While novel adaptations have been a major part of filmmaking since the inception of the medium in the final decade of the nineteenth century, short story adaptations are still fairly uncommon. While major hits like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Everything Must Go prove that it can be done, more often than not, films based on short stories are either quickly forgotten or fail to be finalized.
That said, some of the very best horror movies are adaptations of short stories. From the seminal works of H.P. Lovecraft to the well-known writings of Stephen King, these quick bits of fiction made exemplary conversions to the silver screen.
Based on a Stephen King short story of the same name, 1408 is a 2007 John Cusack vehicle involving a small-time writer trapped in a preternatural hotel room. Disturbing, bleak, and full of twists, it's perhaps most memorable for including three separate and distinct endings.
Playing on fears of paranoia and claustrophobia, Cusack gives an intense performance, and, despite the narrow scope, it's masterfully paced. It expands greatly upon the very short work on which it was based, and it's one of the more remarkable horrors to be adapted from the pen of Stephen King.
Though it's generally remembered for the 1986 Cronenberg magnum opus, The Fly actually first appeared as a short story in a 1957 pulp fiction magazine. Penned by French writer George Langelaan, it tells the tale of a revolutionary scientist who morphs into a fly after an experiment goes horribly wrong.
These events are depicted fairly faithfully in the 1986 movie, but the film adaptations leans much more heavily into horror. Cronenberg is often thought of as a body horror auteur, and The Fly is perhaps the most significant film in that subgenre.
When his wife Elizabeth is killed by human trafficker Jimmy Dolan, Tom Robinson sets in motion a plot to claim gruesome revenge. Digging a massive hole into a nondescript roadway and covering it up, he waits for Dolan to drive his Cadillac into the trap and buries him alive.
Originally a short story by horror master Stephen King, the 2009 adaptation starring Christian Slater adds an intense new psychological horror angle and makes the drastic and drawn-out death of Dolan as grim and agonizing as it could possibly be.
An adaptation of the 1981 work by author Alvin Schwartz and illustrator Stephen Gammell, 2019's Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark adapts several short stories, combining them all into a frantic and surprisingly horrifying PG-13 offering.
The original children's stories are best remembered for their strikingly disturbing artwork, and many of the movie's monsters are well-realized enough to seem as if they crawled directly from the page. The film itself is a bit all over the place, but it's an excellent starting point for burgeoning horror movie buffs.
Though he would go on to helm some of the most impactful movies of the twentieth century, Steven Spielberg's first film was the comparatively unassuming Duel, a 1971 made-for-TV movie about a maniacal truck driver hellbent on chasing down a motorist.
Duel was actually an adaptation of a short story Spielberg had written himself, and, years later, it remains a masterclass in uninterrupted tension. Much of the terror comes from the faceless, motiveless villain, and the blank horror of the story's tractor-trailer would prove to be a first draft of sorts for the doll-eyed shark from Spielberg's 1975 release Jaws.
A man enjoys living on a farm owned by his wife's family, but, when his wife demands to move away, he ropes his son into a murder plot which eventually leads to chaos.
Yet another adaptation of a Stephen King short story, 1922 is a slow burn that seeks to evoke a sense of creeping dread rather than outright horror. A plodding tale that slowly sinks from bad to worse, it's the kind of nightmare that'll put clouds over the heads of audience members for days to come.
The original H.P. Lovecraft tale, titled "Herbert West-Reanimator," was a fairly morbid tale of the horrors made manifest by a scientist too keen on playing god. The 1985 adaptation, however, was an over-the-top, ridiculous reinterpretation of events that felt more like Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead than anything from the pages of the father of cosmic horror.
That doesn't mean it's not worth watching, however; while silly, Re-Animator is a wild and gruesome production that's a must-see for any gorehound. It lacks the subtle dread of the original story, but it makes up for that with its buckets of blood and nigh-on slapstick humor.
Based on "The Forbidden," a story in the fifth volume of renowned horror writer Clive Barker's Books of Blood anthology, Candyman is a grim and dour tale that will shock and provoke for more reasons than one.
The 1992 adaptation fleshes out the titular antagonist and builds him up as something of a Freddy Kruger-esque demonic presence. His iconic brown cloak and booming voice are instantly memorable, and, despite the somewhat niche origins, Candyman went on to become one of the most important horror films of the 90s.
John W. Campell Jr's 1938 pulp fiction novella "Who Goes There" has been adapted several times over the years, but the most impactful version of the story was the John Carpenter-directed The Thing from 1982. When an alien capable of perfectly replicating organic material breaks loose in an Antarctic outpost, a group of researchers must work to stay human and stave off the otherworldly threat.
By today's standards, the original text is incredibly tame. The 1982 movie, however, remains one of the goriest things ever committed to film. It's a body horror work for the ages, and it's arguably one of the best examples of cosmic horror not attached to Lovecraft.
Children of the Corn was never one of Stephen King's most popular tales, but the 1984 film generated an incredible amount of buzz and a developed persistent fanbase. When a cult run by children butchers an entire town, it's up to the hapless Burt Stanton to get to the bottom of things.
In a similar vein to Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Children of the Corn manages to make wide-open, well-lit plains and quiet, rural towns scary. It hasn't aged particularly well in thirty-odd years, but there's still a palpable dread present in this 1984 production.
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