Night Film

I picked this up at a Heathrow bookstore hoping for a good holiday read and it didn't disappoint! I'm a bit weary of the ‘experimental fiction' format, but this book, with its iphone app, illustrations and browser screenshots, has actually turned out to be surprisingly smooth. All that extra material adds up to a truly immersive experience actually, and if you treat the iphone app as an approximation of google for the world of the book, it turns out all the more believable for it.

There's just so much good stuff here — crime, black magic, romance, loveable characters and loveable villains. It's a solid tome but I passed its halfway point on my short 2.5h flight, so as banal as it sounds, it is a real page-turner. The ending unspools with one twist after another, each trying to reclaim the narrative for a different genre (at some point it gets very meta, which was awesome). It's all tied up neatly at the end though.

It was a hugely satisfying read for which I have only one complaint, and that is: for a novel this cinematic — not only concerned with film making and story telling, but also obviously destined for the big screen — it paints its (obviously token) minority characters with the thickest possible brush. Those parts made me cringe so, so painfully. There's one episode in particular which is the Jar Jar Binks of Night Film, when the protagonists run into a clan of Chinese restaurateurs, then catch a ride with a Jamaican cab driver. None of those characters is given any depth and they all seem to be taken out of conservative comedy, in that instead of amusing you, they leave you annoyed — at the author. If this was supposed to be a statement on the stereotypical treatment of ethnic minorities in films (I really doubt it was), it backfired by taking some depth out of the whole story.

Well written thriller and detective story that uses interesting media, graphics and web sites to enhance the story. Definitely enjoyable book.

SO MANY FEELS... It took me a few days to process this one.

You know those books where you figure out that the blurb on the back of the book is completely wrong/misleading after you finish? Yeah... that's one of my biggest pet peeves. It IS possible to actually tell what the book is about on the cover without giving away anything. Case in point: NIGHT FILM - It's vague. But it's right. It tells you just enough to make you interested but doesn't lie to you. Go editor!! Thank you!

You go into Night Film knowing that Ashley Cordova, daughter of a reclusive cult horror film director has died, and journalist Scott McGrath investigates her death based on a vendetta with Stanislas Cordova. And that's really all you need... it sounds like it might get creepy and it does.

The first couple of nights after I started reading this I had the most deliciously creepy dreams. The plot builds somewhat ominously and slowly to create the perfect mood of curiosity with slight dread. The actual events... sorry I just can't tell you because you will enjoy the book immensely if you only know what's on the cover and go read it for yourself.

Don't be scared of the length. I enjoyed the slow but not too slow building plot. It created a lot of time for character development all around and several climaxes that keep it moving. And a lot of foreboding.

The best thing about this book are all of the case files and reports included. You feel like you are actually watching an old cult horror film yourself - the ones where the newspaper clippings, pictures, etc. spin out and almost slap you in the face. It's just delicious. (For this reason, I would recommend reading a real live in-person copy of this book.)

There are so many details in the story that I'm sure I could read it again and pick up on even more little nuances (which I will definitely be doing). And this book definitely does not settle for your cookie cutter ending. The whole thing is just perfect in my opinion.

I would recommend this for umm... EVERYONE.. especially if you love a suspenseful mystery that makes you think with a genius madman? thrown in.

well written. ending sucked.

24 year old Ashely Cordova, the enigmatic and talented daughter of reclusive horror filmmaker Stanislas Cordova, is found dead by apparent suicide.

Enter disgraced journalist Scott McGrath. Several years back he calls out the director as a predator and then on national television says “Someone needs to terminate this guy with extreme prejudice.” Apparently not a good move as far as your career goes, especially when it's based on some innuendo from the supposed chauffeur to the director. (Really? This guy was a respected and hard hitting journalist?)

Being a disgraced journalist must pay well. Seemingly unemployed, McGrath lives in a tony New York brownstone and when his white whale reappears in his life he's got the cash to pay interns, bribe informants and jet off to where he pleases. Naturally he's got a beautiful ex-wife and finds two 20-something proteges, including a beautiful coat-check girl, willing to follow him on his investigative journey from sex clubs, mental hospitals, backwoods shacks, tattoo parlours and witchcraft shops. We're in Dan Brown territory here and at times it's just trying too hard. We're told that to see a Cordova film is to “leave your old self behind, walk through hell, and be reborn.”

