How to Survive a Horror Movie by Scarlett Dunmore

✦ BLURB ✦

Horror movie buff Charley Ryan isn’t expecting much when she’s enrolled at a girls’ boarding school on a remote island. That is, until someone starts killing off the senior class. From elaborate scare tactics to severed heads in fridges, these gruesome murders are straight out of Charley’s favorite films. To top it off, she’s also seeing the ghosts of her former classmates.

No one’s surprised when Charley’s taste in movies makes her the prime suspect. Determined to clear her name, she sets out to find the killer before her campus becomes more graveyard than school. She’s equipped only with her encyclopedic knowledge of horror cinema and the help of her trusty cinephile best friend, Olive—oh, and those pesky ghosts, if they can shut up long enough to lend a helping hand.

With a plot twist sure to make you SCREAM, this is an addictive love letter of a slasher that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

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📚 It’s all fun and games until the slasher tropes stop being theoretical.

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✶ PRE-READING ✶

I live for metafictional horror - the kind where the characters know the rules, but the rules still win. Throw in a ghost or three, a remote boarding school, and a best friend who probably deserves her own spin-off, and I’m hooked. I'm expecting laughs, screams, and at least one “OH MY GOD THEY DIDN’T” moment. Possibly all at once.

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✶ POST-READING ✶

As I thought... This is a love letter to horror fans that never forgets to be its own story. Charley is delightfully sarcastic, stubborn, and so much smarter than the people accusing her of murder. Her knowledge of horror tropes becomes both shield and weapon - though she learns very quickly that real life (and death) doesn’t follow a clean script. The atmosphere is pitch-perfect: creepy, fog-drenched, and with just enough ghostly sass to keep things entertaining.

It surprised me by... …pulling off some truly gasp-worthy twists. I thought I saw the big twist coming. I did not. The tone shifts from tongue-in-cheek to gut-punch without losing momentum, and the climax is bloody brilliant (pun absolutely intended). Also: Charley is an icon and I would die for her. Possibly literally, in this setting.

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✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦

📚 Books:

• Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare (for the carnage + snark)

• Wilder Girls by Rory Power (for the island and creeping horror)

• Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson (for ghost girls and girl power)

🎥 TV & Movies:

• Scream (meta, slasher perfection)

• The Faculty (you know it’s the vibes)

• Dead End: Paranormal Park (trust me, if Olive and Charley were animated...)

✦ MUSIC PAIRING ✦

Because sometimes, the heart of a story plays out like a song.

🎵 Featured Song: “bury a friend” – Billie Eilish
Creepy, glitchy, slightly sadistic - exactly the vibe of being haunted and hunted at the same time.

🎶 Vibe Album: Preacher’s Daughter – Ethel Cain
This album is a journey through gothic Americana, queer longing, and inevitable doom - just right for a book where ghosts and trauma hang around in plaid skirts.

🎧 Artist Recommendation: Chløë Black - moody, cinematic, and full of knife-edge femininity.

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✧ VIBE CHECK ✧

🎨 Colour Palette: crimson, corpse blue, sickly yellow

🎬 Soundtrack: Scream x Jennifer’s Body x Yellowjackets

🍂 Season: Autumn, mid-October, heavy fog

🕯️ Mood: Campy terror with a side of teenage dread

👻 Scent: Library dust, cold stone, and the faint metallic tang of a nosebleed

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★ TAROT CARD PULLED ★

The Moon – Santa Muerte Tarot
This version of The Moon shows a woman gazing into a pond, her reflection a skeleton. Truths are obscured, reality is shifting, and not everything you see can be trusted. That’s the beating (and bleeding) heart of How to Survive a Horror Movie: a descent into illusion where survival depends not on brute strength, but on trusting your own instincts - even when the world insists you’re the villain.

How to Survive a Horror Movie publishes on the 9th September, 2025. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.