Synopsis
Horror Movie meets the scope and emotion of Stephen King in this heart-pounding, magnetic tour de force novel, destined to become an instant classic, about a woman pulled into a cult horror film that is determined to have a sequel, by critically acclaimed author Michael Wehunt.
Ten years ago, Jorie Stroud was the rising star of the October Film Haunt – a trio of horror enthusiasts who camped out at the filming locations of their favorite scary movies, sharing their love through their popular blog. But after a night in the graveyard from Proof of Demons – perhaps the most chilling cult film ever made, directed by the enigmatic Hélène Enriquez – everything unraveled.
Now, Jorie has built an isolated life with her young son in Vermont. In the devastating wake of her viral, truth-stretching Proof of Demons blog entry — hysteria, internet backlash, and the death of a young woman — Jorie has put it all, along with her intense love for the horror genre, behind her.
Until a videotape arrives in the mail. Jorie fears someone might be filming her. And the “Rickies” – Enriquez obsessives who would do anything for the reclusive director – begin to cross lines in shocking ways. It seems Hélène Enriquez is making a new kind of sequel…and Jorie is her final girl.
As the dangers grow even more unexpected and strange, Jorie must search for answers before the Proof of the movie’s title finds her and takes everything she loves.
This riveting and layered horror novel unleashes supernatural terror in a world where truth can be manipulated, and nothing is as it seems. Beautiful and horrifying, with an unforgettable cast of characters, The October Film Haunt will shock and delight readers all the way to its breathless final page.
“So unique and steeped in 21st century paranoia and dread you won’t be able to read this alone at night.” – Paul Tremblay
“The horror in here is palpable, but the writing itself is just as scary: How can one pen have this many good lines in it?” – Stephen Graham Jones
Review
Michael Wehunt’s The October Film Haunt is a love letter to horror films and creatives. Yes, it’s a slasher book by way of cosmic horror and cursed media, but it’s an ode, first and foremost. Wehunt has a clear affection for the horror genre and film medium, born from watching The Exorcist when he was seven. I think most horror fans are created at an age most would consider too young to be socially appropriate, which is only fitting for a genre often viewed as an outcast and a bastard. We horror hounds confront those scary things in the dark and greet them on our own terms, driven by curiosity as much as defiance, throwing caution to the wind because we want to be scared. We need to stare into the abyss just to see if anything really does stare back. Horror frightens as much as it entertains. Wehunt gets it.
His characters get it, too. Jorie Stroud was a dyed in the wool horror fanatic and, ten years ago, an Internet celebrity thanks to her October Film Haunt website. She would trek to the real-life locations of found-footage horror films with her friends and try to recapture the feelings those movies brought about. One such film, Proof of Demons, and its director, Hélène Enriquez, developed a cult following and Internet urban legend status thanks to Jorie’s writings and video essays, which culminated in a tragedy compounded by a drug-assisted suicide by one of her pals. Forced to confront real-life trauma, Jorie’s love of horror died and she put all that behind her. She’s left her abusive husband to raise her son in Vermont and work as a freelance editor, making ends meet clerking at a grocery store. She’s spent the better part of a decade in isolation, far removed from the online horror community, building a new life where nobody knows or remembers her. Or so she thinks, until a VHS tape arrives in her mail and a string of disappearances across the country are linked to Proof of Demons. The fans of that film are attempting to create an all-too real sequel to bring the Pine Arch Creature into our world, and they’ve found Jorie, their final girl and film star.
The October Film Haunt is one of those books that almost feels like it was written just for me. Wehunt has taken a few of my favorite horror subgenres – slashers and cosmic horror – and melded them together into something smart and literate that, dare I say it, elevates them both. He understands and utilizes the customary tropes expected of such material, but there’s a certain freshness to them thanks to his strong character work. The book is a bit of a slow burn at first, with Wehunt taking the time to let us really get to know Jorie and her son, Oli, and the traumas that have upended her life. There’s an unsettling eeriness to her falling victim to stalkers hiding in the woods and recording her every movement, and the increasingly viral nature of the social media hashtags breaking into reality to promulgate the summoning rites to bring forth the Pine Arch Creature.
