6 Horror Novels We Need On Screen
Horror fans are excited for 2019. They should be. Us, Midsommar, The Head Hunter, The Curse of La Llorona, and other new IP’s. This includes dark superhero films like Brightburn and New Mutants. Of course we have sequels like 3 From Hell, Doctor Sleep, Happy Death Day 2U, Zombieland: Double Tap, and yet another Annabelle movie. There’s always the remakes, too, such as It: Chapter Two, Pet Semetary, Jacob’s Ladder, and Child’s Play. I should point out this is only about half of the listings I found for horror in 2019.
Here’s the things – I’d like to see less Stephen King and more Adam Nevill and Josh Malerman, if you get my drift? The Ritual and Bird Box were wonderfully successful, and there’s no reason this can’t happen again. There are tons of amazing horror authors out there right now creating stunning work, many of them easily adaptable for movies and television.
In any case, here are my six picks for titles from the last few years.
RED SKY by Nate Southard (movie)
Crime noir with monsters. Brutal and bloody, insane and intense, it’s the story of a heist gone bad and the gang trying to find a place to hide out. Unfortunately the abandoned factory they flee to isn’t quite as abandoned as they thought. You get a gritty action director and the right SFX team, and this could be a crossover hit. Hell, Southard is directing short films now, so somebody just throw him a bunch of money. Fans of The Collector and The Descent would collide over their love for this movie.
CHILLS (Kathy Ryan series) by Mary SanGiovanni (television)
Staring with Chills and then with Behind the Door and soon Inside the Asylum, SanGiovanni has crafted a cosmic horror detective in Kathy Ryan that could easily translate onto the screen. Flawed, believable, and relatable, she has routinely stared down the darker side of reality. This show could easily work somewhere like AMC or FX, utilizing a 12 episode story arc flushing out each novel. If you loved the first season of True Detective and In The Mouth of Madness, you need this show.
THE JERSEY DEVIL by Hunter Shea (movie)
Let’s be honest, half of Shea’s books would be awesome on the screen. I’m choosing this one because it was the first one of his that I read. The lore and the landscape, the guns and the gore. Straight up action horror with tons of explosions and body parts. The hardest part would be pulling off convincing SFX, but if done well, this could be a ridiculous bloodfest. Folks, we’re talking Sharknado fans to Feast.
TWIN LAKES: AUTUMN FIRES by Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason (television)
Creepy and disturbing, The Sisters of Slaughter began weaving their Twin Lakes mythos with this book, and I demand to know more. Not only do we have a serial killer preying on women in the town, we have what seems to be an eccentric and possibly immortal family running the town. The horrors within, subtle and overt, scream to be on HBO or Showtime. This would definitely be made for fans of everything from Twin Peaks to Stranger Things.
PRETTY MARYS ALL IN A ROW by Gwendolyn Kiste (movie)
Some might call it a type of gothic fairy tale, I just call it awesome. A tale of ghosts trapped in a special house, sent out to haunt every night. Beautiful, tragic, and terrifying, it could have wide appeal, given the right casting. A story like this is so dark yet poignant, somewhere like Netflix could have their next breakthrough hit. I truly feel like fans of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and The Haunting of Hill House would love this.
THE SPECIMEM by Pete Kahle (television)
Already a massive tome, you could likely get two seasons out the novel without any padding. Ancient parasitic creatures, lost history, secret societies, mad scientists, this novel has it all. Following multiple different POV’s, this would need to be a series with some funding, something big enough to float the production costs. Not much in the way of SFX, but fans of Fringe and X-Files would eat it up.
