10 Terrifying Horror Novels We Wish Were Movies

The idea of an adaptation of Joe Hill’s first novel has been floating around the trade circuit since its release in 2007. Warner Bros. acquired the rights back in 2007, but the film has been stuck in development hell ever since. There’s even a script written by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game). If you ask me, it’s time to pull the trigger on production.

And, let’s face it, Hill’s other adapted works have been…well…less “adapted” and more reimagined. NOS4A2 was an exciting idea, but there were some serious changes that just lacked the incredible atmosphere Hill creates (though, Zachary Quinto shined). And while Locke & Key received great critical reception, it also changed key elements of the original work that hurt its standing with graphic novel fans. Horns gave us a stellar performance from Daniel Radcliffe, but the film was tonally numb in contrast to the rich novel. 

An adaptation of Heart-Shaped Box could finally close the gap and give Hill fans the gritty, haunted road movie that’s faithful enough to the book to capture reader’s attention.

It’s the tale of Judas Coyne, an aging rocker with a collection of haunting memorabilia whose life is thrown into chaos when he attains a suit with an actual ghost. And this ghost has a vendetta against Jude, leading to a road trip to help rid Jude and his latest lady, Georgia, of the murderous entity. The book has stellar set pieces and a thrilling pace that is ripe for the big screen. 

Okay, so this one is technically already a movie. In 1973, British company Academy Pictures Corporation produced The Legend of Hell House with a screenplay written by the author. It’s a woefully underseen film and recently got a Blu-ray release from Scream Factory. So, why is it on a list of books that need adaptations? Because I cannot help but think about what someone like Mike Flanagan could do with this material in the present day. After Hill House and Bly Manor, Hell House falls right into the nook in which Flanagan excels. 

Centering on “the Mount Everest of Haunted Houses,” the book is both occult horror madness and mystery thriller as three paranormal investigators, each with their own special skill, attempt to prove and/or dispel the existence of ghostly afterlife.

The story takes us in many different directions, with spiritualist medium Florence Tanner making attempts to contact and exorcise a sympathetic spirit – to her own physical detriment. Dr. Lionel Barrett and his wife, Edith, maintaining steadfast skepticism as he uses science to rid the house of “paranormal energy.” And Benjamin Franklin Fischer, whose youthful talent as a physical medium left him the only survivor of the previous investigation of the house, just trying to make it through the week for his $100,000 payout. It’s just ripe for revisiting by a talented horror director like Flanagan. 

As cinema becomes more and more aware of the need for diverse stories from other cultural experiences, some of the best have come from the horror genre. Which is exactly why Stephen Graham Jones‘ journey into the modern Native American experience is ripe for adaptation. It’s timely, relevant, and truly horrifying.

There’s a lot to unpack, as well, with an ongoing tension amongst the characters, many of whom are from the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, between expressing their heritage and the modern day realities of living in a country that is racist towards them. This is something horror film and series have done very well as of late, so its timely to get moving on this adaptation. Like…now. 

The book follows the story of four Blackfeet tribesmen who, as young boys, followed a herd of elk into a forbidden zone during a hunt. They shoot a pregnant elk and decide to bury the fetus in a ceremonial fashion, then get caught by village elders and banished from hunting altogether. Ten years later, the men start experiencing visions: a phantom elk is stalking them one by one. But the four friends have fallen out of touch and as eerie and murderous events surround each of them as the spirit of their youthful digression has come back for revenge. Full of haunting mythology and engaging characters, The Only Good Indians needs the big screen treatment. 

To start, I love giallo films. I love movies that are simultaneously unraveling mystery and terrifying horror story. It’s the world where true crime stories shine. When it comes to hard-boiled detective novels, Last Days is a perfect send up, and would fall well into the giallo-style with the aide of an accomplished director. It’s darkly comedic, with lots of snark and grit that enjoys a thrilling place, translating well onto the silver screen. It deals with religious fanaticism in grotesque fashion – melding body horror with dark noir. The mutilative text is rife with imagery that would make Cronenberg squirm. 

