by @Kelas, curator of HOWLS Book Club nominees for February 2024’s “Silver Screened” category
I’ve been thinking a lot about adaptations lately and what makes them ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Does the spirit need to hold true to the book, or just character names as long as the new story is good? To that end, I’ve put together a list of a few books the server hasn’t read yet that have movie adaptations.
The Nameless by Ramsey Campbell
A call for help…from a little girl long dead.
Barbara Waugh experienced the worst horror a mother can imagine. Her little girl, Angela, was murdered. Horribly. But now, years later, mysterious phone calls bring both hope and fear. Each time, the girl’s voice on the other end simply pleads, “Mummy, help me.”
Could Angela still be alive after all? Barbara’s desperate search for the truth-and her daughter-will lead her into a living nightmare, an evil world of torture, murder and gruesome rituals, where the initiated have abandoned their names…and are searching for new victims. (StoryGraph)
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I’ve fallen into cult documentaries on Max lately and even if that’s not where this goes, I’m intrigued. The Spanish movie based on the book was an international success and won several awards, and I’m looking forward to watching it after I read the book.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname–Buffalo Bill–is stalking particular women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the F.B.I. Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, Chief of the Bureau’s Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and grisly killer now kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter’s insight into the minds of murderers could help track and capture Buffalo Bill.
Smart and attractive, Starling is shaken to find herself in a strange, intense relationship with the acutely perceptive Lecter. His cryptic clues–about Buffalo Bill and about her–launch Clarice on a search that every reader will find startling, harrowing, and totally compelling. (StoryGraph)
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Both the movie and book have been on my ‘one day’ list for a very long time. They’re horror classics, and from what I’ve heard the adaptation is excellent. It’s never a bad time to read a classic when the classic is supposed to be good.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum’s dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human…
But the museum’s directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.
Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who-or what-is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre? (StoryGraph)
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As I was looking for books for this category this was consistently ranked highly, plus it sounds like a fun monster romp – jurassic park without the hubris of, you know, making a whole park full of dinosaurs.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.
Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it’s time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster? (StoryGraph)
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I’ve remained unspoiled despite all the hype around the adaptation but I’m really curious about if the ending can live up to the premise. So many things build around an unknown, unseen threat, but the payoff just isn’t there in the end. If it sticks the landing it would be very worth it to read.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
And The Winner Is…
Out of these five books, HOWLers voted to read The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. Discussion starts on January 29, and you can join in by joining the Discord!
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