We love movies, especially horror movies, but there's nothing like curling up with a good, scary book late at night. The very best books stoke the imagination by creating believable, relatable characters and then placing them in the midst of terrifying circumstances, resulting in gripping stories that envelop the reader in a storm of emotion. Here are some of our favorite, nerve-gnawing novels, along with trailers for the often bruising and sometimes brilliant movies the books inspired.
The Haunting of Hill House
Published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's novel was of such high literary quality that it became a finalist for the National Book Award. Horror fans love the book because it's a terrific read, whose suggestive nature allows for one's imagination to fill in the scary details. The first of two screen adaptations, The Haunting, was released in 1963 and remains a nail-biting watch.
I Am Legend
Richard Matheson's short novel, first published in 1964, revolves around a character in despair. The only apparent survivor of a worldwide pandemic, he battles "vampires" as he researches the root cause of the pandemic. (Nowadays, the "vampires" more closely resemble zombies.) Really, though, the book is more about the effects of loneliness on the human soul. Three feature films have drawn direct inspiration from it, most recently I Am Legend with Will Smith in 2007.
Jaws
Even though it was originally published in February 1974, Peter Benchley's first novel became the definition of a "summer read," a near-instant bestseller that is very much a "page-turner." The descriptions of the terrorizing shark and its attacks on hapless humans fuel a tense thriller. Nonetheless, the book also featured a fair amount of domestic melodrama that was dropped in Steven Spielberg's subsequent smash hit movie version the following year.
The Silence of the Lambs
Thomas Harris' long-awaited 1988 sequel to 1981's Red Dragon -- first adapted by Michael Mann into 1986's big-screen thriller Manhunter -- is exquisitely detailed and incredibly grisly, featuring a sharp FBI trainee who is overly conscious of her modest upbringing dueling with a brilliant, flesh-eating serial killer. The fascinating characters and intriguing plot were masterfully adapted into a terrifying movie in 1991 but the novel is very much its own separate, suspenseful creation.
The Ruins
Granted, a book about deadly vines in Mexico may sound quite silly. Scott B. Smith, however, is a terrific writer. Previously, he wrote the very dark A Simple Plan, a devastating book that became a very good movie, directed by Sam Raimi. He again kept the emphasis on very relatable characters who get caught up in a horrifying situation that is completely unnerving. Smith also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 screen version, which remains an underrated, very bloody thriller.