Recovering from his last case, in which he lost his own hand, undercover cop Kline is kidnapped by a cult that want to enlist his services to find out who murdered their sect’s leader. The cult practices a dark kind of religious fanaticism: believing amputation brings you closer to God. At first, it seems like a straightforward case, but as Kline dives deeper into the complex hierarchy and ritual of the cult, he may need to give up more than just a hand to get to the truth. With tons of twists and turns, and gruesome set pieces throughout, it would make an exceptional A24 or SpectreVision release. 

I know, a Stephen King adaptation…how original…but hear me out. Revival is actually one of my favorite King novels. I don’t hear it talked about a lot, but often when it’s brought up in social circles, I find people generally love it. It’s King at his most Lovecraftian, but also his most human. There have been talks of a possible adaptation for years. In just December of 2020, the kibosh was put on its production (a production by Mike Flanagan, no less…). The story is so riveting, it could truly be a horror epic ruminating on those deep cosmic horrors of faith, grief, addiction, and the afterlife. 

Revival centers on the intertwined lives of Charles Jacobs and Jamie Morton. Jacobs is the new minister in young Jamie’s town, where they two form a friendly bond. After tragedy befalls Jacobs, his sermons become hopeless and he is run out of town, much to Jamie’s dismay. Over the course of Jamie’s life, he continues to cross paths with Charles Jacobs, his unusual relationship with faith healing, and the “secret electricity.” In his final experiment, Jamie is enlisted as Jacob’s assistant. The goal: to find out what happens after we die. And the outcome is some of the darkest, most soul-wrenching madness put to the page. The story of these two men, their intertwining lives, and their intriguingly beautiful relationship leading to such a hopeless conclusion is something I recklessly need to see on screen to just destroy myself.  

At first, if you said “adapt House of Leaves,” I would tell you “no way.” Reading House of Leaves is a singular experience that’s engrossing and highly cerebral. The way its written can never be represented on screen. However, I can’t deny the Redditors their request. Upon looking into books that people are asking for adaptations of, House of Leaves keeps coming up. And I get why…

The Navidson Record is found-footage gold. In order to do House of Leaves right, it would require no less than a mini-series. Danielewski knows this. After some reluctance at an adaptation, he wrote three spec episodes and put them up on his Patreon in 2019, just an experiment to see if it would work. The scripts come off as more of a meta-reflection, with new characters and Danielewski himself appearing as a character. It’s typical MZD style. Though the book may be outright unadaptable – they said the same thing about Gaimen’s Sandman series, and that’s finally getting it’s due…so who knows?

The book is a sprawling work with multiple narrators. It starts with Johnny Truant, a tattoo parlor employee, who, along with his friend Lude, stumble upon the apartment of Zampanò who is recently deceased in distressing fashion. Lude and Johnny discover an academic manuscript in Zampanò’s apartment detailing a film called The Navidson Record by Will Navidson, a famous photojournalist. But Truant can find no record of the film or the people in the film’s existence. 

This is all before we get to the manuscript itself, which details the Navidson’s move into a new home in Virginia that is slowly discovered to be much larger than it appears. There is a maze of dark tunnels that seemingly surround the home in a different dimension. And inside them, something is growling. 

I feel like that’s all I can possibly say…there are so many more pieces at play. But its true that the creative forces at work in horror today, as well as the technology and intelligence of horror audiences, House of Leaves could, theoretically, be one of the most compelling horror series ever made. If they do it, I say give it to David Lynch…

Obviously, we love Clive Barker. His short stories have become some of the most enduring horror films ever put to screen. Candyman, Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Midnight Meat Train, Books of Blood, they’re just the most original, freakish, and fiendish stories ever told. Barker’s very first full length novel, The Damnation Game is no different. Reading Damnation Game is like seeing all of Barker’s ideas just starting to form, the infancy of all his greatness, and for this it would allow a relatively straightforward adaptation about a bodyguard, his wealthy charge, and dealings with the devil. There’s a lot of incredibly visceral set pieces that would look spectacularly haunting on screen. 

