7 Spooky Movies Based On Books (PHOTOS, POLL)

Many of the best and scariest movies out there were first books, though it's easy to forget sometimes. Just in time for Halloween, here are 7 scary movies that were based on books.

Which do you think was scarier: the movie or the book?

Vote now, and use the Participate Button below to add your favorite scary books-turned-movies!

Tell us your favorite scary books-turned-movies! Just click the Participate Button and upload a still from the movie, and we'll add the best ones to the slideshow below!

Scariest Books-Turned-Movies

 

Find a picture, click the participate button, add a title and upload your picture

Frankenstein

Book: 1818, by Mary Shelley

Movie: 1931, directed by James Whale

comments(11)

This Book: Which Is Scarier? (Current Rank: loading...)

The movie The book

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Now Make Your Own Top 5

And Share with Your Friends

Average rating: loading... out of 10

Top 5 Scariest Books

loading...

Top 5 Scariest Books

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

Top 5 Scariest Books

Users Who Voted on this Slide

loading...

loading...

HuffPost Community Top 5 Slides:

«»

 | Become a fan

Top 5 Scariest Books

 

Filed by: Jessie Kunhardt

Get HuffPost Books On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[mergina]

06:07 AM on 11/01/2009

The book is ALWAYS better.

[thrdr]

04:51 AM on 11/01/2009

"The Shining" and "The Exorcist" are probably the only movies in this list that are really truly scary to me now; both can get under your skin and stay there (interesting too that both use some of the same avant garde music). "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" are classics of cinema, but it's harder to get into the proper frame of mind to watch them as serious fright films, at least for me. "The Masque of the Red Death" is corn, was corn when it first came out, though I love Vincent Price. The other films I have not seen.

[Paul Baack]

08:19 PM on 10/31/2009

Not to be too geeky, but the picture of Bela Lugosi isn't from "Dracula," it's from "Mark of the Vampire." Also directed by Tod Browning, it really terribly lame movie, albeit with some iconic imagery.

[MAragon]

09:52 PM on 10/30/2009

the Haunting (1962) should have made the poll and so should Nosferatu, which is much creepier and disturbing than any Dracula movie version made since.

[GallopingCat]

04:15 PM on 10/30/2009

Silence of the Lambs?

[robbyJ]

03:25 PM on 10/30/2009

The shinning is the only movie that's freaked me out.

Jack Nicholson was a mad man, and Stanley Kubrick was a master.

[w0rld0fw0rcraft]

01:49 PM on 10/30/2009

easy. The Exorcist.

by the way you might enjoy this maze game: http://www.maniacworld.com/maze_game.htm

[robbyJ]

03:22 PM on 10/30/2009

no wayyy, the exorcist was funny... the shining was intense

[jaundicedview]

09:38 AM on 10/30/2009

You Missed

"The Haunting" Movie dir. Robert Wise, based on "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson

"The Innocents" dir. Jack Clayton based on "Turn of the Screw" Henry James

"The Body Snatcher" Val Lewton, producer, based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson

"Night of the Demon" dir. Jaques Tournier based on "Casting the Runes" by M.R. James

[jingles32]

12:04 PM on 10/30/2009

Great list! "The Haunting," "The Innocents," and Ira Levin's "Rosemary's Baby" (screenplay by Roman Polanski) two of my all time faves.

[naschkatze]

09:22 PM on 10/30/2009

I can't decide whether I like the book or the movie better in the case of Rosemary's Baby, but I didn't find it scary, just very eerie.