Whisper House Press

Book: October Film Haunt

Author: Michael Wehunt

Publisher: Macmillan Publishers

Publication Date: September 30, 2025

Capone’s Rating: 5 of 5 ⭐s

Sub-Genres: Folk Horror, Tech Horror, Supernatural Horror, Meta-Horror, Social Horror, Haunted Film, Cosmic Horror

This book is ambitious, first and foremost, and it works.

Jorie Stroud was a member of the October Film Haunt team, a three-person investigative crew who made their podcast living checking out the shooting locations and real-life settings of horror films. When we pick up the story, years have passed, and Jorie has been in hiding. Why hide? Well, things went bad when the trio followed Proof of Demons to its origin and reported from the scene of the Pine Arch Monster. Something went wrong during that haunt. Jorie and Co. were pilloried online, threatened, and forced underground. Since then, Jorie has put the horror life behind her. The novel’s inciting incident is the arrival on her doorstep of a videotape. Proof of Demons… is it getting a sequel? Fanatics who were so threatening toward her in the past are back, and they’re outside her Vermont hideaway. Jorie doesn’t want to be a part of the new horror film, but she might not have a choice. Things escalate quite a bit from there, and I was drawn into the fray.

The elements that work about this story are easy to spot, and the weaknesses are sparse if they exist at all in any meaningful way. Breadcrumbs are laid masterfully. Characters about whom we care are put in actual danger. Blood and guts do erupt, but to great effect—at no point do we get the sense they’re sacrificed for plot purposes alone. The convolutions are surprising without being absurd. The tone is just serious enough.

The theme, according at least to this reader, is worth your time, too: Wanting to belong is dangerous, and the need to belong affects the most vulnerable among us.

And the book is scary. I don’t often say this. I read some 80-100 horror books per year, and the last one that really left me feeling spooked to any extent was Malerman’s Incidents Around the House. This book hit the same notes of discomfort for me. (I don’t diss books that don’t scare me; in fact, those of you who read my reviews might already know I don’t actually like to be scared—but truly, if a horror writer is able to scare me, it’s impressive, given the sheer amount of horror content I consume on a daily, weekly, yearly basis.)

For fans of Silver Nitrate and the meta-horror and close-third perspective of Stephen Graham Jones’ Indian Lake Trilogy. This book feels like a bit of that vibe mixed with Paul Tremblay’s Horror Movie and Grady Hendrix’s Final Girl Support Group. This book ticks all the boxes for this reader.

I’ll be using bits of this for my Horror Literature class, for sure.

Five stars. Would recommend.