The 10 Scariest Horror Movies Based on Books, Ranked

Image via Paramount Pictures Published Oct 23, 2026, 7:05 PM EDT A New York native, Joe graduated from an avant-garde theater school upstate, where he was obsessed with sketch comedy. There, he and his lunatic friends founded The Sketchies — which still lives on at Skidmore College today. Living in New York City, a screenwriter friend of his then taught him how to write for film. This awakened a new passion in Joe. Since then his scripts have garnered over 200 festival selections, nominations, and wins all over the globe (including the BlueCat Best Feature award). Several of his screenplays have been made into feature films — some of them not that bad! Overall, he loves to create unique, hilarious, touching, and bizarre stories. Sign in to your Collider account Scary books have the potential to make scary movies. That’s a fact (so is, unfortunately, the opposite outcome). Here is a deviously diverse collection of creepy novels that were so popular with readers that they were made into feature films. Terrifying feature films. With stories about ghosts, vampires, werewolves, demons, and fish (really, really big fish), here are the absolute scariest horror movies that originated as books. From the page to the screen, these fright-fests have left an indelible impression on audiences all over the world, and make the perfect nighttime viewing in the weeks leading up to Halloween… 10 'The Ritual' (2017) Image via Netflix People love rituals, don’t they? There is something quite comforting about repeating a sequence of events in a certain time period. However, the 2011 folk-horror novel The Ritual is anything but comforting. Adam Nevill’s book and the David Bruckner-directed film follow a group of old friends who elect to go hiking in the remote Scandinavian wilderness in Sweden, as a sort of tribute/memorial to their friend who recently died. Except, in these woodsy woods, they are not alone. Once there, the buds Luke (Rafe Spall), Phil (Arsher Ali), Hutch (Robert James-Collier), and Dom (Sam Troughton) end up taking a shortcut through a part of the forest that is sacred, unbeknownst to them. After that, a moder, a mythological Norse creature that resembles a goat-man from hell, begins to stalk and pick them off (along with a group of death metal-loving fans of the moder who reside there). It’s a very trippy movie, with stunning and frightening visuals galore (Andrew Shulkind’s cinematography alone is lush, wildly inventive, and wonderfully weird). 9 'Malevolent' (2018) Director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson’s adaptation of the novella Hush by Eva Konstantopoulos stays fairly close to the plot of the eldritch source material. The main difference is that Malevolent is set in Scotland. The title of the book was probably changed to avoid confusion with the Mike Flanagan thriller, Hush, and also to capitalize on the success of the other menacing-sounding film titles that are just adjectives, like Sinister, Insidious, and Ravenous. The story follows a brother-sister team who run a scammy ghost-hunting/medium business. In the book, Angela has always had the natural gift of communing with the dead, just like her deceased mother. In the film, she discovers this later on. Angela (Florence Pugh, with a very grounded performance), and Jackson (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) are hired by an elderly lady, Mrs. Greene (Celia Imrie), who asserts that her big old house is haunted by little kid specters. As Jackson coaxes Angela to get into the nitty-gritty, they realize that this place is actually crawling with spirits, and it’s a lot more than these scammers bargained for. Great ambience all around, this is a pretty spine-tingling film. 8 'Dracula' (1931) Image via Universal Pictures The first film based on the 1897 Bram Stoker novel Dracula famously wasn’t licensed; the filmmakers simply changed the names, and voilà, the early horror masterpiece Nosferatu was born in 1922. Nine years later, though, Hollywood took its first stab at the material and produced Dracula. With Tod Browning and Karl Freund helming the film, and Bela Lugosi in the starring role, this fairly-true-to-the-book production blew audiences away. The all-too-familiar story is centered on a Count (Lugosi) in the Carpathian Mountains. This eccentric gentleman does a real estate deal with a British chap, Jonathan Harker (David Manners). Dracula sees a picture of Johnny’s betrothed, Mina (Helen Chandler), and becomes enraptured; she looks exactly like Drac’s long-lost love. So, being the romantic that he is, Dracula travels (in some dirt) on the ship the Demeter to England to win Mina’s heart (and suck on a few necks in the process). Drenched in the dark hues of German Expressionism, this creepy Gothic masterpiece has aged very well (just like the Count himself). 7 'Frankenstein' (1931) Image via Universal Pictures One of the greatest Gothic horror masterpieces in the literary cannon is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s a sometimes inspiring, other times nihilistic story that raises more philosophical points in a relatively short work (224 pages) than other tomes that stretch on and on. So, needless to say, many filmmakers have tackled the source material, with varying degrees of success. The one film that stands out above all others (sorry, Guillermo Del Toro, your Frankenstein was pretty cool, too) is the original 1931 (dang, what a year for horror) film directed by James Whale. The famed tale is about an unconventional scientist, Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive), who is obsessed with defying death. He’s found a way to reanimate dead tissue in the hopes of “curing” mortality. While the book explores his backstory rather in detail, the film focuses mainly on Frank’s creation and what results from it. The ironically named “villain” is The Monster (Boris Karloff), yet the true monsters are the fearmongering townspeople who want him dead simply because they are too dense to understand him. 6 'Silver Bullet' (1985) Image via Paramount Pictures Cycle of the Werewolf is Stephen King’s shortest book at only 127 pages (a novella, if you will), but it packs quite the meaty punch. It was adapted into the only King film about lycanthropes, Silver Bullet. With some charmingly comedic elements to this tale, it’s actually one of King’s most frightening as well. Director Daniel Attias’s take on the story provides some of the scarier werewolf imagery depicted onscreen. The plot focuses on a tween, Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim), a wheelchair user who begins to suspect that local clergyman, Reverend Lowe (Everett McGill), is involved in more hairy situations than he lets on. Of course, since Marty is a kid, nobody believes him…until the mounting evidence is too much to ignore. With the help of his sister, Jane (Megan Follows), and his wise-cracking Uncle Red (peak Gary Busey), they devise a plan to eradicate the wolf-man once and for all…which involves a bullet that, yup, isn’t gold or pewter. The SFX team here did a fantastically furry job in creating the anthropomorphized wolf makeup, as did Attias in casting the unholy Reverend in the creepiest shadows possible. 