breakinglight11 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
breakinglight11) wrote2025-02-27 10:22 am
breakinglight11) wrote2025-02-27 10:22 am
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Finished Paul Tremblay's "Horror Movie"
And I was pretty disappointed.
It wasn't a bad read, but ultimately an unsatisfying one for me. I rolled my eyes when the screenwriter in the story scorned the idea of making the motivations of her characters clear, but it appears the writer of the novel agrees. I couldn't figure out why most of the characters did the things they did, particularly the narrator, which made them feel less believable.
I also didn't love how often the main character elided conversations and moments that seemed like they should be important with... quick summaries of what was said or done. I know that it's supposed to be an unreliable narrator literally speaking the words of his own audiobook, but it felt to me like the author just didn't know how to actually show the moment rather than just tell us what we were supposed to get from it. And it's not like the author wasn't willing to sacrifice verisimilitude of form in other places-- if the in-book screenplay was supposed to be good, rather than waaaaaaaaay overwritten and self-indulgent, it was definitely willing to overwrite in the service of this being a novel rather than an actual screenplay. As a filmmaker and screenwriter myself, that is NOT how effective ones are written.
And, totally personal gripe, but again, as a filmmaker myself-- any filmmaker who doesn't care about the safety and on-set experience of their crew is a FUCKING ASSHOLE who does not deserve that crew's time or effort. The filmmakers in this story were definitely of that stripe, and I don't think it was acknowledged nearly enough in this story how abusive that is. I think we were asked to have way too much sympathy for those characters for that awareness to have been present.
It wasn't a bad read, but ultimately an unsatisfying one for me. I rolled my eyes when the screenwriter in the story scorned the idea of making the motivations of her characters clear, but it appears the writer of the novel agrees. I couldn't figure out why most of the characters did the things they did, particularly the narrator, which made them feel less believable.
I also didn't love how often the main character elided conversations and moments that seemed like they should be important with... quick summaries of what was said or done. I know that it's supposed to be an unreliable narrator literally speaking the words of his own audiobook, but it felt to me like the author just didn't know how to actually show the moment rather than just tell us what we were supposed to get from it. And it's not like the author wasn't willing to sacrifice verisimilitude of form in other places-- if the in-book screenplay was supposed to be good, rather than waaaaaaaaay overwritten and self-indulgent, it was definitely willing to overwrite in the service of this being a novel rather than an actual screenplay. As a filmmaker and screenwriter myself, that is NOT how effective ones are written.
And, totally personal gripe, but again, as a filmmaker myself-- any filmmaker who doesn't care about the safety and on-set experience of their crew is a FUCKING ASSHOLE who does not deserve that crew's time or effort. The filmmakers in this story were definitely of that stripe, and I don't think it was acknowledged nearly enough in this story how abusive that is. I think we were asked to have way too much sympathy for those characters for that awareness to have been present.