{"id":225264,"date":"2025-10-15T00:31:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/225264\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T00:31:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:31:19","slug":"the-9-scariest-stories-hollywood-should-adapt-for-film-and-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/225264\/","title":{"rendered":"The 9 Scariest Stories Hollywood Should Adapt for Film and TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re watching a scary movie and things get too intense<\/a>, you\u2019ve got options. You can cover your eyes and plug your ears, hit fast-forward, or even step outside. But scary books require your active participation. These characters need you to turn the page for their plot to progress \u2014 and there\u2019s an unspoken pressure that you, the reader, press on to resolve their pain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Literature gets its most terrifying qualities by manipulating a kind of fear only the written word can spur within you. Truly upsetting books reward and punish their audiences for remaining curious, creating the same \u201ccan\u2019t look away\u201d energy you get driving past a car accident or stumbling onto an extreme viral video<\/a>. It\u2019s a tall order working against a storytelling medium that, for better or worse, sometimes suffers because it\u2019s seen as labor-heavy. And yet, there are the legends who pull it off and spend the rest of their lives reaping rewards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stephen King remains one of the most adapted horror writers in history, and his stories continue to break new ground for Hollywood each year. In 2025, Lionsgate brought what\u2019s technically King\u2019s first book (published using the name Richard Bachman more than a decade after it was written, when he was only 19) to the big screen. Attempted by legends from Romero to Darabont, \u201cThe Long Walk\u201d<\/a> was once considered unadaptable. But director Fancis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner<\/a> disproved that theory and delivered a hit at the box office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As mysteries grow murkier and victims descend deeper into hell, the most skilled genre authors know how to properly razz their readers with a delicate balance of satisfaction and shock. The alchemy that can make a scene scary in a book doesn\u2019t always translate for a film or TV show, but it has in plenty of cases and there\u2019s a lively conversation to be had whenever that transmutation successfully convinces fans of different formats to swap places.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Guillermo del Toro\u2019s stylish spin on \u201cFrankenstein\u201d<\/a> coming to theaters this October \u2014\u00a0and an episodic adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis\u2019 \u201cThe Shards\u201d<\/a> keeping our eyebrows raised toward the horizon\u00a0\u2014 IndieWire\u2019s bravest bookworms have drawn up a list of the scariest written stories we want to see retold on film or TV. Novels, short stories, internet creepypasta, and more formats qualified for this list, so long as the nightmare hadn\u2019t been tried on screen before.<\/p>\n

With editorial contributions by Ryan Lattanzio, Wilson Chapman, Sarah Shachat, and Christian Zilko.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream\u201d by Harlan Ellison (1967)<\/p>\n

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It would take the fine-tuned visual depravity of an artist like \u201cMad God\u201d auteur Phil Tippett<\/a> \u2014 and possibly the influence of some heavy historic acid cinema<\/a>, whatever that means to you! \u2014 to bring Harlan Ellison\u2019s skull-crushing short story from 1967<\/a> to life. But done correctly, \u201cI Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream\u201d wouldn\u2019t just be \u201cworth it\u201d for the right Hollywood studio. No, this is the kind of sci-fi horror story that is so bone-deep, turn-you-inside-out scary that the right rendition of it might just get a few reckless tech moguls and evil business tycoons to rethink the A.I. apocalypse they\u2019re presently unleashing on all of us. (Shut up, I\u2019m allowed to dream!)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brief but brutal, this dystopian nightmare leaves the fallout of World War III to the whims of a spiteful supercomputer that\u2019s taken just five surviving humans hostage to make an infinite point. Known as \u201cAM\u201d (short for \u201cAllied Mastercomputer\u201d), the all-consuming antagonist ripples through the techno-underworld its victims inhabit \u2014 creating a maze-like narrative that makes the reader feel trapped, too. Ellison himself was involved in creating the 1995 video game that helped further popularize the concept, but we have yet to get the cinematic take on this story that the singularly screwed meat-sacks in it deserve. \u2014AF<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThree Skeleton Key\u201d (CBS Radio\u2019s \u201cEscape!\u201d, 1950)<\/p>\n

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Originally a short story by French author Georges-Gustave Toudouze, \u201cThree Skeleton Key\u201d is likely better known as a 1950 Vincent Price-led radio play<\/a> produced by William N. Robson for \u201cEscape!\u201d The exclamation point should give you a sense of the tone. The plot sits at the center of a very rare Venn Diagram of Robert Eggers\u2019 \u201cThe Lighthouse\u201d and that scene in \u201cRatatouille\u201d when the humans come in the kitchen and all the rats run away in different directions. The story centers on three lighthouse keepers, isolated at a lonely tower on the coast of French Guiana, a grim place notorious for a group of convicts who once died there leaving behind only bones. It is an inhuman menace, however, that torments our heroes, as they\u2019re slowly forced to the top of the lighthouse by \u2014 and this is really what happens \u2014 an endless, undulating carpet of enormous, flesh-hungry rats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, in audio, aided and abetted by Robson\u2019s sound effects and Price\u2019s ravenous narration, this premise gets to be properly scary. The swarm is never undone by having to visually define the mad rats. They can be as big as the characters\u2019 fear of them, in our minds. But it\u2019s an interesting challenge for a short or a feature film. How do you keep up the paranoia and suspense, maybe even do a highly pressurized character work, when the antagonists are Eldritch Rizzos? It\u2019d be fun to find out. \u2014SS<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Twenty Days of Turin\u201d by Giorgio De Maria (1975)<\/p>\n

