Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

HOW TO MAKE A HORROR MOVIE AND SURVIVE Launches!

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I am excited to share that How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive, my new horror novel from Hachette, is now available in bookstores and at online book retailers everywhere.

In this novel, a slasher movie director plans a very real night of horror, which the scream queen he loves will do anything to survive.

Thematically, the novel explores why we love horror through the lens of one of the great periods in horror filmmaking: the 1980s slasher era. The novel itself is set up to replicate the experience of watching one in the theater, gasping at the surprises and gore while chuckling at the campiness. The story follows the process of making a movie, earning the title. The result, I hope, is just plenty of plain old good fun for readers.

(If you want to get it in Canada, note there is a delay in shipping to Indigo stores! It’ll get there soon…)

What people are saying:

“DiLouie remixes classic horror tropes into a harrowing thriller set in 1988… 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.” – Publishers Weekly

“How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive will appeal to readers who like classic slasher films and books like Stephen Graham Jones’s My Heart Is a Chainsaw.” – Booklist

“Overall, this is an incredibly fun horror novel with some serious messages and themes. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry … you’ll get super freaked out, and ultimately you’ll have a grand old time.” – HorrorBound

“DiLouie has created a celluloid cursed object story that John Carpenter himself would stand up and applaud from the front row.” – Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley

“As a kid whose love for horror began in part with the slasher films of 1980s, How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive is a dream come true. Cursed films, scream queens, and more horror callbacks than you can shake a stick at, this book is many things, but among them, it’s Craig DiLouie’s best and most fun novel to date.” – Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Kin and Sour Candy

“Gory, glorious, and just a little too believable, Craig DiLouie’s latest is a slick meta slasher movie in book form, set in the brutal intersection of art and obsession.” – NYT Bestselling Author Peter Clines

“Confidently striding through the genre, DiLouie displays a deep and abiding love for horror, even as he finds new ways to bend our disgust and despair to his will. The camera cannot turn away.” – Andrew F. Sullivan, co-author of The Handyman Method

“The setting might well be the schlocky 1980s, but DiLouie’s nostalgic dissection of our love of horror is bang on point. How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive is a tricky, twisty book with more levels to it than a slasher movie has sequels. DiLouie knows what makes the genre–and the endless legions of fans like us who crave the next scare–tick.” – David Moody, author of Hater and Autumn

“A brutal and disturbingly funny trip into the dark heart of 1980s Hollywood, How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive deftly exposes a world where art and commerce meet ambition and blood lust. With a director’s eye for Reagan-era detail and a satirical lens that never overwhelms the crackling story, DiLouie brings his cast to glorious life (and, for some unfortunate souls, gruesome death).” – Andy Marino, author of It Rides a Pale Horse

“A dark and heartfelt love letter to horror movies and Hollywood hells, How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive is Craig DiLouie at his best—suspenseful, psychological, and unpredictable!” – James Chambers, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Bright and Beautiful Eternal World

“DiLouie really has outdone himself with this one… How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive is a novel that transcends just fiction. It speaks to those who read, watch and consume horror. It’s a love letter to the fans who don’t care what producers say. To those who don’t want a part four but a new take on an old trope… Loved this one.” – Steve Stred, author of Mastodon
“If you like slasher movies, I would definitely recommend this book for you.” – Cravenwild, complete review here

“An imaginative take on the cursed movie trope, How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive is a bloody, shocking, and surprisingly humorous story about a director who is determined to make the perfect horror movie … a worthy entry in the ‘cursed movie’ trope, don’t miss it!” – Books, Bones & Buffy

Thank you for reading!

GOODBYE EARTH

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Based on the novel by Kotaro Isaka, GOODBYE EARTH, a South Korean dystopian TV series (Netflix), is a real trip. Audiences seemed to hate it based on Rotten Tomatoes ratings, but I found a lot to like, and while the plot meandered, I fell for the charming characters.

In this series, an asteroid is heading toward Earth in 200 days, and Woongcheon, a city in South Korea, is reeling from the turmoil that followed its discovery and failure to destroy it in space. Making matters worse, South Korea is predicted to be ground zero for the asteroid impact, guaranteeing no one will survive. The government and the elites bailed, resulting in an attempted coup and horrific loss of life. Convicts also escaped the jails and went on a rampage, killing and kidnapping children.

In the aftermath of this, the people left behind in Woongcheon struggle with shortages, unavailability of transport out of the country, scams, criminals operating openly, and corruption. The story has an ensemble cast but primarily follows Jin Se-kyeong, a former teacher haunted by the loss of many of her students; her fiance Dr. Ha Yung-sang, a scientist who was stuck in the US during the disruption and who is considered valuable by the elites for rebuilding civilization after the impact; Captain Kang In-a, an army officer leading a defanged support unit trying to maintain order; and Father Woo Sung-jae, a priest forced to take over his parish and hold it together after the main priest vanishes. Their relationships in the community lead us into the lives of many other characters who try to find meaning, joy, and sometimes escape, knowing their days are numbered.

This is one weird show. I was struck by the obvious inspiration it took from HBO’s THE LEFTOVERS, about the people left behind when 2% of Earth’s population suddenly disappear. Struggling to find meaning in such an inexplicable event filled with loss and grief, humanity loses its mind, resorting to cults, oddball religions, and violence. Similarly, the people of Woongcheon experience a lot of the same wild reactions to the looming apocalypse, and ask a lot of the same questions about whether life has any meaning if it ends.