Marisha Pessl does a fine job of wrapping up the story and turning it into something else. A different examination altogether. But this bit of metafiction would have been better served up as a novella instead of this full blown tome.

The premise was good, the suspense was right on point but after awhile it was getting too long and the suspense died down a little bit. Great book, very long. I liked the characters, the relationship between the three main characters was interesting but I felt there could have been more to them. At the end I do recommend this book.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I picked up Night Film. It was one of those books that I first saw in the emails the library send out of book recommendations. I'd never heard of Marisha Pessl. I'm not sure that her acclaimed first book Special Topics in Calamity Physics (despite being described as a murder mystery) is a book I would necessarily pick up and enjoy, but the synopsis of Night Film intrigued me. Then reader friends began reading the book and saying only vague mysterious bits of praise. So I got the book on my Kindle and promptly forgot about it. When it came time to compile my TBR lists for 2014 I decided I would get down and read Night Film and see what all the fuss was about.

Although....you don't really hear too much. It's not a mainstream book. It's not side-by-side with the James Pattersons and John Grishams. It didn't even hit the type of frenzy that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo did. It's odd.

Nonetheless, on to the review. Reading Night Film was like experiencing A Clockwork Orange for the first time. You're not entirely sure what's happening. What is real and what is fantasy. You're only sure that something is fucked up. It reminded me of stories of Alfred Hitchcock. I remember being pretty young and reading about Alfred Hitchcock giving a 6-year-old Melanie Griffith a wax doll replica of her mother Tippi Hedren in a wooden coffin as a Christmas or Birthday present. It was the creepiest thing I'd ever heard of. During the entire book I pictured Cordova as Hitchcock. I spent much time wishing the movies Cordova made were real so I could run out and watch them.

And the book was terrifying in that you have no idea what's going on. Like black and white horror movies where you don't actually see the monster eating the victim because it's off camera, but you know it's happening and somehow that's more terrifying than seeing it. About two thirds into the book I was captivated by the insanity, worried I would have nightmares when I went to sleep. (For the record I didn't, but I did read until 2 a.m.)

Of course there were things that bugged me. If you've ever read my reviews of James Patterson books I hate unnecessary italics. Marisha Pessl loves them. They are everywhere and in the beginning I could barely get past it. And then there were the obvious things that were happening that McGrath didn't pick up on. Inez Gallo's nickname, the effects of the greenhouse & the repercussions of McGrath's missing research. But I suppose with everything that was going on in McGrath's life at that moment things just got past him.

When I got to the rather abrupt ending it made mention of the Night Film app. I wish it had mentioned that in the beginning so I didn't have to search through my ebook to find the places where I could interact with the app. But I found the extra content to be kind of dull and cheap compared to the book. The voice acting was awful and just ridiculous. There is a ‘diary' though that was quite a gem.

I'm not sure if this makes me a Pessl fan, but maybe someday if I see Special Topics in Calamity Physics at a used bookstore I might pick it up.

Ergh. I so wanted to be completely blown away by this book, to get so wrapped up in this intricate story that Pessl had created of films and plots and secret family histories and the pseudo-paparazzi attempting to break into this seemingly magical world created by the brilliant reclusive film director and the artists who attend his side. This is a book that I unconsciously have always wished to have been written, and have always wanted to read.

Perhaps my unknowing personal investment in the success and believably and fullness of this story is what turned me away from it with such disappointment. I did feel the necessity to read this one through to the end, seeing the time and effort I had put into it as far as I'd gotten without much payoff. A few quick points on my frustrations:

1) Too much and too little. As a thriller, there are very few thrills. Clues are laid out simply and delicately, and although there is a wealth of information and “evidence”, everything is conveniently packaged to deliver our protagonists to exactly what they seek, and without much effort. The plotting is full of so much detail - background and minutiae about Cordova's films, artifacts from news media and fan websites littered throughout the book as “hints,” even a separate app (which I couldn't get to install on my device) which added a multimedia element to the narrative - but so very bereft of any weight or feeling of cohesion. So we have a giant pile of facts and information and so what? It seemed, at times, that I could have been sifting through the apocryphal remains of every single one of the ideas of one writer that never were used.

