I greatly enjoyed Craig DiLouie’s Episode Thirteen, and liked how he converted the found footage genre into a novel. So when I heard that he had a new one coming out I had to get my hands on a copy. How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive came out this week, released through Orbit Books.

Once again, DiLouie messes with expectations, plays with tropes and makes lots of horror film references as we follow Max, a director, Sally Priest, an actress who would like to be a Final Girl instead of the Bad Girl in horror films, and the production of Max’s new film.

Set in the 80s at the height of the slasher era Max is tired of the current tropes of the horror franchise where the audience ends up chearing for the baddie instead of being frightened of what could happen next. He’s partially respinsible for it, his Jack the Knife character is celebrating its second sequel going up against the likes of Freddy and Michael.

He has to deliver another one thanks to his contract, but he wants to do something to revitalize the genre, and he may have just found the way to do it. When he hears about a long lost and forbidden film, Max wants to track it down, but only clips and outtakes seem to exist, as well as a very special camera that its final moments were shot on.

Final moments that were horrific, tragic, and now indelibly burned into celluloid and the camera forever. It’s cursed. It can manipulate the images in the frame to bring about death and murder in a Final Destination kind of way.

Testing the camera, getting the financing, and finding the perfect location for the finale, the real world location of the Salton Sea, Max with script in hand begins filming his story, and plans to record the real-life deaths of his cast for the film’s bloody resolution. No special effects needed.

Like his character Max, DiLouie works to do something different with the genre, knowing and bending some of the rules while honoring it, playing with it, and showing a real love for horror films, books and all forms of storytelling.

Balancing cinematic horrors with those of film production and the industry, DiLouie tells a fascinating tale that is by turns bloody, and poignant. The characters have layers and show more depth than their cinematic counterparts of the time. It ruminates on horror, what it means, and how we deal with it. The differences between film scares and the real world tragedies that scar us and horrify us for years to come.

But DiLouie also has a playful sense of humour as shown in the book’s kills and the final pages of the book, while also commenting on the fact that the ghosts of the past, captured on celluloid, or in our memory, are always with us.

I didn’t love this one as much as Episode Thirteen, but it was still an incredibly fun read. DiLouie very clearly loves the genre and filmmaking and it’s a delight to venture into the worlds he creates.

How to Make a Horror Movie and Survie is available now from Orbit Books.