Midnight Movie

Tobe Hooper. Three Rivers, $14 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-307-71701-6

Lauded screenwriter and director Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) debuts with a movie-like novel featuring a fictionalized Tobe Hooper. At a screening of Hooper's first film, the obscure Destiny Express, audience members exhibit bizarre behavior and soon hot zones of aberrance—low-grade terrorism, zombies, STD-induced hypersexual mania—begin to spread across America. The only thing the various Case Zeroes have in common is having been present for that fateful screening. Hooper and his diverse cast may be the only ones who can bring an end to the plague they inadvertently helped unleash. Hooper leaps from one viewpoint character to the next, never lingering on one scene long enough for the reader to become bored or for the characters to become developed. Though constrained by the conventions of the genre, Hooper demonstrates an undeniable talent, using established horror tropes with considerable skill and ingenuity. (July)

Reviewed on: 04/18/2011

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