15 Horror Movies You Probably Didn't Know Were Based On Books
Who could have ever thought that so many horror movies were books first?
The world of film is full of stories that found their beginnings within the pages of books. Some are obvious, like The Lord of The Rings, and others are not-so obvious, such as The Godfather. Horror cinema very much follows this trend as well.
As far as horror films based off novels go, besides the obvious Stephen King adaptions, it's usually a surprise to find out that one wasn't a completely original idea. Take for example Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock's classic psychological horror flick has grown to be so iconic that seemingly everyone has forgotten that the idea came from a book released just a year before.
This happens all the time with screen adaptions, but it seems to especially be the case with horror. There's something about the genre as a whole that allows for so many movies to come off as standing totally separate from their source material. The case is even more true when it comes to foreign adaptions of written work, as many in the West might not be all that familiar with literature from overseas.
Now its time to take a trip through the past with fifteen horror movies you probably didn't know were based on books.
15. The Relic
Let's kick off the list with a mostly forgotten creature feature from the era of grunge and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Roughly based off the first novel in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Special Agent Pendergast series, The Relic follows a homicide detective and an anthropologist as they try to put a stop to a monstrous creature rampaging its way throughout a Chicago museum.
Since the release of the first Pendergast book in 1995, Preston and Child have kept themselves quite busy. With around nineteen entries, a spin-off, and a deep lore, the series is far more interesting and expansive than the movie would lead you to assume. In fact, Pendergast isn't even in the movie. While he played merely a supporting role in the first two novels, he was still very much a part of the narrative.
As far as the movie itself goes, history has ignored it for a reason. Though it does have a pretty darn cool creature design. At least that's something.