Spooky Season Calls for a Spooky Scary Review: A Review of Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

The ‘ween approaches! My favorite day of the year is almost here. Now I do have to spoil something, this is going to be the last review of Spooky Season 2025. Don’t worry, I have some extremely fun things planned for the next two weeks here on RHRML. But as I said, I have one final Spooky Season review for you, Book Nerds.

Please give a warm welcome to Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay!

As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on this site then you will know I love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. This is your one and only warning. First, I do have a quick content warning for today’s book. Horror Movie has mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation. It only comes up at the end of the novel, but please note it is there. Please take care while reading. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.

In the summer of 1993, a small group of filmmakers set out to create a groundbreaking psychological horror movie. With only four weeks to film, the cast and crew worked around the clock to create their masterpiece. This art-house film, also called Horror Movie, would never see the light of day though. Despite that, the movie would become infamous. On set accidents, deaths, rumors of curses; Horror Movie is definitely on the list of cursed film sets.

In the present day, only one member of the cast remains alive. And despite only three scenes ever being released, horror fans have gone gaga for what they’ve seen and want a full feature length reboot of the film. That’s where “The Thin Kid” comes in. He’s the last surviving cast member of the original film. He remembers the horrors that occurred on set…and after. But when Hollywood comes calling, asking him if he wants to be in the movie’s reboot, he accepts.

What follows is The Thin Kid revealing everything that happened during the filming of the original ill-fated movie. All those dark secrets, all those terrible accidents that happened during production, the truth about how someone was brutally killed; it’s all told. All those dark, disturbing details see the light of day. Some for the very first time. And what also happens? The reboot’s filming is seemingly cursed as well. Is this film actually cursed? Or are all these accidents, both in the present and the past, more sinister in nature? Are these accidents caused by humans being the worst? Find out in Horror Movie.

So…nothing happens in Horror Movie. When I first opened this book I did anticipate there to be build up to multiple reveals. I expected a slower paced read. I was fine with waiting a little while before learning what exactly happened on the original set of Horror Movie and other such things. But that build up continued for nearly the entire book. Seriously, only the last forty or so pages had anything going on. That’s insane! That feels illegal! I spent well over 200-pages for virtually no pay off. I am genuinely upset about this. I feel lied to about the plot of this book. Technically speaking, yes, Horror Movie does reveal what occurred on the original movie set. And yes, the actor who portrays The Thin Kid is obsessive about the role and the original film, as is promised in the official synopsis, but this all comes at the cost of my time and 200-pages of nothing! It really feels like Paul Tremblay sat there are wrote a huge f-you to horror fans because the only scary thing about this book is lack of substance.

Me looking for any interesting thing about Horror Movie:

Let’s talk about The Thin Kid now. His real name is unknown, and he is the story’s POV character. Despite being the one to tell the story, I feel I know nothing about him or his motivations. Nor was there any sort of character development or character arc. The lack of a clear motivation is what bothers me most. I can appreciate, and understand, that The Thin Kid is an unreliable narrator. We as readers don’t know what exactly is true in his story, and we really only know the few things that he tells us about himself; though as he’s an unreliable narrator I do take everything he says with a massive grain of salt.

But his motivations! I still don’t know what exactly his motivations are. Fame? Fortune? Notoriety? He’s simply insane and does everything because he can? All of the above? I’m not sure. It’s not clear why does what he does in the end. Nor is it clear why he even wants to reboot Horror Movie. I have so many questions, and I’m never going to get any answers.

How I felt after reading Horror Movie:

In defense of Horror Movie, the pacing is well done. The book reads incredible fast. I’d say Horror Movie being a fast read is its only saving grace. Had the read been slow, and I was forced to slough through pages and pages of nothing, then I would have hated this read more than I already did. A slow read mixed with pages and pages of nothing truly would have been terrible. The fast pace at least made me believe something would happen soon, even though nothing ever did.

Horror Movie is incredibly overhyped. As I said earlier, this book feels like a big f-you to horror fans. I do not recommend this read. The story is a big nothing burger, the main character has so many issues, this book is just not good. Horror Movie is an absolute disappointment. 

Paul Tremblay, you deserve the shame bell for this one.

With that, I shall bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, Book Nerds. I hope you all enjoyed the last review of Spooky Season. I shall see you all again next week with something fun for the countdown to Halloween. If you can’t wait that long then go on and give Reading Has Ruined My Life a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). I post there almost daily so come back often to revel in literary goodness. You can also give the blog a follow on Twitter and BlueSky (@RHRMLBlog). If you’d like something not related to books then I highly suggest checking out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. The show stars me and two of my dearest friends as we talk anything and everything. May I suggest listening to listening to our Scooby-Doo reviews? We’ve covered Zombie Island and The Witch’s Ghost which have those perfect Spooky Season vibes. You can listen to the show on Spotify and YouTube.

With that, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me. 

See y'all then, bye!