House by Frank E. Peretti and Ted Dekker fulfills the category “Book with the Same Title as a Movie or TV show but is unrelated to it” for the PopSugar 2020 Reading Challenge. The novel is a haunted house adventure while the TV show is a fanfic of Sherlock Holmes and very awesome.
It’s October, and there are five Fridays this month. I saved all my horror stories (well, most of them) for Halloween season. I thought I should warn you ahead of time that it will be five scary books for October. After House, I plan to do A Clockwork Orange, The Screaming Staircase, Frankenstein, and If It Bleeds. I love a good fright!
House starts with a married couple lost on a back road in Alabama. A police officer directs them to a better route. They follow it, but their tires are sabotaged, and they discover an old Bed and Breakfast in the middle of nowhere. Typical horror set up. Lost, alone, ending up Frank N. Furter’s place…wait, that was a movie. Anyway… Once in the old Victorian house, we meet the weird homeowners and another lost couple. The tropes are strong. We feel scared and insecure, and a little trepidatious. But once the players are set, House takes another tack on horror stories.
The home is attacked by a mad man who insists one person must kill another for everyone to live. And the chaos ensues. As the book progresses, hope fades, the house gets weirder and new, seemingly innocent characters are introduced. I could see this as a movie. The twists and turns are predictable, but at the same time, not. We expect a certain outcome and are shocked when the story does a reverse.
I love a haunted house story. There’s something about having the place where you should feel the safest be dangerous. And I especially love it when the house has a mind of its own. The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorites as a story. The movie/TV spin offs of the tale are even better. The weird, 1999 movie, the recent TV adaptation and the best of them all, Rose Red by Stephen King. I love that miniseries. Talk about a great haunted house! King pulled in all of Shirley Jackson’s elements, added the Winchester House, and a bit of Salem’s Lot. If you haven’t seen it, go get it now.
Why was House scary? It didn’t quite hit Rose Red standards. It was a fun run through the chaotic maze of a basement where you weren’t sure what was real. The feelings of loss and confusion were overwhelming. Who could we trust? Not even our protagonists! And we were lost…in a house…how does that happen? We had no one to root for, except that seemingly innocent…oops, spoiler.
Anyway, I’m glad I picked the novel for this prompt.
I give House by Frank E. Peretti and Ted Dekker Four Mystery Basement Rooms.
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