in the early 90's, a small group of friends who get together to shoot an indie horror movie are plagued throughout filming by increasingly violent mishaps due to bizarre choices and unhinged disregard for safety practices; present day, the only surviving member of the film's cast and crew - who is now involved in the high budget hollywood remake - gives us his version of the unsettling events that occurred both on the original set and in his life up to this point.
i did not have a good time with this, my dudes. it was all so, so bleak. i felt miserable and sick while reading, and that's not the kind of experience i look for with horror - or any other genre. i respect that that very much IS what some people want, but personally i require some fun or hope or heart etc in the mix to make the desolation worthwhile. i also found much of the plot predictable, particularly the Big Thing At The End, so that was kind of a drag. the story is told through the surviving cast member's memories and his book narration, with chunks of the original movie script woven through all of it, which was cool, and there was some fairly stellar prose that i enjoyed, but as a whole it was just not an enjoyable experience for me at all.
maybe i should give up on tremblay because i have consistently disliked the few books i've read, but.. i dunno, i just keep thinking "maybe THIS one will be The One." a couple of people have gotten lowkey genuinely angry with me for continuing to give his books a chance - and then giving them low ratings when i don't care for them - when i already 'know' that i don't vibe with his style, which like. i suppose it's valid for people to be annoyed by that, but i don't really think that passing altogether on books that have a cool premise just because i didn't care for a couple of the author's other titles is ideal either? SHRUG!!!
if this sounds like your cup of tea, please don't let my review discourage you from reading, but for me - 🦷🦷
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