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Giorgio de Maria\u2019s Italian novel \u201cThe Twenty Days of Turin\u201d was first published in 1975, but it\u2019s quickly becoming one of the literary cult classics of the 21st century thanks to a 2016 English translation that brought it to audiences across the Atlantic. And in the hands of the right director, a feature film could be the natural next step that permanently enshrines it in pop culture.<\/p>\n

The book toes the line between magical realism, serial killer brutality, and straight-up paranoia, telling the story of an Italian mental hospital that decides to add a creepy new feature known as The Library. It doesn\u2019t contain any novels or published works of nonfiction: it exclusively carries the journals and private writings of real citizens, which anyone is allowed to read for free. Even worse, the identities of the writers are all available to purchase. The 24\/7 access to everyone\u2019s most intimate private thoughts begins to turn the town insane (who would have thought?!), and what begins with widespread insomnia turns into a bloody streak of murders. It\u2019s not hard to see the parallels between The Library and the information-overloaded world that humanity would grow into, and a film adaptation of \u201cThe Twenty Days of Turin\u201d could be cathartic for audiences lamenting the fact that doomscrolling is keeping them up at night. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\t\u201cCome Closer\u201d by Sara Gran (2003)<\/p>\n

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Sara Gran\u2019s razor-sharp novella from 2003 would be fascinating as a psychological horror film, but its inventive structure and brilliant character work could be even better as a TV show or video game. So, let\u2019s make one \u2014 or\u00a0wait, both! And change the endings for each!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCome Closer\u201d inverts the movies\u2019 typical approach to demonic possession by intertwining the fraying first-person perspective of a possible haunting victim (read: unreliable narrator) with the unraveling edges of her maybe-supernatural reality. The sound of mysterious tapping inside our heroine\u2019s home doesn\u2019t alarm the young architect at first. But with flecks of \u201cThe Yellow Wallpaper\u201d shining through that faux-calm almost immediately, the noise soon drives Amanda into a sort of crazed self-demolition.<\/p>\n

Countless authors and filmmakers have asked, \u201cIs this chick cursed\u2026 or just crazy?\u201d But Gran uses text-within-text to present the audience with a self-assessment for spiritual hijacking that feels like a direct indictment. \u201cCome Closer\u201d renders the feeling of evil lurking within you through a challenging style that\u2019s at once profoundly personal, wildly unpredictable, mostly fresh, and genuinely frightening over 20 years later. Not to mention, the last line in this 150-page wonder is a total heartbreaker. \u2014AF<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Buffalo Hunter Hunter\u201d by Stephen Graham Jones (2025)<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s released well over 30 books since 2000, but horror author Stephen Graham Jones has never seen his work get a film or TV adaptation. There\u2019s a lot of potential in his stories, which often tackle classic horror conventions from an Indigenous American perspective. Several are suitable for a film, but his latest novel is also his best. Released in 2025, \u201cThe Buffalo Hunter Hunter\u201d is a chilling historical thriller written from the perspective of a 1912 Lutheran priest\u2019s diary, as he recounts the life of a Blackfeet vampire who haunts the fields of a reservation looking for justice after a forgotten massacre. It\u2019s easy to imagine the novel\u2019s period terror working well on screen as a haunting movie that mixes brains with frights. \u2014WC<\/p>\n

\t\u201cRevival\u201d by Stephen King (2014)<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s really no such thing as a bad Stephen King novel, so I\u2019ll be elated if he keeps releasing a 6\/10 book every year for the rest of his days. But if we\u2019re going to argue the topic of the last truly great King outing, or the best King book that remains completely unadapted, I would throw \u201cRevival\u201d into the mix. The 2014 novel tells the story of a Methodist minister who\u2019s a little too interested in electrical experiments. What begins as using powerful electric shocks to treat the sick and disabled evolves into a full-fledged religious revival tour, leaving a trail of drug addiction and religious trauma in his wake. Charles Jacobs would be an iconic role for the right actor, and the part could be an ideal heel turn for someone with a squeaky clean image who wants to show another side of himself. It\u2019s no surprise that Mike Flanagan tried to adapt the book for Warner Bros., but given that the project was all but declared dead in 2020, another studio or filmmaker should try to apply a defibrillator to it. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Dionaea House\u201d by Eric Heisserer (2004-2006)<\/p>\n

