We are deep into the Halloween Season, and while scary stories and creepy books are all well and good, a huge part of the season, at least for Kate, is consuming all the horror and spooky movies that she can. For those of you who also enjoy a good festive movie for this time of the year, here is a list of book recommendations that could be a good pairing with your favorite spooky film!
Movie: “Suspiria” (1977) / Book: “The Walls Around Us”
The original “Suspiria”, directed by Dario Argento, is a surrealistic and completely bananas horror film with vibrant colors, a kick ass soundtrack, and an unnerving setting in a ballet academy where strange, supernatural things are afoot. The reasons that it would pair well with Nova Ren Suma’s “The Walls Around Us” are numerous. “The Walls Around Us” involves a ballet school, death, and a dancers who find themselves behind bars in a juvenile detention center for murders they may or may not have committed. But, like “Suspiria”, there are strange and surreal supernatural elements that come into play, and make the reader feel like they don’t know which way is up when all is said and done. Both “Suspiria” and “The Walls Around Us” are creepy and unsettling, and fans of the movie would definitely find a lot to like in this book.
Movie: “The Blair Witch Project” / Book: “Hex”
“The Blair Witch Project” is still one of Kate’s all time favorite horror movies, as any movie involving scary witches is going to be a must watch in her book. Three grad students go into the woods to film a documentary about a folktale involving a woman who was killed as a witch, and disappear. The movie is the found footage of their disappearance, and the slow realization that someone, or something is in the woods with them. This movie is going to be perfectly with Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s “Hex”. Like “Blair Witch”, it involves a town that is haunted by it’s history, and literally haunted by the ghost of a witch that was killed in puritan times. Not only are the themes of witches from olden times at play, so are the themes of technology, as the filmmakers in “Blair Witch” are filming the whole time, and the townspeople in “Hex” use cameras and tech to keep an eye on the witch as she moves about. Both are disturbing as all get out.
Movie: “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974) / Book: “Off Season”
For those who aren’t afraid of a little brutality in their horror media and literature, this pairing could be for you. In “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, a group of young adults run afoul a family that has started killing people for sport and profit after they lost their livelihood at the local slaughterhouse. It was a notorious sensation at the time of it’s release, and yes, it’s one that Kate watches every Halloween Day. And Jack Ketchum is the go to author for visceral horror with lots of depravity and violence. Like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, a group of friends are traveling together, those in this case to a coastal retreat deep in the wilderness, while a group of inbred cannibals starts to hunt them down. This book is NOT for the faint of heart, especially if you get the most recent edition that restored all the violence the initial publication did away with.
Movie: “The Ring” (2002) / Book: “The Girl from the Well”
The movie that turned all dark, long-haired girls into immediate Halloween hits simply by creating a wet, comb-forward look and pairing it with a nightdress. This pairing is also pretty obvious. The book description of a murdered girl who died in a well hunting down humans even references the same Japanese horror ghost story that inspired “The Ring.” Serena is particularly terrified of this movie having, for some unknown reason, been conned into watching it several times in highschool and never having recovered. So much so that she hasn’t read the book, even being a fan of Chupeco’s other work. But for those who were not scarred permanently about girls drowned in well and then climbing out of TVs, this book is the perfect pairing!
Movie: “A Quiet Place” (2018) / “In the After”
For those who like their scares to blur the lines between sci-fi and horror, creature flicks are often a go-to pick. “A Quiet Place” seemed to come out of nowhere but soon struck a chord with fans of many genres with its spooks but also its heart-wrenching deep dive into the love of a family trying to survive in the most difficult of circumstances. All told with very few words as any sound at all will attract the deadly creatures who now roam earth. “In the After” follows a very similar concept, that creatures have shown up on Earth who hunt by sound thus making silence the only source of safety. The main character, a teenage girl, has survived for years not speaking while also raising a young little girl who has mysterious origins. Fans who enjoyed the basic concept at the heart of “A Quiet Place” are sure to be pleased to see the same idea play out on the page.
Movie: “28 Days Later” (2002) / “The Walking Dead”
And, of course, no Halloween list isn’t completely with some nod to the zombie genre. “28 Days Later” is a favorite zombie movie of Serena’s largely based on the fact that the story explores the horror at the heart of humanity. “The Walking Dead,” mostly known for the hit TV show, has been the be all, end all for zombie stories for quite a while. But for those who haven’t read the original graphic novel, it’s a perfect pairing for fans of “28 Days Later.” It, too, tells a zombie story, but readers soon learn that the zombies are largely only a natural disaster phenomenon to be dealt with; the true horror lies in how humanity responds to this sudden loss of society and civilization. Some rise to the top, while others sink into the worst of the cruelty and inhumanity that can exist in some.
Those are our picks! What other movies and books are your favorites during the Halloween season?
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