Seth Grahame-Smith - How to Survive a Horror Movie

Copyright 2007 by Quirk Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2006939743

eISBN: 978-1-59474-568-3

Designed by Doogie Horner
Illustrations by Nathan Fox

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v3.1

Theres something Ive been meaning get off my chest. Something thats been eating away at my conscience for decades now. And Ill admit, its not easy to write without getting a little choked up

Im sorry.

Im sorry to the countless people whose lives Ive cut short. The characters whove become unwilling sacrifices to my art: The buxom babysitters. The doubting cops. The overbearing parents and well-intentioned boyfriends. Teens with their whole lives ahead of them. Decent, hardworking adults. All sent to an early grave in the name of box-office gold.

Some made my job a little trickiervaliantly struggling to make it to the end credits. Others did everything but cut their own throatsrunning upstairs when they shouldve run out of the house; falling asleep when their lives depended on staying awake.

Id be lying if I said I hadnt taken pleasure in dreaming up ways to kill them. Disemboweling them. Beheading them. Burning them, shooting them, and crushing them in garage doors. Ive tortured young girls in Last House on the Left. Picked off an entire family one by one in The Hills Have Eyes. Created a child-murdering monster with the power to kill people in their dreams.

Ive built a career on the blood of innocents, and I guess the guilts finally caught up with me.

Sure, Ive tried to make amends before. Tried to give my characters a fighting chance. New Nightmare was the first step toward self-aware horror movie characters. Scream went a step further. For the first time, we had people who knew they were in a horror movie. Even better, they were armed with knowledge of the rules.

And yet they died.

No matter what I do, no matter how much of a head start I give them, it seems my characters always end up on the wrong end of a long knife. And while Im happy that somebodys finally written a guide to helping them survive, I wonder how much good itll really do.

Death finds a way.

Dont let us make imaginary evils, when you
know we have so many real ones to encounter.

Oliver Goldsmith (17301774)

Brace yourself for some bad newsif youre reading this, theres a good chance youve become trapped in a horror movie. I know, I knowit sounds crazy, but youll just have to trust me for a minute, OK? This book has a knack for finding its way into the right handsif its found its way into yours, theres a reason.

Questions. Youve got a million. Lord knows I did. Hows that even possible? Why me? Am I going to die? Nobody knows the answers to those first two. Maybe you fell down a rabbit hole, or took one too many pulls off the ol peace pipe. Or, in the words of Aldous Huxley, Maybe this world is another planets hell. As for the last one? The answers yes, and that right soonunless you do exactly what I tell you over the next 170 pages.

Ive spent the better part of my life (if you can call it that) trapped in the Terrorversesleeping with one eye open and one finger on the trigger. For almost 20 years now, Ive tangled with all manner of ghosts, demons, slashers, and half-retarded hillbillies. Ive vanquished vampires, blown the heads off my share of zombies, even danced with the devil himselfall without a lick of help. And you know what? Im still here, so I figure I must be doing something right.

Ive also watched a lot of good people die (spend enough time in a horror movie, and youre bound to lose two things: friends and appendages). Ive also watched screenwriters and directorsthe invisible gods of this godforsaken landbecome increasingly clever and cruel over the years. So I decided to write down what Id learned, in hopes that new arrivals to the Terrorverse (thats you) would stand a better chance of making it all the way to the end credits. Sharing the skills Id learned from a life spent dodging the kills.

From this moment on, nothing is what it seems. Youre not a human being, youre a characterand filmmakers are doing everything in their power to kill you, even now. Supernatural powers and curses are real, and numbers like 666 and 237 can kill you just as easily as a butcher knife. Log cabins are slaughterhouses, cornstalks are antennas for evil, and aliens never, ever come in peace.

And me? Ill be your guide through hell. Ill teach you how to perform an exorcism, survive a night of babysitting, and navigate a cemetery (without become a permanent addition). Ill teach you how to escape the inescapable, spot harbingers of impending doom, and defeat a haunted house. Most importantly, Ill show you how to make life miserable for the screenwriters and directors who are trying to end yours.

So I suggest you stick close, pay attention, and avoid breaking the Terrorverses only commandment: Thou shall not be stupid.

Now come with me if you want to live

DR. LOOMIS

Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.

HALLOWEEN (1978)

Those of us whove become trapped in a horror movie have a choice: We can either line up with the other cattle and march into the slaughterhouse, or we can fight back. Yes, its a long way to the final credits. No, the odds arent in our favor. But thats no excuse to lie down and let the filmmakers have their way with us. Choose to learn the new rules. Choose to use them in your favor.

Choose life.

Horror movie characters arent killed by machete-wielding monsters or reincarnated psychopathstheyre killed by ignorance. Ignorance of the mortal danger theyre in. Of the butcher lurking in every shadow. Of the new rules.

Ignorance of the fact that theyre in a horror movie.

How do you know if youve been sucked into the Terrorverse? Sometimes the signs are unmistakable. For instance, if youre a teenaged babysitter caring for a mute toddler in a remote Maine cabin during a once-in-a-century blizzard while an escaped killer (bearing a strange resemblance to the handicapped boy you and your friends bullied off an embankment and left for dead all those years ago) roams the woods, youre