By the time physical violence strikes close to Jorie and the cult of Enriquez claims its first victim, it’s visceral, tense, and scary, even as it echoes Wes Craven’s Scream films or a Benson and Moorhead production. Wehunt does this knowingly, of course, with The October Film Haunt functioning as a meta horror novel, with the story echoing previous genre efforts in ways that mimic the call-and-response used to summon the Pine Arch Creature. Jorie Stroud knows all the tropes and knows that she’s in a horror movie come true. It may be an accident on her parents’ part, but certainly not Wehunt’s, that her name is so damn similar to final girl supreme, Laurie Strode. She’s the kind of final girl Jade Daniels would love.
Even with its callbacks to slasher classics and focus on a demonic entity and summoning rituals, The October Film Haunt feels wonderfully grounded. Despite being targeted by nutjobs, Jorie still has to go to work, still has to deal with her boss, still has to get forced into making small talk with the neighbor, and make sure her son is fed and clothed. She wryly notes at one point that she has to live through all the movie’s deleted scenes. Her life is upended, but the day-to-day dealings of living go on. And then there’s the cult she has to contend with, too. The masked psycho gimmick in these types of stories are, of course, rooted in real-life terrors. Masked, knife-wielding assailants stalking and breaking in – these things can and do happen. It’s a common fear, and one that reminds us that there is no safety in this world, least of all in our own homes. Clad in bedsheets and wearing pointed crowns made of sticks, the imagery of these cult members coming out of the woods to attack, one can’t help but think of their real-life analogs in the KKK or red hat-wearing MAGA acolytes or tiki torch wielding racists marching down the streets. They’re scary because they’re real. We maybe even know some of them.
What’s scarier, though, is the nature of the Pine Arch Creature. Not the creature itself, but the essence of the creature, the things it embodies, the way it welcomes you with its reassuring callback to the summoning’s opening gambit of “I belong with you” with “You belong.” The creature offers transcendence, but it promises acceptance. The horror genre has long been counterculture, and the horror community has proven itself, over and over, to be an ally, much to the chagrin of the anti-woke crowd. For far too many in a self-proclaimed Christian nation (many of whom have shown they truly only worship a pedophile, rapist grifter and helped propel him to the highest office of the land, because what’s more Christian-American than that?), we horror fans are outcasts, degenerates, and devil worshippers. Our books are easy targets for school and library bans, our movies too often dismissed and derided by mainstream critics. But within this circle of horror, we recognize one another, we see each other. Gay, straight, trans, it doesn’t matter. You’re a horror fan? You’re in. You belong. Troubled by trauma and suicidal ideation? You belong. To see that policy of open arms twisted by psychotics and eldritch terrors turning it all inside out for its own devious purposes, the horror – writ large – becoming an abusive lover – that’s scary. We see it happening on a national level now, under our current administration so rife with fascism. It’s terrifying to imagine our final refuge, this safe space built on terrors otherworldly and human, turned similarly and weaponized against us in violent idolatry.
The October Film Haunt is easily one of this year’s scariest books, not just because of what Wehunt puts readers and characters through, but because of all the subtext that haunts its passages and prose. There’s what the book is about, and then there’s what the book is really about. It’s meta and metaphor. Beyond being a damn good story that hits several of my own personal sweet spots, it’s chillingly invasive thanks to Wehunt’s literary-cinematic style and mixed media elements in the form of blog posts, Reddit threads, investigative reports, and the like. I don’t often feel that sense of creeping dread or the need to look over my shoulder when reading a horror book, but I certainly did here. I couldn’t help but feel watched as Wehunt blurred the lines between fiction and reality, slowly but surely ratcheting up the tension and eeriness in absorbing fashion. This book isn’t just a crowning achievement, it’s damnably haunting and wicked as hell.
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