The 31Days of Halloween: Day 12

Halloween is the best time of the year. It's a wonderfully indulgent time, where your inner ghoul is given societal license to be put on display. To celebrate it to it's wicked fullest, the Midnight Cheese will be posting every day in October with excellent ways to enjoy the season. Whether it's horror films, video games, books or activities, check back every day for some new Halloween fun.

How to Survive a Horror Movie by Seth Grahame-Smith

Some of you might wonder why I waited this far into October to present the one book which might increase the survival rate of those who have unfortunately become trapped within a horror film. "Don't you want everyone to survive this Halloween season, Chuck?" No. What sort of horror film would this be if everyone made it? Survival of the fittest, which in this case is the horror nerds.



How to Survive a Horror Movie came at the tail end of the "How to Survive ______" crazy of pocket sized books. You might recall every subjected imaginable had one, from college, to marriage, to action movies and more. They were good for a laugh but none of them were important and meaningful in the way this book is. You see, if you've accidentally stepped into the terrorverse (The universe all horror films reside in) your chance to survive is approaching nil.

That's where Seth Grahame-Smith comes in. You might have seen his name attached to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the latter of which should be required reading for all horror and vampire-o-files. Here he takes you step by step, explaining the rules of the Terrorverse and how to identify if you've become trapped in it. Once you ascertain that, the individual sub-genres are divided into separate chapters. So we get into detail on slasher killers, inanimately evil objects of death, ghosts/zombies/reanimated denizens, out of this world aliens and monstrous beasts(vampires, mummies, wolfmen, Oprah) then we finish up with demons, satanic rituals and the devil.

Each of these topics are handled with such excellent wit, tongue firmly planted in cheek. The situational examples are all from very famous horror films, without calling them out by name. Much of the fun I have is quizzing my wife to see if she can figure out which reference comes from which film. It's blatantly obvious that Mr. Grahame-Smith is an enormous horror nerd himself and he takes great pains to craft a book which we would all love.

Illustrations are peppered throughout, they're fantastic and stylish- contributing to the built in camp factor. If you're looking for an inexpensive Halloween present or a fun book on horror with a lot of mileage, you really need How to Survive a Horror Movie. It's compulsory reading in my household, except for my cats. If they could read it, I'd have to reference chapter 3 and we'd have a problem.