According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2021, 23% of American adults didn't read a single book in the previous year. Maybe they were all scared away by the movies on this list. The books below can raise the dead, transport you to evil worlds, or may even lead to some mild hobbling. Whatever the outcome, it's bad news. When was the last time the TV hurt you? Vote up the books you would rather Dewey-decimate than crack open their spines.
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College students love finding haunted books in cabins. Just ask Ash and friends from The Evil Dead, who accidentally discover the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (AKA Naturom Demonto, the Book of the Dead) and release the demons who turn the poor souls of the departed into Deadites. If only the group had set up a “no books” rule for their weekend away, they could have all enjoyed a rather groovy game of spades without all the tree attacks and dismemberment.
When Evelyn reads from the Book of the Dead, she accidentally brings to life an Ancient Egyptian mummy named Imhotep. Imhotep, in turn, brings back the Plagues of Egypt and embarks on a murder spree as he searches for several stolen canopic jars so he can resurrect his lover, Anck-su-namun. Moral of the story: the Book of the Dead should not be read.
Cabins are usually a perfect place to cozy up with a good book - or, in the case of The Cabin in the Woods - a creepy diary you found in the basement. When a group of college students takes a small vacation together, Dana finds a former resident's diary and recites an incantation from within it that brings a dead family back to life. Whoops. Judging by how the movie ends, Dana choosing not to read the book might have still led to the same end-of-the-world conclusion, but at least she wouldn't have had to run away from zombies first.
“Do you read Sutter Cane?” Horror novelist Sutter Cane is missing, and it's up to insurance investigator John Trent to track him down. Trent soon learns that Cane's final novel, In the Mouth of Madness, actually drives its “less stable” readers insane. He also discovers that Cane, through his writing, has accidentally released a race of monsters called The Old Ones. Uh-oh.
A rare book dealer is hired to track down copies of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by Aristide Torchia. The book was allegedly co-written by the devil and can summon him. The key to determining whether or not the books are authentic are the initials engraved in them: “A.T.” for Aristide Torchia, and “L.C.F” for Lucifer. At the end of the film, it's implied that the rare book dealer actually opens the gate to hell using the books.
It doesn't get much creepier than a spellbook with a human eye. After accidentally resurrecting three witches on Halloween ‘93, Max, his little sister Dani, and his crush Allison steal the witches' spellbook and try to use it to break the curse that turned a boy into a black cat. Instead, the book shows the witches where Max and his friends are, which then allows them to kidnap Dani. If that wasn't enough, the Sanderson sisters need the book so they can "suck the lives out of the children of Salem before sunrise.”
In The Babadook, the unbearably annoying Samuel asks his widowed mother Amelia if she'll read him a pop-up book called Mister Babadook. Once she opens the cover, however, there's no turning back: the Babadook is out for blood. And blood the Babadook gets when a possessed Amelia kills the family pet, Bugsy. If Amelia had never learned her A-B-Cs, the d-o-g would be A-OK.
Famous writer Paul Sheldon meets his number-one fan, Annie Wilkes, after she saves him from a car crash and cares for him at her house. His situation takes a turn for the worst, however, when Annie won't let Paul leave until he writes a better conclusion to his most popular book series. To ensure he doesn't try to escape, Annie breaks Paul's ankles using a sledgehammer. At that moment, it's safe to say Paul probably wishes he had never learned to read or write.
“Don't think it, don't say it,” is often repeated in the weird-but-forgettable supernatural slasher The Bye Bye Man. The “it” you shouldn't think or say, of course, is the name of the demon after which the film is named: the Bye Bye Man himself, who haunts anyone who knows his name and forces them to kill. Unfortunately, Elliot is his latest victim after he reads the evil name etched on a piece of furniture. At the end of the film, after the deaths of everyone who did think/say it (including Elliot), the curse seems to be lifted - until Elliot's niece tells her father she saw “some writing” on a table at Elliot's house. Her father asks what it said, and the audience holds their breath expecting her to whisper the Bye Bye Man's name; however, after a heavy pause, the girl laughs and says, “Daddy, you know I can't read in the dark. What do you think I am, a flashlight?” Whew, that was a close one.
Walter Sparrow receives a book called The Number 23, which proposes that everything that happens in the world has a weird connection to a single number: 23. Walter believes the book's protagonist is based on him and sets out to find its author, Topsy Kretts (pronounced "Top Secrets," *groan*). As he tries to solve the book's real-life murder mystery, Walter Sparrow finally finds out that he is Topsy Kretts, and that he got amnesia after a failed suicide attempt. Warning: Along with reading, the movie might also make you hate math, as Walter tries to find connections to 23 in everything he sees and does: “I met you when I was…” “23.” “And the day we met was…” “September 14.” “9/14. 14 plus 9 is?” “23.” “We married October 13.” “10/13. 23.” Now imagine sitting through that for 98 minutes, and you'll have a more horrifying experience than the horror movie itself. (By the way, 98 is 60 + 38, but if you subtract 38 from 60 you get… 22? So close.)
After swerving off a bridge to avoid hitting a dog, Barbara and Adam return home to find a Handbook for the Recently Deceased. They soon realize they must have died in the crash and that a new family, the Deetzes, will soon be moving into their house. The handbook, which reads “like stereo instructions,” shows them how to travel to a waiting room for the afterlife, where they find out they still have to live in the home for another 125 years. In the meantime, since they're responsible for scaring off the current residents, Barbara and Adam hire a crude "bio-exorcist" named Beetlejuice. If only they'd never read the Handbook for the Recently Deceased in the first place, maybe they could have learned to live with the Deetzes and never let Beetlejuice on the loose.
When 10-year-old Richard Tyler enters a library during a storm, he slips, hits his head, and enters an animated world where he meets three anthropomorphic books: Adventure, Fantasy, and Horror. To return back to his 3D home, Richard and his new friends face off against classic book characters, including Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Moby Dick, and Long John Silver. Despite the books causing him to be “nearly torn to shreds by a crazy doctor," “made a slave to a bunch of mangy pirates,” and "eaten by a fire-breathing dragon," when Richard wakes up back in the real world, the first thing he does is check out the books using his brand-new library card. Some lessons just can't be learned.
