The Scare Salon

Horror Movie, according to Tremblay, was inspired by the infamous behind-the-scenes stories involving the filming of 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This book isn’t really anything like that movie, however; don’t get me wrong, it is somewhat violent, but it’s much weirder and more metafictional. The multilayered structure of it vaguely recalls A Head Full of Ghosts, in which someone is interviewed for a book about a possession-based TV show that was filmed fifteen years ago, and there are interspersed blog posts and such. Similarly, in Horror Movie, we’re hearing the perspective of someone in the present talking about a movie he starred in thirty years ago, and the screenplay of the movie becomes integrated into the story. In other words, some chapters are set up like a regular novel, while some are laid out like a screenplay, and the reality and the plot of the movie start to bleed into one another in intriguing ways.

At the beginning of the novel, we’re in the present day, and our narrator (who I don’t think is ever named) is talking to some producers who are discussing a planned remake of Horror Movie, a film he made with his friends back in 1993. Although the very low-budget movie was finished back then, it was never released for reasons that become more apparent as the story goes on. However, due to a few brief, chilling scenes and stills being uploaded to the internet over the years, Horror Movie has taken on an almost mythical status among horror fans, especially due to the series of tragic accidents that befell the production. Our narrator, in fact, is the only person involved in the original film who is still alive.

The narrative then jumps back to 1993 to set up the circumstances of the film. The director is a young woman named Valentina, and her best friend Cleo wrote the screenplay. Their friend Karson is also playing a significant role in the production. They are all very keen to make something different, something really unsettling, something utterly unlike the run-of-the-mill horror flick.

The narrator only knows these people tangentially, but they approach him with a proposition. They want him to play a major part in the film, starring as the nominal villain, The Thin Kid. The narrator is indeed quite tall and gaunt, and Valentina and Cleo think he will be absolutely perfect for the movie, even though he’s never acted before. The narrator is initially hesitant but finally agrees.

The crew is using a spooky abandoned school as the setting for most of the film, and Cleo says that it was in this very school that she found a key prop that’s going to be used in the movie. Said prop is a very disquieting mask, which The Thin Kid is going to be wearing for pretty much the entire runtime. The narrator isn’t sure if Cleo is pulling his leg about the mysterious way she found the mask, but he has to admit that it looks really creepy when he’s wearing it, and after a while, he really starts to take to it, sort of using it as an opportunity to reinvent himself, or more likely let the mask subsume his identity.

The plot of the movie they’re making concerns a group of high school kids (Valentina, Cleo, and Karson playing themselves) who, for unstated reasons, bring a classmate of theirs, only known as The Thin Kid, to this abandoned school. They force him to strip down to his undies, wear the monster mask at all times, and mostly stay locked in a closet. Every day, the three friends come to the school and abuse The Thin Kid in various ways, but oddly, The Thin Kid never fights back or tries to get away. He seems resigned to his fate, doing pretty much whatever they ask him to do without complaint. As a matter of fact, he never says a word.

It’s clear that the friends have some end goal in mind with their treatment of The Thin Kid, and it’s implied that something like black magic might be involved. As time goes on, The Thin Kid begins to transform, and as things happen in the movie, aspects of the (fictional) plot begin seeping into reality in various ways. Events get stranger, bloodier, and more nebulous as we barrel toward the conclusion.

Along the way, we also occasionally revisit the present and follow the progress on the remake, as well as pop into different time periods to check in with what happened to each of the principal players after the movie was finished.

As I mentioned, Horror Movie is not set up like a traditional novel; it jumps back and forth in time, hops from novel to screenplay and back again, and at times refuses to explain exactly what’s going on, even hinting that in some respects, the narrator may be unreliable. This ambiguity works wonderfully in the book’s favor, though, giving it an eerie vibe that really stuck with me for a while after I read it. Even though it doesn’t give the reader all the answers, there’s enough there to get the gist of the situation. The way I described it sounds like it would be difficult to follow, but it isn’t at all; as long as you’re paying attention, you’ll be able to go along with the story just fine.

If you like Tremblay’s style I can’t see why you wouldn’t love this book as well; it’s very much in line with what he’s written before, but with a fun, sinister, cursed film angle to it. It explores some deeper issues about memory and identity, and the thin line between fiction and reality, but it can absolutely be read as a straightforward horror story as well if you don’t want to engage with all its layers. A great read, and one I highly recommend.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.