(Warning – spoilers ahead.)
The unreliable narrator of Horror Movie wonders, “Will the movie be something you take with you, that stays with you, burrows into and lives in a corner inside you?”
He’s referring to the Hollywood production that he was a part of. But we could ask the same about any horror story because the best works stay with us.
The Plot
In 1993, the unnamed narrator is recruited to play the “Thin Kid” in an independent film aptly titled Horror Story. The screenplay is full of dark themes, a contrast to the bright idealism of the young filmmakers.
In the fictional story, a group of artsy high school friends place an unsightly mask on one of their own, stand him in the dark corner of an abandoned school’s cluttered classroom, and spend long nights turning him into a monster.
Something for worse transpires on the set and the production ends with lifelong consequences for all involved.
Only three of the film’s scenes are ever released. Yet Horror Movie takes on a life of its own, morphing into urban legend on Reddit boards and film school classrooms. Now, thirty years later, the Hollywood machine is rebooting the story and the “Thin Kid” is back.
The Takeaway
The worst monsters are the ones we create ourselves. Perhaps the idealistic filmmakers were attempting to put flesh on the bones of that theme. But that is not the true heart of Horror Movie the novel.
The story’s brutal truth is in the narrator’s scars, whether real or imagined, and in disturbing story beats such as:
There was a terrible, awful silence, and I could see out of only one eye because blood had splashed into the other…
Horror Movie is the kind of novel readers will either love or hate. Fans who require straightforward horrors won’t fall in love with this one.
If, on the other hand, you allow your monsters to lurk at the edges of your vision, always scuttling away a half-second before you get them in focus, you’ll love this one.
It may be something you take with you, that stays with you, that burrows into and lives in a corner inside you…