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Book Club’s October read is ‘Horror Movie’ by Paul Tremblay
Paul Tremblay will join Gibson’s Bookstore marketing manager and bookseller Ryan Clark on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. for a live streamed discussion.
For Boston.com Book Club’s October pick, we are reading a “chilling twist on the ‘cursed film’ genre” by the author Paul Tremblay.
In the early ’90s, an unnamed narrator is recruited by a group of friends for the role of “The Thin Kid” in their low-budget film, titled “Horror Movie.” The film is never released in its entirety, but short scenes and clips of the project accumulate an underground, cult following.
Thirty years later, Hollywood executives want to remake the film, and bring the narrator back to resume his role. The memories of the filmmaking process – accidents, unexplainable brutality, his role as “the Thin Kid” – continue to haunt him, but still, he advances.
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Tremblay will join Gibson’s Bookstore marketing manager and bookseller Ryan Clark on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. for a live streamed discussion.
Click the following links to jump directly to the below information:
The book | The author | The bookseller | Critics say | Watch the discussion
Buy “Horror Movie” by author Paul Tremblay from Gibson’s Bookstore
What is “Horror Movie” about?
In June of 1993, a small group of people spent a month making a horror movie titled “Horror Movie.” With almost no budget and a skeleton crew, they managed to make their film after a few setbacks and a slew of accidents. While the film was never released, some scenes and a few stills were made available online, and they quickly developed a cult following.
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Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget remake of the film. The man who played “The Thin Kid” in the original film is the only surviving cast member, and remembers the secrets and bizarre events of the filming. But still he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of egomaniacal Hollywood executives 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 that builds inexorably to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.
Who is author Paul Tremblay?
Paul Tremblay has won numerous awards for his books, including the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book Awards.
He is a nationally bestselling author of “Horror Movie,” “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.”
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He teaches high school math and he lives outside Boston with his family.
About Ryan Clark, Gibson’s Bookstore marketing manager and horror bookseller
Ryan Clark has been a “bookish person forever”; she would visit the independent bookstore near her house practically everyday as a child, tuck her nose into a book before beginning her shift at work, and later, devoted her studies to literature as an English major in college.
She joined Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, New Hampshire 12 years ago as a frontline bookseller, and rose through the ranks to become the 126-year-old bookstore’s marketing manager and horror bookseller.
Gibson’s was founded in 1898, and is the oldest continuously operating retailer in the Concord area. The shop is the largest independent bookstore in Northern New England, according to their website.
The bookstore offers new, used, and sale books, as well as an extensive children’s section with games, puzzles, and toys (in 2013, Gibson’s bought local independent toy store Imagination Village to bring educational toys and games into their extensive collection of children’s books).
While Clark describes herself as having “always been the spooky kid, always the Halloween junkie,” she didn’t start fully reading horror until her coworker had handed her “Bird Box” by Josh Malerman several years ago. It was then that she remembered scary books are a thing – “I had forgotten that was a thing I could read,” she said over the phone with Boston.com, laughing.
Fast forward to the pandemic, when she alternated almost exclusively between the romance and horror genres, reaching for opposite ends of escapism: one toward a guaranteed happy ending, and the other to a place “that was scarier than what was happening outside.”
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In 2022, Clark created Gibson’s first-ever dedicated horror section, and has since befriended many horror authors and held horror events at the bookstore.
She said she read Tremblay’s “Horror Movie” in one sitting and called it the first book in years that truly left her scared.
“I messaged Paul, and I said, ‘Hey, you’ve done the unthinkable. You’ve scared me,’” she said. “This book is something special.”
What critics are saying about the book
“In ‘Horror Movie,’ horror master Paul Tremblay plays with perception and reality, fiction and real life opens and swallows us whole. This nesting doll of a novel, a book that Judy Blume and Philip K. Dick might have jointly conceived, tests the limits of what a horror thriller can be, and it succeeds thrillingly. – Marc Weingarten, Boston Globe
“Tremblay is often (and rightfully) recognized as one of the great contemporary horror writers. . . . As I read Horror Movie, I found myself marveling at its high-wire act: The novel hopscotches deftly among three timelines, interspersed with scenes from the screenplay…It takes bravado and skill to layer overlapping narrative frames like this without sacrificing tension, but Horror Movie never once loses its momentum or its way. It’s a smart book, smartly told, and should establish Tremblay as not just one of our great horror writers but one of our great fiction writers, full stop.” – Emily C. Hughes, New York Times
“Tremblay (“The Beast You Are”) raises the bar for the cursed film trope with a novel that cleverly breaks the fourth wall between imaginary horrors and their real-world repercussions. A shocking but perfectly planned twist at the story’s climax makes this one of the most exciting outings in the recent crop of fiction about horror movies. Readers won’t want to miss out.” – Publisher’s Weekly
“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.” — Becky Spratford, Booklist
Watch the virtual discussion
Author Paul Tremblay and bookseller moderator Ryan Clark discussed “Horror Movie” on Oct. 29 during a live virtual discussion.
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