The novel follows Marty Strauss, a parolee and compulsive gambler, who is hired by Joseph Whitehead, one of the wealthiest man in the world, as a bodyguard. Watching over sprawling estate comes with it some rules, and Strauss encounters more and more mysteries that growingly verge upon the supernatural. Turns out, during WWII, Whitehead made a deal with a devilish man by the name of Mamoulian – who has come to collect what he is owed. Whitehead’s refusal puts the lives of Marty and Whitehead’s daughter, Carys, in danger, and Marty decides its his duty to gamble with the devil to save Carys’ life. 

This one’s another Redditor’s choice, and its easy to see why. The book is written similarly to King’s Carrie, with a story that intermingles extratextual materials like news articles and interviews giving a larger view of the horrifying events that take place on an ill-fated Boy Scout retreat. An adaptation would allow a strong ensemble cast of young talent. The story has Cabin Fever and Slither vibes in both style and capacity for revulsion. There’s some opportunity for a dark coming-of-age tale, but the real reason we want it is the grue. 

When a Boy Scout troop heads to a remote island for a survivalist weekend, they are caught off guard when an expected stranger arrives, tired and starving. Scoutmaster Tim Riggs recognizes the man’s condition deteriorating and attempts reach the mainland on their only form of communication but, in a convulsive fit, the man breaks the radio and throws up on Riggs. During the event, Riggs notices a squirming in the man’s stomach. The situation only goes downhill from there, with the Scoutmaster showing the same symptoms of the stranger, a makeshift surgery, squirming stomachs, insatiable hunger, rotten things, and an ominous black helicopter circling the island. It’s Lord of the Flies with tapeworms and we are in for it. 

See what I did there? Yep, it’s another Stephen King book! But this time, under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, so we’re allowing it. Talk has been the story is too dark to be put to screen, but also that it could be a little too slow of a narrative to successfully land. But I think there’s enough going on in character rivalries and overarching world to really hit some amazingly poignant horrors in that would resonate with societal tensions.

The Long Walk is somewhere between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, less young adult novel but not too hack and smash to become lost in pulp. It’s a slow-burn with uncompromising moments of terror that would provide a wealth of tension on screen.

In a future, totalitarian America, contestants compete in an epic walking contest for the nation’s teenagers. The rules are simple: just keep walking and don’t fall behind. The prize: financial security for the rest of you and your family’s life. There’s just one catch…if you aren’t the winner, you’re dead.

The story centers on a Garraty and his surrounding walkers as they toil across America. There are crowds of cheering fans, and full armed soldiers lining the walk path. If you fall behind too many times, they’ll shoot you. If you stop for too long, they’ll shoot you. If you die from exhaustion…they will shoot you. As tensions run high between the boys, a modern film adaptation could explore the latent sexual tensions present in the novel, include a diverse cast, and create a thrilling suspense for audiences. 

Like House of Leaves, Palahniuk’s Haunted is another that I, personally, am very reluctant to see adapted. To start: Palahniuk is my favorite author of all time. Also, Haunted is my absolute favorite book of his. So you can see where I would be wary of how an adaptation could be truly heartbreaking (like Dark Tower heartbreaking…how do you cast something so well and screw it up that much?!). But you could have said the same thing about Fight Club before Fincher’s “voice-of-a-generation” adaptation. 

Haunted is a collection of 23 short stories written by writers who have undertaken an intensive and secretive writing retreat. As the days pass, each writer tells their story, revealing a little piece of their ghastly history which drove them to this moment.

Simultaneously, terrible things are happening in the decrepit old house that’s hosting their retreat. The entire food supply spoils, the lights go out, the heater keeps breaking. And each writer is crafting their own survivor’s tale of how they were the only one to escape. Of course, that means everyone else would have to die…

I see calls for an adaptation of Haunted all the time. It would only work in a miniseries format – no less than 25 episodes. A premiere set up, lead-ins to each of the 23 episodic stories advancing the overall wraparound, and then the closing finale. And it would only work with a no-holds-barred writer and director at the helm. 

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