“Horror movie” was peculiar and unexpected. But not in a good way. I'm confused and have mixed feelings about the whole thing. So much so that I don’t know how to review it properly, but I’ll try.

First of all, I listened to an audiobook edition on Audible. Based on some other reviews, there are two audiobook versions of it out there, and they are very different in how they are acted out by the actors. I apparently got the “standard” version, without any weird noises and repetition etc., but I did get two different narrators, one male and one female. They worked well together, especially because the novel is basically 50% screenplay and 50% memoirs, and it goes back and forth between timelines and in and out of the movie. The style of acting and style of writing too changes appropriately, which I really liked.

The male narrator, as the man who played “The Thin Kid” in the movie, reads it in first person, quick and colloquially, while the female narrator basically reads from a script, slower, more pronounced and neutral - like an omniscient narrator. It's quite a noticeable difference made even more distinct by the narrator's tone of voice, tempo and accent. He did have a jarring accent to me, though, and exaggerated a bit too much for my tastes, but the she was amazing.

My main issue with this book is its structural complexity, which I’ve just outlined. It’s hard to pay attention to the different narratives and perspectives. Even harder to get invested in any of the characters, since some of them are written both as regular characters and as actors.

And you need to pay attention to details here, or you’ll miss a key point, a nuance, a deeper meaning, some clever social commentary, a philosophical statement or even a major plot point. In some ways, it’s like watching a movie, where if you look away or make any noise at the wrong time, you’ll miss a gesture or something important happening in the background or fail to hear an important sentence or whatever.

So that was frustrating and confusing. It felt like I was always a step behind the author, and I had too many questions I couldn’t answer. Why is he spending so much time talking about that, how is that part of the movie relevant, why are they saying these things? What does it all mean? Argh! I must have missed something! Again!

And don’t get me started on how unreliable the male narrator/main character is.

Just don't.

To be fair, there are some very interesting comments here, made by the author or to be made by the listener/reader - which I can say in general terms - about fear, death drive, identity, bullying, art, capitalism or about the act of watching or reading horror movies/books, about hidden or dark motivations. It's all disturbing on a more speculative level, concerning subculture and subconsciousness. It's kinda meta. Even performative, as if by engaging with the text, we gather some kind of momentum and manifest darker forces within us.

It’s all about our psyche as viewers.

I will say, though, that there were one or two times where I was genuinely intrigued because of this, as I started to figure things out and I felt like an audience member in a movie theatre in limbo, cursed to watch a movie from hell. And I felt like I was slowly becoming a monster, or slowly being convinced that I am one.

As if our memories (the reader and the characters) of the events in the film and our own lives serve as loops to be stuck in, possessed or obsessed by. Can we separate ourselves from our own masks, identities, memories, trauma? Can we see ourselves as in control and responsible for all our actions in that case? Not knowing what our motivations are is what makes it uncomfortable. When we repeat things often enough or do things on instinct, you might realize with a shock there's little free will involved, as if you're not in control of who or what you've become or where you are. It's like “walking into a dark room and having the light turned on suddenly”.

Here's a quote from the book that exemplifies what I'm trying to convey:

“Thoughts and events have a way of gathering momentum. And the brain’s
natural state is one of perseveration, not preservation. Cleo wants to
say “my theory is that we’re in hell. Some of us are demons, and some
of us make demons, because we don’t know what else to do."

So that was sweet, but most of the time I didn’t get it, and I didn’t care.

Simply put: a boring enigma!

One last thing. I don’t think I would call this a horror novel. It’s more like an experimental documentary and/or literary thriller. I don't think I can recommend this if you like horror. I was rarely or never unsettled, scared, grossed out, shocked or overwhelmed by existential despair. There was too much set-up than build-up leading to the climax, if that makes sense, and I rarely wanted to know what happened next. I just wanted to know what actually happened and why things happened and what the point was. The whole book is creative and cool conceptually, but not very entertaining.

“Fuck fun. Fuck it to hell.”