2) So many italics! I appreciate the effort that was put forth to add emphasis to at least one word in nearly every sentence in the book, but I do not appreciate the assumption that I need to be led to understand that everyone is extraordinarily excited about everything they say. Quite the opposite from making me feel the excitement, it just felt overly bored and heavy with effort. These people needed desperately to convince me to feel excited about what they were saying and they pushed me just too, too hard.

3) All of our characters - even the elusive Cordova - felt flat, if not merely derivative and lazy. I couldn't have cared any less about seeing any of these individuals through to their goals; Scott was simple and self involved and not particularly bright; Hopper was James walked straight out of Twin Peaks and into New York City, still in love with his Laura Palmer/Ashley Cordova; an attempt to write Nora as lost, fierce, frightened, determined, and fated came out as a broken 11-year-old with a wacky wardrobe and no more reason than any of the others. Even Cordova was a cobbled together Kubrick-Jodorowsky blankness that felt more of an omission by mistake than mystery.

Neat! My wife recommended this, and even though I don't think I was quite as enamored by the book as my wife was, it sure was captivating and interesting. It's so full of mystery. Only the ending leaves something to wish for. The world of Cordova, on the other hand, was very fascinating. If only movies were this interesting in the real world...

I really enjoyed the first half of this book–it played out like a well-done mystery and I enjoyed the magazine clippings, web pages, etc. ... but then this paranormal element pops up and it all veered off the rails for me. When I hit 70% I switched to speed-reading just to find out what happens in the end. Although we never exactly do find out anything concrete. There's multiple Scooby Doo-type endings going on here, plus a few red herrings and loose ends, but it's definitely not a bad book, and certainly worth a read if you're looking for a unique mystery that absolutely avoids formula.

Well this was a disappointment. It started out quite convincing, building up an atmosphere and mystery, but then it somehow went downhill from there. Quite steady downhill. The story telling was as if Pessl rather had written a movie script. The problem being that the movie in her mind was a horror/mystery/detective thriller that seemed to follow all the predictable rules of the trade. Having one clue lead to another, have characters voluntarily deliver large helpful monologues, and somehow have everything seemingly be tied up neatly in the end. And on the way you got a lot of reader hand-holding by reminding them of facts they had read about 50 pages earlier, just in case someone forgot.

I was completely immersed in the world of Night Film. It was scary, intense, and wonderful. I see a lot of reviewers comparing this to [b:House of Leaves 24800 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327889035s/24800.jpg 856555] which I was unable to finish after having the book checked out for 2 months. The app was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the multimedia found in the printed novel.

I really wish I could do a half-star. This book was far better than ‘The Never List,' but I can't quite give it a three-star rating.

It has a decent premise: Investigative reporter ruined by bizarre-o, reclusive director of thrillers years ago now thinks he has a chance to redeem himself through investigation of suicide of the daughter of said director. There are parts of this book that are crazy and fun and weird. But, speaking as one who loves horror more than investigative crime thrillers–all the thrill and creep were lacking. Mostly because Scott didn't make any of it believable (that would be Mr Reporter). And Scott is also a bitter, sexist butthead through most of the book. Whatevs. That's fine. But I couldn't totally buy his character. And whilst I really, really wanted to be into the relationship he has with his two erstwhile assistants, Hopper and Nora, I couldn't believe his relationships with either of them. Everything was too forced. Nora was just a manic pixie dream girl. Yawn. And Hopper was just to tragically hip. These weren't real people. And, frankly, precocious child who refers to parent by parent's first name–been done before and more believably. The investigation was also a bit flimsy, I thought; but I don't read many crime thrillers, so what do I know?

