision of it’s creator. What could possibly go wrong?
I really wanted to like Horror Movie more than I did. It’s a great concept, a cursed film a la Poltergeist, a movie that has never actually been seen in it’s entirety but obsessed over nonetheless, a screenplay with some anachronisms. It’s a lot of good creep factors, but sadly Horror Movie only partially delivers on true scares.
I enjoyed the screenplay sections the most. I loved getting to know what Cleo, the screenplay writer, had scripted out and seeing that play out in the past filming scenes with The Thin Kid, but I had a problem with the back and forth. The present chapters in particular failed to suck me in, I just didn’t care all that much with our narrator speaking to different Hollywood Directors and Producers promising to keep the vision of his movie alive. Part of me wonders if this is self-biographical in a way of any meetings Tremblay may have had when his novel The Cabin at the End of the World was turned into a movie. I did really enjoy the narrator’s scenes in the horror section of a convention floor, Tremblay sure gets the convention atmosphere! The past scenes and the screenplay are what hooked me, I wanted to see what happened on the film set and why The Thin Kid chose to do what wasn’t really required of him during the shoot all in he name of filming a good movie.
But it falls off the rails at the end, or it did for me. I won’t spoil it, but the book takes a bit of a turn and I really wasn’t a fan of what our narrator was doing and what ended up happening. And even some of the past scenes needed a little more oomph. A hundred more pages of detail really could have padded out the story.
Horror Movie had the potential to tell a really cool story about a cursed film, but it never reaches deep enough to give any scares or have much heart to it.
Publication: June 11 2024
Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 277 pages (Hardcover)
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Mystery
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.
The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.
The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions — demons of the past be damned.
But at what cost?
Sarah O'Connor 