As for the plot, it is all over the place. Storylines come and go. The ending is fairly ambiguous. It’s a frequently titillating and beautiful-looking but ultimately hot mess of a story. I fell for the characters, however, including the many secondary characters, and I enjoyed the frequent interruptions of the disjointed plot where we see them simply living their lives and sharing loving, comedic, or odd moments with each other. This is where the show really shined for me, in the simple humanity and its inherent bravery when juxtaposed with impending doom.

Overall, I like GOODBYE EARTH. Would I recommend it? Cautiously, I guess. There’s a lot to like, but those looking for conventional plotting and a brisk pace may be frustrated.

ERIC

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In the six-part series ERIC (Netflix), a father faces a parent’s worst nightmare as his son goes missing, and he will have to fight not only a hostile city but his own nature to get the boy back. Immersive world building, deft direction and storytelling, and excellent acting elevate this show from something I might not have watched into one I found riveting.

I am typically not into “missing child” stories. As a parent, I find them depressing and filled with anxiety. My partner suggested it, so we gave it a shot, and sure enough, it’s anxiety-inducing all right. But the gritty production, excellent performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and the rest of the cast, and almost perfect portrayal of the beautiful decay of New York City in the 1980s hooked me almost instantly, and it’s an intense ride. It doesn’t rest on the inherently dramatic premise but reaches for so much more.

Cumberbatch plays Vincent, a mad genius-type puppeteer who co-produces a popular kid’s TV show similar to SESAME STREET, called GOOD DAY SUNSHINE. The show provides children with an idealized New York where people take care of each other. The problem is that outside the show, he is a bit of a toxic basket case, detached and irascible with his wife and son. While fighting with his wife one morning, his nine-year-old son walks to school on his own and disappears in the jungle of New York, producing every parent’s worst nightmare.

From there, the show appears to spill and spin in multiple directions as a virtual ensemble cast of primary and secondary characters are introduced, all of whom will play a part in the unfolding tapestry and contributing to the emerging theme that those in power–whether it’s Dad or the men who police or those who run the city–should do better to break negative cycles, particularly neglect. Honestly, at first, it’s all a bit unwieldy, super ambitious and requiring a major balancing act compressed into six episodes, but it all comes together nicely, mainly by shifting the focus of the show from Vincent and his family to Michael, the detective assigned to the missing persons case. His story is as compelling as Vincent’s and even eclipses it, which keeps the drama rising to the climax that neatly ties all the threads together and pays them off handsomely.

Overall, I enjoyed ERIC quite a bit. Part mystery, part social commentary, part redemption story, it’s a gritty, realistic, and compelling drama I found gripping almost throughout.

BUG (2006)

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In BUG (2006), a psychological horror film directed by William Friedkin (THE EXORCIST) and written by Tracy Letts (based on his 1996 play), a lonely woman connects with a paranoid drifter and engages in a race to delusion and madness. This is a good movie about delusion and the dark if occasionally comforting places it can take us.

Agnes (Ashley Judd) lives in a motel and works at a bar. She struggles to find moments of happiness, often aided by drugs and alcohol, after losing her son years earlier to a kidnapping and her ex-husband (a very menacing Harry Connick Jr.) tried to kill her and went to jail. A friend introduces her to Peter (Michael Shannon), who is courteous if incredibly socially awkward. He is so non-threatening and bumbling that she likes having him around; his presence is a comfort.

When her old life threatens to return and rob of her of any control she has left she latches onto Peter, who becomes increasingly erratic, claiming massive forces are pursuing him and have infected him with a strange parasite.

The result is psychological horror, a locked room where the participants have locked themselves inside their own world, and a lot of the room is their shared head space. No matter how crazy Peter acts, Agnes goes along with it, weaving an elaborate conspiracy crashing toward a final scene that is simply breathtaking in its passion and audacity. Judd and Shannon give the roles their absolute all, sweeping us along, and we are terrified, not so much scared for ourselves but for where this is all going for these people who obviously need help.

Overall, I found BUG to be a nice surprise. When I first saw it come out, I pictured it as a typical horror grossout, but it’s far more complex than that, far more psychological, powerful, and yes, relevant. In today’s world, where conspiracy theories get mainstreamed by the internet, you might even find yourself saying, Oh, I know a guy exactly like that.

BODKIN

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In BODKIN, a seven-episode series now streaming on Netflix, an American podcaster and his assistant travel to a small town in Ireland, where they team up with a sharp-edged investigative journalist to explore an old mystery involving disappearances. The result is charming, comical, and a ton of fun, proving that if you make the effort to develop likeable characters across the board, you can do almost anything with them.

Gilbert comes to Bodkin with his assistant Emmy to do a podcast episode on a cold case in which three people disappeared in the small Irish coastal town of Bodkin on Samhain ten years before. They are teamed with Dove as a fixer, a hard-edged reporter for THE GUARDIAN who needs to get out of the UK for a while, as she’s being investigated by the government after her whistleblower source commits suicide. They get a whole lot more than they bargained for, uncovering smuggling, an ancient gangster feud, and more. The slow, charming, and often comical build pays off in the latter episodes, when all hell breaks loose and the tension and the reveals come to a head.

The three main characters are terrifically strong yet wonderfully flawed in different ways, subtly crafted, and the many colorful people they get to know in Bodkin makes for a good mystery with plenty of light as well dark moments that never get too light or too dark. The result is honestly something special, a true crime drama that throws the true crime drama out the window to stake out its own identity. Honestly, it’s a ton of fun, and I’d happily recommend it to anyone.