That said, I enjoyed the mythology she began to create around the director, Cordova, and his family. Sadly, I think the potential for creepiness with these people goes largely unfulfilled. I also think she gave them all a little too much power, even if black magic was involved. I felt like there were some unfortunate things left unresolved. As far as the mythology created for Cordova's daughter, though–I don't believe most of it. I don't believe any of these characters would be as obsessed as they are in the novel (excepting maybe Hopper, who, of course–yawn–was in love with her in their youth). That too seems forced. If Pessl has treated her characters' obsession with Ashley Cordova's death as some sort of critique with celebrity obsession, maybe I could have bought it. But she didn't.

I'm also a bit tired of people using BDSM or transpeople as creepy plot points. It's boring and offensive. Especially when it seems like a writer knows little about either. At the very least, it's usually not believable.

So, all that said, it wasn't UNenjoyable. I read it quickly. The prose isn't very elegant, but it's not the crappiest thing I've ever read. Their are too many pointless italics, but everyone has mentioned that already.

I think, though, one of the biggest problems I had was the fact that every one of Cordova's movies was...TRITE. I think I've already seen most of those plots. The only interesting thing about his movies was the mythology built up AROUND those movies. But I don't believe those movies would have the respected cult following they had. They'd be flimsy Red Box rentals that you waste $1.50 on. At best, they'd be underground horror classics.

All that said, I still had fun reading it. It was all right, but not worth the hype.

Okay, I was a huge fan of Ms. Pessl's first book, and was so excited about the prospect of a new book that I placed my order on January 1, 2011, when I first heard about it. In the time between then and now, I received a large number of emails from amazon.com, telling me that the date was pushed back and pushed back and pushed back (and, occasionally, pushed forward). But, I calmly waited, sure that it would be worth the wait.

And, now, Night Film has come out, and it's only sort of worth the wait. There was much about this book to like, and I know from reading other reviews that others have written about a lot of it.

But, I wanted to talk a bit about what disappointed me. I did love the way the book began, with the pastiche of web sites and the Times article as an introduction about the world that we were about to enter. I was glad, by the way, that I bought a hard copy, since I can only imagine the difficulty in navigating an e-book.

And, from those first pages, I thought we were being set up to dig into the works of Cordova, and that some of what was alluded to in the early dialogue and description would infuse the plot. As I read, and had to abide by most of the characters' needing to “talk to someone” or “get something off their chest”, I let it pass, despite the fact that it did not ring true. I mean, if one of these people were real, a real person, they'd more than likely say nothing or be cryptic or run away or whatever. But, I understand that sometimes such moving parts are necessary to move the plot forward. It's just that I expected more from Ms. Pessl, given how wonderful the first book was.

As the book continued, and the unlikely group came together to investigate (trying not to give too much away, here), I felt as though this was far too random to be true. Sure, there are perhaps other reasons it would happen, and so I assumed that would later be revealed. Still, it was a disappointment that there wasn't more to this.

And, most importantly, for the bulk of the book, aside from some glancing comments about Cordova and his philosophy and life (and, of course, the big ‘set piece' toward the end), there really wasn't much about those “films” that were mentioned initially. I felt this to be a great let down. I felt as though the entire book, a twist on a murder/mystery, could have been set anywhere with any “patriarch” and family, and that the tease about the films wasn't exploited nearly enough.

All in all, while I found the book to be somewhat entertaining, it was a let-down. Which is not to say that I didn't like it; I think that my expectations, both as a result of her first book and the first part of this one, were perhaps too high.

More like 4 and 3 quarters stars. I am not sure what to say about this book other than I have no doubt that I will still be thinking about it twenty years from now. I feel as though I just walked ten miles on a road I didn't know existed, horrified by what I saw along the way, only to reach a locked gate at the end. I am too tired to turn back.
I'm so impressed by the writing. Honestly, I don't know how Pessl sketched out these characters so well only to have them all still be mysteries in the end.
I don't want to compare this to anything (really, what could I compare it to? The Historian? House of Leaves? A very, very dark Night Circus?) Nothing works. It's that original.
It's not for the light reader or the faint of heart. It's in turn mystifying, intriguing, and way too long.
I highly recommend it to the reader who has read everything. Because they haven't-not until they read this.