MY TOP 5 BOOK-TO-TELEVISION ADAPTATIONS

Hi everybody, it's me again - your friendly neighbourhood Kayleigh. Last month I told you all about my favourite horror movie adaptations from books/graphic novels, and now i'm going to tell you about my 5 favourite television show adaptations (within the horror genre).

Before we start, I want to give an honourable mention to this fella, who I haven't included only because it's an anthology show based on a comic, which doesn't quite fit in with what I'm doing here. But this dude has always been known in my house as His Royal Highness, The King Of All That Is Spooky.

So, in no particular order...

TRUE BLOOD (based on The Sookie Stackhouse novels, AKA The Southern Vampire Mysteries, by Charlaine Harris)

2008 - 2014

I watched the show before I read any of the books, and I loved it. I assumed it was just another teen vampire romance series like The Vampire Diaries or Twilight (I'm not slating YA fiction by the way, it's just those particular properties aren't for me), and then lo and behold there was extreme violence and gore, graphic sexual content, and the foulest language my little ears ever did hear. Count me in!

Everyone in this show is so full of character and individuality that it was impossible for me to dislike/be uninterested in any of them, no matter how heinous. My favourite character was on a constant rotation. The plots are generally suspenseful, funny, and well-written, and Sookie's love-life was surprisingly un-annoying to me. So imagine my surprise when I picked up the books, expecting an even better, more in-depth original version...

For the life of me, I do not understand why everyone loves these books so much. I'm so sorry Charlaine Harris (who is most definitely not reading this because she's busy making a lot more money than me, as well as much more significant contributions to literature), I just HATE Sookie as she was originally written. I've never encountered such a self-serving, shallow, woman-hating protagonist as Sookie in all my reading life. This is one of the very rare occasions where I will confidently shout that the adaptation far exceeds its source material. It added a lot of racial and sexual orientation diversity in the characters, and the main cast were considerably more relatable in the show than on the page. 

Still, Harris's idea about beginning the whole thing with vampires "coming out of the coffin" was a stroke of genius.

THE WALKING DEAD (based on the graphic novels by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard)

2010 - 2022

A lot of people say that the show, in recent years, has taken a nose-dive in quality. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, but what I want to talk about is the first couple of seasons of the show, which were developed by Frank Darabont. I have never been more impressed with a show-runner's ability to subvert the expectations of a pre-existing audience.  Take the scene (S01, E01) where Rick is making his way down the pitch-black hospital stairwell, with only his constantly-dying lighter to guide him. I knew because of reading the comic that at any minute, he'd flick that lighter back on only to be confronted with a stairwell full of zombies. My heart was in my mouth. And then, he just made it out, with nary a deceased shamble to be heard. This technique of replicating scenes from the comic and then veering off in other directions was used often in the first few seasons, and was really effective because the built-in audience couldn't guess what was coming.

I'm still sore about Darabont getting the axe. The cheek! The sheer cheek of such a thing! The dude spends 6 years developing the show that becomes the highest-grossing pilot in that network's history (up to that point), and then they turf him out! And who in their right mind gets rid of the guy responsible for adapting The Shawshank Redemption AND The Green Mile, right BEFORE the season set in a prison?

Madness. Absolute madness.

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (based on the novel by Shirley Jackson)

2018

The novel is an atmospheric masterpiece that the show somehow manages to expand on in the most wonderful, creative, and scary ways, opening up the lives of the characters and giving everyone the most compelling stories. Plus, it was scary as hell. I'm not going to say much about this as there are twists and turns in every episode and I'm afraid of spoiling anything for those who haven't seen it. Perhaps my favourite thing about the show is the amount of agency and personality it gave to Hill House - it was like a character of its own.

CASTLE ROCK (based on multiple works by Stephen King or, if you prefer, The Stephen King Multi-verse)

2018 - 2019

Admittedly, there were times during the first season that I found a little too slow, even for me (although there is an episode starring Sissy Spacek that is masterful), but season 2 had me grinning like the Cheshire Cat. It was a... dirty birdy.

If you're not much of a Stephen King reader, there's no reason you shouldn't enjoy the show anyway, but being a fan really makes those characters and references delicious.

THE HANDMAID'S TALE (based on the novel by Margaret Atwood)

2017 - Present

Before you say "but this isn't horror, it's dystopian drama!" allow me to respectfully nudge you off a cliff. There are few things more terrifying than losing bodily autonomy, being forced into sexual slavery, being permanently separated from loved ones, being forced to conceive, carry, and birth children that are immediately taken from you forever, and worst of all.... so much worse that I can barely type the words.... losing the right to read. I shudder at the thought.

This is another adaptation that I believe exceeds its source material. It took a horrific premise and kept amplifying and expanding it and then it flowered into the most hideous thing ever (but in a good way).

So that's it for this time, see you next time!