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Johnny Truant, a drug-addicted tattooist, finds a manuscript about a possibly fictional documentary called The Navidson Records. Arriving at the house to help Navidson measure its dimensions, Tom is said to have improved the family's relationships and mood during his presence. The explorations, already challenged by the maze's inhospitable, vast, and ever-shifting nature, finally led to disaster when one of the crew turned on the rest. After several ordeals, one explorer was killed and another rescued, but the house itself then transformed in a hostile fashion, killing Navidson's brother Tom and forcing the family to frantically escape. While this movie doesn't look downright terrible, it treads a lot of familiar territory covered by a variety of horror movies that came before it.
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The story told within "The Navidson Record" is the centerpiece of the plot, with the family living their daily lives, occasionally exploring the darkened hallways that lead into an endless labyrinth of corridors and staircases. Some call it a horror novel, others call it a love story, but if you ask me, "House of Leaves" is nothing short of a terrifying masterpiece. The addition of Arocena’s stunning illustrations, some of which are integrated into the text, creates a unique reading experience. The artwork has a painterly quality to it but is made digitally using vectors.
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House of Leaves – Plot Summary & Ending Explained
The 2019 title even features a particularly memorable sequence that basically serves as a love-letter to the book’s description of a psychedelic haunted house. The novel is written as a work of epistolary fiction and metafiction focusing on a fictional documentary film titled the Navidson Record, presented as a story within a story discussed in a handwritten monograph recovered by the primary narrator, Johnny Truant. Peters had no idea there was a blind character in House of Leaves before he started it, and says the book’s use of sound, rather than visual descriptions, made it a unique reading experience for him. “We always read about visual descriptions of characters, places and objects, but what literature does not understand is, though sight is an important sense, it is one of five,” he says.
Johnny Truant
Again, it’s a wee tough to explain, but still a surprisingly accessible read. But for those looking for a terrifying book unlike any other, "House of Leaves" is a creative magnum opus that must be seen to be believed. For some it is the story of a man going crazy, for others it's a story about the perseverance of love against horrifying odds. Whole passages appear upside down and backward, stretching all over the page and forcing the reader to physically engage.
Truant also writes about his childhood living with an abusive foster father. Even as he grows increasingly unstable, Truant remains steadfast in his editorial work, neglecting all else. Karen separated from Navidson, departing to New York City with their children.
After promising Karen not to enter the hallway, he sends a crew in his stead to explore the maze, but privately chafes at this prohibition and breaks his word behind Karen's back. Ultimately, Navidson returned to the house alone, leaving only a seemingly incoherent letter for Karen. Despite ample preparation, Navidson became inextricably trapped in the maze. Navidson's camera captured himself attempting to read a book titled House of Leaves in total darkness; having lost all supplies, he resorted to burning the book page by page to provide light for reading.
After watching this trailer, one has to wonder whether this is getting sent to VOD because of theaters being shut down, or is it just getting dumped there because it doesn't look very good. It seems odd that there was no marketing until just now, less than two weeks before release. But that could very well be due to the coronavirus pandemic holding up any marketing plans until they figured out what to do with the movie.
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Throughout the story, Johnny recounts his misadventures with sex, drugs and alcohol, like a teenager who just learned what intercourse is. His prose is juvenile and his exploits egotistical, eventually culminating in a section that warrants a trigger warning as his mental state begins to unravel. I was browsing at a local Barnes and Noble when I happened upon a copy of this strange book I had heard so much about. Wanting to see what the fuss was, I sat down and quickly read the introduction. Once such highly sought-after novelization is that of Halloween by Richard Curtis (under the pen name Curtis Richards), based on the screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.
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The plot revolves around a young couple, Will Navidson and Karen Green, who move into a seemingly ordinary house with their two children. However, the house proves to be anything but ordinary, as its interior dimensions begin to shift inexplicably, creating mysterious and terrifying spaces. As Navidson documents these anomalies through a series of film recordings, a documentary is born, but its disturbing nature takes a toll on the family’s sanity.
House of Leaves is the debut novel by American author Mark Z. Danielewski, published in March 2000 by Pantheon Books. A bestseller, it has been translated into a number of languages, and is followed by a companion piece, The Whalestoe Letters. Anecdotally, young men hold a particular reverence for the novel – perhaps for this reason.
The existence of this tangled tome and his attempts to explore how and why it exists take a toll on Johnny. His real-life mental and physical deterioration is juxtaposed with Navidson’s deterioration in the documentary, all the while through the lens of this dead man named Zampanò who, somehow, made all this up. With every page of House of Leaves, the voices are decreasing in stability and reliability which, in turn, makes the reader increasingly unsettled.
At the same time, Truant's own factual errors, limited knowledge, and open admission to adulterating Zampanò's work also throw his own reliability into question. The text is further marred by missing pages, missing footnotes, missing supplemental documents, and text accidentally or deliberately destroyed by Zampanò, Truant, or unknown causes. If nothing else, the script itself is the first new HOL content that Danielewski’s produced in years, and will likely be a fascinating footnote for the novel’s fans. Parallel to this, we follow the story of the manuscript’s editor, Johnny Truant, who discovers the academic work of Zampanò—a blind man who meticulously documented Navidson’s experiences. As Johnny delves deeper into the manuscript, he uncovers a surreal and unsettling world that mirrors the disorienting nature of the house itself.
At the end of the day, you don’t even have to like House of Leaves to appreciate its impact on our favorite genre stories. Love it or hate it, Danielewski’s opus is a once-in-a-generation literary gift that keeps on giving, and some young filmmaker out there is likely discovering the novel as I write this, “stealing” ideas from it in order to revolution horror movies yet again. And as Stephen King once claimed, “the book with all the footnotes” is likely the horror genre’s closest equivalent to Moby Dick. Author Mark Danielewski says he has screenplays written for a potential movie and for a pilot for a series (see tweet below or view the mirror), but without a production company attached it means nothing is really in the works. I had mixed feeling about the book, but I would be totally curious to see an adaptation of it.
I also have to admit that it’s a story that’s stuck in my head long after reading it. Though Pelafina's letters and Johnny's footnotes contain similar accounts of their past, their memories also differ greatly at times, due to both Pelafina's and Johnny's questionable mental states. Pelafina was placed in the mental institution after supposedly attempting to strangle Johnny, only to be stopped by her husband. Johnny claims that his mother meant him no harm and claimed to strangle him only to protect him from missing her. It is unclear, however, if Johnny's statements about the incident—or any of his other statements, for that matter—are factual.
Its intricate narrative, complex characters, and thought-provoking themes make it a standout work in contemporary literature. While its unconventional style may not be for everyone, those willing to navigate its twists and turns will find a deeply rewarding and haunting reading experience. At its core, “House of Leaves” explores the nature of perception, the unreliability of narrative, and the impact of psychological trauma.
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