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With A24 adapting the liminal-space-laden \u201cBackrooms\u201d into a feature film soon, creepypasta could finally get its due in the coming years. Yes, Sony fumbled \u201cSlender Man\u201d badly in 2018, and even the most passionate indie horror directors can\u2019t seem to make a movie version of \u201cThe Russian Sleep Experiment\u201d that doesn\u2019t suck. But if there\u2019s any chance of seeing \u201cThe Dionaea House\u201d come alive in a theater \u2014 where fans were told this deeply disturbing viral short story\u00a0 would be long ago! \u2014 it needs to happen as fast as that tricky creative pipeline gets cleared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Academy Award-nominated for the sci-fi drama \u201cArrival,\u201d Eric Heisserer is also known for the smash-hit horror movie \u201cBird Box,\u201d which was extraordinarily popular on Netflix at the tail-end of 2018. Both of those scripts were adaptations, but as a creepypasta writer, Heisserer left his mark on the form imagining a slippery haunted house \u2014 one that drives a man mad before sending another missing. It\u2019s endlessly vast yet one of a kind, and if you find the right version online, you can explore its surprisingly dark and complex story for yourself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An incomplete set of emails, presented to the reader as a multi-authored LiveJournal,<\/a> \u201cThe Dionaea House\u201d begins as a possibly supernatural missing person\u2019s case. After your first readthrough, Heisserer\u2019s bleak-yet-brilliant puzzle reasserts itself as a confounding vehicle for apocalyptic imagery and existential emotion that practically demands to be \u201csolved.\u201d The source material was optioned by Warner Bros. shortly after the story got popular online, and yet no one has managed to crack the case yet. Considering how it \u201cends,\u201d maybe that\u2019s for the best? \u2014AF<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHouse of Leaves\u201d by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)<\/p>\n

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Mark Z. Danielewski\u2019s terrifying leviathan of an experimental novel \u201cHouse of Leaves\u201d was so influential in 2000 that it led his sister, the indie singer\/songwriter Poe, to release a companion album called \u201cHaunted\u201d later that year. The 700-plus-page book \u2014 which often demands you hold it up to a mirror to read its backwards or upside-down text \u2014 remains one of the widest-read works of postmodern literary fiction of the 2000s, and one of the most difficult to adapt. In fact, Danielewski has said he would never allow someone to adapt \u201cHouse of Leaves,\u201d but with the right filmmaker, anyone is persuadable.<\/p>\n

An adaptation would involve truncating or condensing the many layers in the book: First is an account of a found-footage documentary called \u201cThe Navidson Record,\u201d one apparently distributed by the Weinstein brothers. The creepiest of the book\u2019s passages follows a photojournalist and his family who move into a house in Virginia, only to discover it\u2019s bigger on the inside than the outside dimensions suggest. And keeps getting bigger, more cavernous, as hallways and rooms appear overnight, floorplans shift, and an endless labyrinth opens up that the photographer and a group of friends set upon spelunking to terrifying ends. Beneath it is a low growling noise that appears to be the sound of the house shifting, growing, or something worse.<\/p>\n

Layered over the text is a study, mostly told in footnotes and citations, by a blind academic named Zampan\u00f2. A disturbed man named Johnny Truant, living in Hollywood, discovers Zampan\u00f2\u2019s text and is driven mad himself by the materials.<\/p>\n

Were a filmmaker to tackle \u201cHouse of Leaves,\u201d stripping the book down to its deeply unsettling \u201cNavidson Record,\u201d as a found-footage horror film, would make for an eerily effective entry into the genre. What\u2019s scarier than realizing the home you think you live in is not a home at all, but a living, expanding entity that wants to swallow you, your family, your dreams whole, and feed off your nightmares and fears? \u2014RL<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Thing on the Fourble Board\u201d \u2014\u00a0(\u201cQuiet, Please,\u201d 1948)<\/p>\n

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OK, this one is cheating a bit. I, Sarah Shachat, do not actually think \u201cThe Thing On The Fourble Board\u201d is adaptable from its original form as a radio play for \u201cQuiet, Please,\u201d written and directed in 1948 by the great Wyllis Cooper and acted mainly by Ernest Chappell. I do not think that because \u201cThe Thing On The Fourble Board\u201d is one of the best pieces of horror radio ever produced<\/a>. The story, about an oil rig worker who has an encounter with a mysterious\u2026 something from deep below the Earth, leans into the strengths of audio storytelling. The narrative gives you just enough detail for your imagination to hang yourself with, at a pace that just tightens and tightens like a nose. It involves the listener, too, as only audio can. I hesitate to write anything more about it. You should just listen to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s my point. The Golden Age of Radio is much, much vaster than \u201cThe War of the Worlds.\u201d Shows like \u201cEscape,\u201d \u201cQuiet, Please,\u201d \u201cThe Mysterious Traveler,\u201d \u201cLights Out,\u201d and others have roughly a bazillion great stories that could make interesting leaps into film. Some of them can\u2019t work in a visual medium \u2014 if anyone can visually solve the twist of \u201cSOS,\u201d where the account of three people we spend 20 minutes believing to be shipwrecked sailors turns out to be a shipwreck IN SPACE, please make that happen \u2014 but a lot of them can. Please, guys. Go find Arch Oboler\u2019s \u201cChicken Heart\u201d and do something with it instead of another True Crime series. \u2014SS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re watching a scary movie and things get too intense, you\u2019ve got options. You can cover your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[21539,126394,88,72999,206],"class_list":["post-225264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-adaptation","tag-books-to-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-horror-movies","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}