Thirty years ago, a group of young filmmakers made a guerilla-style, low budget horror movie. The plot was simple: three teenagers take a fourth friend to an abandoned school. They take his clothes, leave him locked in a storage room, they abuse him. They have a goal in mind that is slowly revealed as the movie progresses.

The filming was catastrophic and the movie was never released. Years later, as she was dying, the director put the screenplay and three scenes on YouTube and an urban legend is born. Now, Hollywood wants to “reboot” the project and brings in the one surviving cast member: The Thin Kid, the movie’s monster.

If you are looking for a smooth narrative, this is not for you. There are pages of the screenplay, which include not just stage directions and set details, but paragraphs and paragraphs about the characters’ motivations and the audience’s emotions. There are flashbacks to the original filming that tease you along, hinting at what might have happened – trial? true crime podcasts? – but leave you speculating.

The Thin Kid meets with the new director and they seem to be on the same page about their approach to the film. The director wants to stay as close as possible to the original (which has never actually been seen by anyone other than Thin Kid and the director), but she really has no idea what that entails. There are plenty of clues and hints about the original filming, but none of that will come close to preparing you for what will happen on set. This one was really hard to read in places, because the plot of the movie is pretty brutal, but it was a fascinating read.

I recognized Tremblay’s name when I picked up the book, but had to look through my library for it. I read and reviewed A Head Full of Ghosts a while back (holy cow! almost 10 years!) and I’m sure a lot of people have read Cabin at the End of the World or seen the movie, Knock at the Cabin, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I am definitely going to be checking out some of the books in between – adding them to my enormous TBR list – because Tremblay definitely has a thing for weird horror that I really enjoy.

This book came from my personal library.