Dread Central ~ View topic - books/short stories that need to be adapted to film

Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 3690 Location: Chicago, Illinois

what would you love to see turned into a movie? I think A Weird Tales/pulp magazine based anthology/period picture would be great... something with:

Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo
H.P. Lovecraft's the Festival

bookend it with Robert Howard's In the Forest of Villefere and Wolf's Head

THAT would be, as the kids say, tits
_________________
mods, kindly delete my account

Joined: 10 Aug 2008 Posts: 6478

Reliquary - Instead of a remake or a sequel to a bad franchise why not something good with lots of monsters? Maybe Relic bombed but it needs to be made.

The Terror - Another great monster tale in an arctic setting. Would be expensive for sure but with the right person behind the camera could be epic.

Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 147

Ok, thank you for making me feel ok about liking Reliquary. I never wanna tell people I read it cuz of that movie...

I think a good (emphasis on good, Creepshow was fun but good?....), Stephen King anthology movie based on the shorts in one of his collections would be rad. Sadly, Nightmares and Dreamscapes already got raped by TNT. That leaves me thinking Night Shift would be a good pick, if only to make everyone forget the shitty movie. As much as I love Jerusalem's Lot, I don't think it would do the story justice to have it as a short, but stories like the boogeyman and strawberry spring would be great back to back, both as 45 minute to an hour long movies.

In terms of Lovecraft I think that a decent anthology movie based on his works is possible, but it needs to be done by a good film maker, like Guillermo Del Toro or Frank Darabont.
I'd love to see In the Vault, Pickman's model,(a good version, not the night gallery one...sighhh) The Music of Erich Zann, the Colour out of space, and in the walls of eryx made into a horror anthology short.

Clive Barker needs to have more of his shorts from the book of blood made. I think the yattering and jack, sex death and starshine, in the hills the cities, hell's event would be good. There are so many, though I'm too lazy to wikipedia it right now to remember what other stories were in the first three volumes.

Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 5530

I didn't think the Night Gallery adaptation of Pickmans Model was all that bad. I liked it quite a lot.
_________________
Close the case before the coffin.

Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 5530

What's with all my double posts? Have I been drinking? Drinking and mixing pain meds recreationally?
_________________
Close the case before the coffin.

Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 147

Well, I mean specifically the monster in it when I talk about not liking it. I didn't mind the actor, but I just never pictured his model as looking like the abominable sewer rat on hind legs ape thing.
I pictured it as being more reptilian, though its tough for me to pinpoint exactly what I think of.

Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 5530

Bradford Dillman was the actor. Maybe I'm wrong but I think the rat/ghoul thing was an early Stan Winston.

But yeah, it was goofy when seen in full. But that neat kind of goofy.
_________________
Close the case before the coffin.

Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 147

Well whatever, moving along, what kind of horror anthology movie would you liked to see based off of an author?
Oh, also I think an Algernon Blackwood anthology would be awsome, though admittedly I have only read a few of his shorts so far. Still, I would love to see the man who loved trees, accessory before the fact, and ancient lights.
The only other one I've read was the willows, but that has movie all over it.

Joined: 10 Aug 2008 Posts: 6478

I know what you and everyone else thinks of Relic. I agree too, so much was cut out and changed that the movie ended up being very different from the book. What can I say? I still liked it though. I loved the book when I first read it but never thought they'd make a movie out of it and it pretty much snuck up on me so I was really surprised and didn't nit pick it. I very recently picked up Relic and Reliquary again and flew through Relic because it's such a fast paced book and had every intention of getting right into Reliquary but got more interested in other books so it didn't happen. I'm bad with books like that.

Reliquary is even better though, imo, and definitely has potential as a movie. I'd rather see it than another remake for sure.

I'm reading In Harm's Way right now. A book about the sinking of the Indianapolis. While it'd definitely be considered a war movie I think horror fans would like an adaptation too. What's scarier, a giant fake shark or facing hundreds of sharks in a true story?

Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 15

without a doubt i'd love to see j.r wards black dagger brotherhood books
on the screen, with all those hot sexy vampire warriors,hell yes! Very Happy

Joined: 20 Oct 2009 Posts: 114

One of these days I'd love to see a (good!) movie adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale's "Hap and Leonard" series.

Mr. Lansdale told me last year that Bill Paxton was somehow involved with the most recent option on one of these novels, and there was a possibility he could end up directing.

God, I'd love to see this happen. Judging from Paxton's FRAILTY, he could *nail* the Southern atmosphere . . . .

J.N.

Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 147

Paxton like a mu'fucka
_________________
http://spookysean.com/blog/

Joined: 15 Mar 2010 Posts: 264

There's just not enough Ramsey Campbell stuff out there. Someone needs to get hold of...well, anything by him really...and do a decent job with it. Like King, a lot of Ramsey's stuff is psychological; much of the terror is in the minds of the protagonists. But something like The Doll Who Ate His Mother or The Face That Must Die would work really well, where he uses the location very effectively to create a sense of unease and mounting terror (like Poe and Lovecraft before him). Stories like these wouldn't need a big budget either, which is surely a plus point for any studio.

Interesting to see Joe R Lansdale's name here. I like to drop in on his site from time to time, read the free stories he posts there. I first heard of him in a preface to one of Ramsey's short story collections, where he mentions the "relentless violence" of The Nightrunners. Been searching for that book ever since but to no avail.

Joined: 04 Jul 2006 Posts: 477 Location: Australia

Joined: 09 Jun 2010 Posts: 9

Recent Headlines

Recent Reviews