By JOEL HARLEY

What makes a good film-to-book novelization? And why, when you can have the real thing, would you even bother? At its core, the medium was created so that audiences could get a fix of their favorite movies at home. A thing of necessity, the novelization was born from the absence of accessible entertainment, decades before the rise of movies on demand. Still, the novelization is going strong today – with the likes of Godzilla vs Kong, Halloween Kills and no shortage of Doctor Who books to appeal to collectors and super-fans. In many cases, it affords readers the chance to glimpse their favorite moments from another angle, or peek at ‘deleted’ scenes which didn’t make the final cut (The Dark Knight Rises for example, which revealed that the Joker spent Bane’s revolution locked away in Arkham Asylum on his own).

In recent years, another, cheekier version of the novelization has emerged, bringing new life and energy to the cult films of yore: Lloyd Kaufman and Adam Jahnke’s The Toxic Avenger; Christian Francis’s Wishmaster; the luminary work of Encyclopocalypse Publications and Stop The Killer Games. Under the latter, author Armando Muñoz published his takes on My Bloody Valentine and Silent Night, Deadly Night. Next up – and keeping the holiday theme, after a fashion – his HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

Armando Muñoz, author of the HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME novelization

Based on the 1981 slasher film by director J. Lee Thompson and writers John Saxton, Peter Jobin and Timothy Bond, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME illustrates what separates a successful movie novelization from the chaff. In this case, it’s a sense of empathy for the characters and willingness to dive below the hood. Well, that makes it all the more painful when you tear out what’s inside.

“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.” – Lesley Gore, ‘It’s My Party’ (1963)

For Virginia ‘Ginny’ Wainright, what makes her tick is the trauma of her past and the milestone that is her upcoming eighteenth birthday. As she prepares to celebrate, she must also reckon with a series of terrifying blackouts and a resurfacing tragedy, simmering to a boil in her subconscious. At the same time, members of her friendship group – known at school and around town as ‘The Ten’ – keep going missing. Starting, as the film did, with pal Bernadette O’Hara. What neither Virginia nor the rest of The Ten know is that Bernie is dead – brutally killed by a mystery figure known as The Cake Cutter. And that’s just the start of it…

Keen horror fans will know where all of this is headed, and this novelization is faithful to all the major set pieces. Muñoz keeps the core whodunnit intact, and The Cake Cutter’s identity is obscured to the last. This is a film I have seen several times (most recently as homework for the novel), and even I was left wondering whether the ending might have been changed, or the killer switched around. It’s a rare gift that keeps one guessing, forty years later.

Where the preceding Silent Night used the extra space afforded to make its characters grubbier and nastier (Grandpa shoving a stick of celery up his arse; Sister Margaret’s fetish for Billy’s socks), HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME hones in on its youths’ more likeable traits to make their brutal murders all the more tragic. The spoiled rich kids of The Ten are still assholes, but no one deserves what The Cake Cutter has in store.

All the film’s big set pieces are present and correct, with added spicy seasoning of Muñoz’s own concoction. Ten of the most bizarre murders you’ll ever read are promised, and ten bizarre murders are what readers will get. One death makes for particularly affecting reading, made even more so for the surprising perspective of a friend (the dog flashbacks of The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 ain’t got nothing on this), and its subversion of the character as originally depicted. I had expected a few things from this adaptation, but several paragraphs written from the perspective of a [redacted to not spoil the birthday surprise] wasn’t one of them. Elsewhere, the extra room afforded gives depth to the more ancillary members of The Ten – most notably panty-sniffing Frenchman Etienne – and supporting characters like Virginia’s father, psychiatrist David and the school headmistress. And for most, the extra insight doesn’t paint a pretty picture, turning one into an angry alcoholic and making a stomach-churning death of another.

There’s a sense of nostalgia to watching and re-watching HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and its ilk, from the authentically grubby cinematography to the grainy film and lurid practical effects. While the medium can’t hope to recreate that authenticity, the novelization instead makes the most of its 1980s trappings. Virginia is a big Blondie fan, it emerges. Lovely Alfred, meanwhile, becomes a Fangoria enthusiast and Tom Savini fanboy, not only building the character but also working towards that all-important final act.

Unlike My Bloody Valentine and Silent Night Deadly Night, the ‘classic’ element of this one is a bit more debatable. There’s a strong argument to be made that Muñoz’s HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME is superior to its own source material, finally making sense of one of the most bonkers last-act twists in all of horror cinema. That, and a few surprises of its own too. The climactic birthday party is an appropriately queasy affair, going all out in setting the table for the ensuing carnage. Even by slasher standards, it’s a demented one, and this slick, sick adaptation finds a way to make it even nuttier.

“You would cry too if it happened to you.”