How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive
A Novel
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- USD 9.99
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- USD 9.99
Descripción editorial
From Bram Stoker Award‑nominated author Craig DiLouie comes a darkly humorous horror novel that sees a famous 80s slasher director set out to shoot the most terrifying horror movie ever made using an occult camera that might be (and probably is) demonic.
Horror isn't horror unless it's real.
Max Maurey should be on top of the world. He's a famous horror director. Actors love him. Hollywood needs him. He's making money hand over fist. But it's the 80s, and he's directing cheap slashers for audiences who only crave more blood, not real art. Not real horror. And Max's slimy producer refuses to fund any of his new ideas.
Sally Priest dreams of being the Final Girl. She knows she's got what it takes to score the lead role, even if she's only been cast in small parts so far. When Sally meets Max at his latest wrap party, she sets out to impress him and prove her scream queen prowess.
But when Max discovers an old camera that filmed a very real Hollywood horror, he knows that he has to use this camera for his next movie. The only problem is that it came with a cryptic warning and sometimes wails.
By the time Max discovers the true evil lying within, he's already dead set on finishing the scariest movie ever put to film, and like it or not, it's Sally's time to shine as the Final Girl.
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DiLouie (Episode Thirteen) remixes classic horror tropes into a harrowing thriller set in 1988. Middle-aged Max Maurey, known for his series of low-budget Jack the Knife slasher films, is appalled that audiences are cheering and laughing at the violence in his latest sequel. He feels like a hack, but his seedy producer, Jordan Lyman, won't let Max explore his true artistic ambitions. He's inspired, however, when he encounters Sally Priest, an aspiring actor who believes, like Max, that "horror is only horror if it's real." At an estate sale for a reclusive director, Max buys the camera that recorded the infamous film Mary's Birthday, which ended in tragedy when the actors were sliced to bits by a disabled helicopter. Despite the message scrawled on the case ("Never use this camera"), Max decides to try it out—and discovers that people he points the camera at die gruesomely. It's just the kind of truth he's been searching for in his work, so he sets out to make a movie that will upend cliché, casting Sally as his final girl. The cursed object set up feels familiar, but readers will be pulled in by the morally twisted characters and serpentine plot. Film buffs will especially enjoy this paean to '80s slasher films and the people who love them.