5 'The Amityville Horror' (1979) Image via MGM The 1977 book The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson was on the bestseller list for 42 weeks, so a feature film was inevitable. The movie, directed by Stuart Rosenberg, was also a tremendous hit — made for five million, it grossed over 86. The reason for the success of both of these works is because the source material is based on a real-life account of a horrific murder that took place on Long Island, NY, and people really seem to love scary stories “based on true events.” Yet, it’s a fictitious story about a family that moves into a beautiful Dutch Colonial house…that happens to be a multiple-murder site. The Lutzes, George (James Brolin) and Kathy (Margot Kidder), were not aware of this little fact when they purchased the house (can anyone ever trust real estate people in movies?), but when George turns savagely violent and wakes each night at 3:15, the precise time the murders took place in the house, they get an inkling that something sinister is up. With some of the cooler horror set pieces of the late 70s, involving black flies, bloody walls, and iridescent eyeballs, to name of few, The Amityville Horror scares and shocks in perfect proportion. 4 'Carrie' (1976) Image via Everett Collection After countless so-so remakes, the Stephen King classic Carrie has recently been rejuvenated by the electrifying Mike Flanagan series. Prior to that, of course, was the original hit film of the same name. Brian De Palma’s adaptation of the King story, about the dangers of mixing bullying with telekinetic powers is a powerful, terrifying one indeed. The titular Carrie White (Sissy Spacek, who received a rare horror movie Oscar nomination for this role) is an isolated girl who is routinely mocked by her classmates. Making matters worse, her mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie, who also got an Oscar nom), is a religious nut who not only shelters Carrie but also torments her, too, with Draconian Christian guilt. So, one bully girl, Chris Hargenson (Nancy Allen, with bouncy hair), and her doofus boyfriend, Billy Nolan (John Travolta, also with bouncy hair), orchestrate a scenario at the prom (in the movie’s most infamous scene), where they rig the vote so that Carrie wins prom queen and then is doused with a bucket of pig blood. Cue telekinetic anarchy. This epic finale is one of cinema’s best, and even the aftermath, with a really nicely placed jump scare, is perfectly executed. The implication is that while Carrie may have passed on, her power leaves a lifelong impact on the survivors — the same way this film eerily lives on. 3 'Jaws' (1975) Image via Universal Pictures A hugely successful book about a giant killer fish? Surely it must be Moby Dick (no, and that’s a whale). Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel Jaws was well-received indeed, as it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 44 weeks. Of course, the Stephen Spielberg film adaptation is one of the most famous horror movies of all time, with suspense, thrills, and chills in all the right places. Plus, that score… Jaws is the story of a New York cop, Brody (Roy Scheider), turned small town (island) police chief who goes head-to-head with not only a voracious great white shark but also the local town government. A cautionary tale about greed, and, in part, about underestimating one’s opponent (they did, indeed, need a bigger boat), this is a rich film with fully realized characters and foreboding, moody sequences to spare. The hair-raising elements are all supremely executed as well, from the ominous opening night swimming death scene to the ferocious finale. 2 'Pet Sematary' (1989) Image Via Paramount Pictures Stephen King is arguably the best true horror writer of all time, but he’s definitely the most prolific. With over 60 novels and 200 short stories to his name (with the majority of them residing in the horror sphere), his most brilliantly frightening book is probably Pet Sematary. Since he adapted the screenplay himself, the movie is basically just as blood-curdling. Director Mary Lambert took King’s words and whipped them up into a frenzy of fearsome images that are almost impossible to get out of the viewer’s head. Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) is a doctor who’s just relocated his happy little family to a remote part of Maine to work at the university there. He soon learns that there is an ancient Micmac burial ground located nearby that, when a dead thing is buried therein, returns from the grave, full of “life.” Unfortunately for Louis, when people from his own small clan end up in the cursed soil and head back home, they are anything but hospitable. With some of the eeriest moments of any movie, perfectly placed, macabre special effects makeup, and an unforgettable lesson about the very nature of inescapable death itself, Pet Sematary goes down as a true bone-chiller. 1 'The Exorcist' (1973) Image via Warner Bros. It’s not necessarily that widely known that the quintessential demonic possession film, The Exorcist, was originally a book (by the film’s screenwriter, William Peter Blatty). Yet when one reviews the plot, which is really comprised of several major, intertwined storylines, it definitely makes sense that it stemmed from a multi-narrative book. The primary story is centered on Regan (Linda Blair), a kid, and her mom, Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), a famous actress. Regan becomes possessed by a vile demon, and Chris calls on the very best religious figures she can find to expel the evil entity from her child. Only problem is, the young priest Father Karras (Jason Miller), has basically lost his faith, and the older one, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), nearly perished the last time he tried to vanquish a hell-born monster from a mortal host. Once Regan goes full demon, basically every time she is onscreen, it’s another opportunity for director William Friedkin to give us all nightmares. With some of the most iconic horror images ever seen (pea soup sales must’ve plummeted in ’73), The Exorcist is one book turned very, very scary flick. The Exorcist Release Date December 26, 1973 Runtime 122 minutes Cast Linda Blair Regan MacNeil