Description

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A chilling twist on the “cursed film” genre from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club and The Cabin at the End of the World.

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? 

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful feat of storytelling genius that builds inexorably to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion

About the Author

Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the nationally bestselling author of The Beast You Are, The Pallbearers Club, Survivor Song, Growing Things and Other Stories, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. His novel The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted into the Universal Pictures film Knock at the Cabin. He lives outside Boston with his family.

Praise For…

"Paul Tremblay's Horror Movie is a brilliant piece about the masks we know about and the masks we don't, the ones we're forced to wear for a lifetime because of our depression and the things we create to make sense of terrible things. He captures the fugue of being young, of finding a bridge to immortality when you're invulnerable, of making mistakes you can't take back. It is intimately heartbreaking and beautifully written, and it's scary in a way that attaches itself to your shame and self-loathing and just starts eating away. It's extraordinary." — Walter Chaw, author of A Walter Hill Film

“Paul Tremblay is one of the most terrifying horror writers of his generation and his new chiller, Horror Movie, is a reason for excitement.” — Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“In the hands of Paul Tremblay the story of a lost movie becomes a reflection on fear, the monsters we all are, and an investigation of what is a ‘horror novel.’ It’s bold, fearless, a bit sad, and very, very scary.”
— Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of Night and Things We Lost in the Fire

"Tremblay returns with a terrifying novel about the creation of art and its effect on all it touches. . . A suspenseful story that is marked by its relentless unease and disturbing revelations about the characters, yes, but also about the readers themselves. An immersive reading experience that will forever alter the way those who encounter it watch horror movies." — Booklist (starred review)

“Horror Movie is not only a haunting, unsettling, and utterly absorbing novel—it is also a twisted manifesto for art and the parts of ourselves we shed in order to create it. It messed with my head and I loved every minute of it.”  
— Clémence Michallon, internationally bestselling author of The Quiet Tenant

“Spooky, heavily atmospheric, and loaded with dread, Horror Movie digs deep into the feeling horror gives us to examine how art imitates life and the disturbing result when life imitates art. Tremblay’s best work yet.”
— Craig DiLouie, author of How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive

“Macabrely funny and incredibly smart, Horror Movie cements Tremblay's place as a master of horror. It encapsulates the unease of right now -- a runaway culture of self-reference with bloody hands. It's everything a horror novel ought to be: lean, mean, and genuinely scary.” — Sarah Langan, author of Good Neighbors and A Better World

“A profound, heart-wrenching, terrifyingly honest novel that’s also a cinematic page-turner. Horror Movie zooms in on creation and consumption, integrity and ego, admiration and obsession, and how the desperate search for connection through art can be beautiful, or disastrous. This book is a gift and a curse.”  — Rachel Harrison, nationally bestselling author of Black Sheep

“Balancing a terrifying cursed film with examinations of artistic creation, fandom, and truth, Tremblay’s latest is smart and well-paced and will have broad appeal.” — Library Journal (starred review)

“Uncertainty is Tremblay’s stock-in-trade. Over the last decade, he has grown from hot new thing to horror icon without compromising on his uniquely inexplicable nightmares.”  — Esquire

"More than a dozen horror stories—weird, self-referential, expertly told. [The] quirkily magisterial title entry delivers a grim vision of hubris and collective apathy . . . It is all, frankly, riveting. . . . What seems to matter, in all these stories, aren’t the specifics of a grisly end but the emotions they conjure, the way they tinge our own reality after we turn the page.” — New York Times on The Beast You Are

“A tremendous book―thought-provoking and terrifying, with tension that winds up like a chain. The Cabin at the End of the World is Tremblay’s personal best. It’s that good.”  — Stephen King

“The Cabin at the End of the World… will shape your nightmares for months—that’s pretty much guaranteed. That’s what it’s built for. And there’s a very, very good chance you’ll never get it out of your head again.”  — NPR