by @lonestarcryptid, curator of HOWLS Book Club nominees for September’s “Lights! Camera! Terror!” category
Since the late nineteenth century the world has been haunted by the hypnotic glow of motion pictures. More than a century ago, before the first talkies whispered their siren song, celluloid first captured the horrors of the human imagination. Since then the cinematic medium and horror genre has been a match made in heaven (or hell). As a lover of both cinema and horror fiction, I was excited to see several new and recent releases at the intersection of film and literature. In this list I present six horror stories about or involving movies. So grab your popcorn and settle in for a frightening feature presentation.
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all-but-invisible to her best friend Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, even though she’s been in love with him since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbour is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he has a way to change their lives—even if his tales of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend . . .
As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristan might find out that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies . . . (StoryGraph)
~
As a fan of Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic and cursed media tales, this one sounds awesome! I also had the opportunity to meet the author on her book tour and really enjoyed hearing about all the research that went into this book.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Burn the Negative by Josh Winning
Some remakes aren’t just a bad idea…they’re deadly.
Journalist Laura Warren is mid-flight to LA when she learns that the streaming series she’s about to report on is a remake of a ‘90s horror flick. A cursed ’90s horror flick. The one that she starred in—and has been running from her whole life.
As a child star, Laura was cast as the lead in The Guesthouse. She played Tammy Manners, the little girl with the terrifying gift to tell people how the Needle Man would kill them. But her big break was her last, as eight of her cast and crew mates died in mysterious ways, and the film became infamous—a cult classic of fictional horror that somehow summoned the real thing. Hoping to move on from all the negative press, Laura changed her name and her accent, dyed her hair, and moved across the Atlantic Ocean.
But some scripts don’t want to stay buried.
Soon after landing, Laura finds a yellow dress just like the one she wore in the movie. Then the words “She’s here” scratched into the wall in an actor’s trailer. And then people working on the series start dying. It’s all happening again, Laura’s worst nightmare brought to life, and she finds herself on the run with her sister and a jaded psychic, hoping to find answers—and to stay out of the Needle Man’s lethal reach.
An homage to slasher films with a fresh take on the true price of fame, Burn the Negative is a twisty thriller best read with the lights on. (StoryGraph)
~
This new release from Josh Winning (The Shadow Glass) sounds like an awesome combination of cursed media and slasher!
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
IN AMERICA, DEMONS WEAR WHITE HOODS.
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan’s ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan’s demons straight to Hell. But something awful’s brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.
Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world? (StoryGraph)
~
This dark fantasy novella is a quick and awesome read! When I attended acting/film school one of the movies we learned about in our history course was D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. For the uninitiated, it’s a racist film about the “heroic” KKK. It’s shocking to consider that a film about such disturbing subject matter is still studied as a seminal entry in the annals of cinematic history. While some might point to the technical and artistic innovations of the film, I prefer Clark’s take which sees the film for what it was: a harbinger of a rising demonic tide in America.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
The Devil’s Playground by Craig Russell
The Devil’s Playground is Craig Russell’s tour de force, a richly researched and constructed thriller that weaves through the Golden Age of Hollywood and reveals a blossoming industry built on secrets, invented identities, and a desperate pursuit of image. As Mary Rourke charges headlong through the egos, distractions, and traps that threaten to take her down with the doomed production, she discovers a truth far more sinister than she—or we—would imagine. This is Craig Russell’s strongest novel to date, and one that will resonate with American readers.
1927: Mary Rourke—a Hollywood studio fixer—is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about…a terrifying horror picture called The Devil’s Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma’s cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true.
1967: Paul Conway, a journalist and self-professed film aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumor. He has heard that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground—a Holy Grail for film buffs—may exist. He knows his Hollywood history and he knows the film endured myriad tragedies and ended up lost to time. (StoryGraph)
~
A historical Hollywood horror noir! Set in the Golden Age, this book sounds like a delight for anyone interested in old Hollywood or noir fiction.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Curse of the Reaper by Brian McAuley
Scream meets The Shining in this page-turning horror tale about an aging actor haunted by the slasher movie villain he brought to life.
Decades after playing the titular killer in the 80s horror franchise Night of the Reaper, Howard Browning has been reduced to signing autographs for his dwindling fanbase at genre conventions. When the studio announces a series reboot, the aging thespian is crushed to learn he’s being replaced in the iconic role by heartthrob Trevor Mane, a former sitcom child-star who’s fresh out of rehab. Trevor is determined to stay sober and revamp his image while Howard refuses to let go of the character he created, setting the stage for a cross-generational clash over the soul of a monster. But as Howard fights to reclaim his legacy, the sinister alter ego consumes his unraveling mind, pushing him to the brink of violence. Is the method actor succumbing to madness or has the devilish Reaper taken on a life of its own?
In his razor-sharp debut novel, film and television writer Brian McAuley melds wicked suspense with dark humor and heart. Curse of the Reaper is a tightly plotted thriller that walks the tightrope between the psychological and the supernatural, while characters struggling with addiction and identity bring to light the harrowing cost of Hollywood fame. (StoryGraph)
~
My favorite slasher film series meets my favorite Stephen King book? Yes please! This one sounds like a lot of fun!
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
Our story begins in 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, the Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.
Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.
A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period-inspired illustrations, Plain Bad Heroines is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant read. (StoryGraph)
~
This one has been on my TBR since it came out! It’s multiple time periods, sapphic, comedy, and film elements sound right up my alley!
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
And The Winner Is…
Out of these six books, HOWLers voted to read Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Discussion starts on September 4th, and you can read along by joining the Discord!
*The HOWLS Bookshop.org affiliate storefront pays a 10% commission to HOWL Society and gives a matching 10% to independent bookstores