From Page to Scream

“So maybe the more psychological horror stories work better as a written text, they can terrify us with those hideous ideas and feelings so much better than a 2-hour film could. “

by Eileen O’Sullivan.

We love an adaptation. We’re all guilty of it. But I always wondered how on earth reading a book could make someone scared. Like a Stephen King horror, will it really give me the heebie-jeebies and if so, how? Without the magic of the silver screen can it really deliver the same heart pounding, palm sweating, pillow covering eyes type of feeling? To answer my own question, sort of.

I embarked on this great journey of horror discovery by reading ‘I’m Thinking Of Ending Things’ by Iain Reid. This psychological, horror fiction follows a couple taking a trip to visit her boyfriend’s parents for the first time – scary enough as it is – but not everything is as it seems. A constant unknown caller, disturbing parents, a constant feeling of existential dread and unease made this book one of my favourites. It’s a different type of feeling reading a book and becoming so unsettled and creeped out by the words we read; we know the characters more, we connect with them, we’re let into this world and allowed to join the characters in a way a film often fails to do. And so, I was curious as to what the Netflix adaptation would do to convey those same emotions and all that content and context. First impressions were strong; stunning wallpaper, good jumpers, cute dog – what else does one need?

I liked the film, but I loved the book, it just had so much more to grasp onto, so many more subtle unnerving details that leaves the reader dying to uncover more. A few elements were different but we reach the same conclusions. Films have the advantage that books simply cannot compete withmusic. When a scene is deadly quiet you know that something is about to happen; someone’s in danger, someone’s behind the door, who’s going to pop out of nowhere. Charlie Kauffman (director) does a fantastic job of marrying the soundtrack to the visuals to create another layer of anxiety and fear even in what appears to be a dull moment.

On top of this, we have the wickedly talented Toni Collette. She delivers an incredible performance as the mother and brings this role to life. The father played by David Thewlis is so good that I truly got creeped out by the actor himself for a while.

Kauffman really did nail the different varieties of scary and horror with this; the creepy audacious father being inappropriate and the sharp scary tongue of the mother, on top of everything else that’s made us tense and taut.

Both book and film do manage to scare and horrify audiences through this feeling of distress and disturbance and so I would recommend both to anyone – especially those who love to not be able to sleep at night without checking there’s no creepy man in the corner. However, I am team book on this one. There’s just too much that Iain Reid gave us in this novel that simply cannot be interpreted onto the silver screen unless you have 5 hours. I adored the eccentric story in Kauffman’s personal rendition but there’s just that special spark that was missing from the screen adaptation.

Moving on from this I started to think of other horror adaptations that really just butter the crumpet. Twilight. Yes, I am arguing it is horror – there are horror elements (vampires) and a horrific love triangle. Whilst this doesn’t necessarily scare the audience the adaptation is an incredibly well received film, it’s a fall favourite, it’s a self-care essential, a movie night marathon must have! Stephanie Meyers took the scary Count Dracula “I want to suck your blood” and turned it into “hold on tight spider monkey”, and I think that is both horrific and successful. But then we have Jaws. Scary shark, tense music. The book was good and did a wonderful job at advocating open water safety however the film trumps. We all know that classic music, it does something that the book just couldn’t translate.

So maybe the more psychological horror stories work better as a written text, they can terrify us with those hideous ideas and feelings so much better than a 2-hour film could. And maybe the classic scary shark, creepy clown horrors work better with a visual aid and with an incredible soundtrack to help keep viewers up at night from fear and worry. Either way, if you haven’t read any horror stories I implore you to give it a go, they’ll haunt you in an engrossing way that’ll leave you dying for more.