Three Horror Novels Reach Cinemas in Five Weeks
Three horror novels published in the past three years reach cinemas within five weeks of each other.
Other Mommy opens on Oct. 9, Whalefall follows on Oct. 16 and Victorian Psycho arrives on Nov. 13. The three writers behind the books, Josh Malerman, Daniel Kraus and Virginia Feito, spoke together about the adaptations in a joint interview published on Oct. 2 by The Hollywood Reporter.
Other Mommy started as Incidents Around the House, Malerman's 2024 novel, and was renamed for the screen. The Universal film stars Jessica Chastain as the mother and is directed by Rob Savage, with Malerman listed as an executive producer, a senior credit that keeps an author involved in production decisions. Its trailer became the talk of screenings for The Odyssey.
The wider cast includes Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman and eight-year-old Arabella Olivia Clark, according to a fall horror preview by JoBlo. Universal Pictures lists the film for cinema release on Oct. 9, 2026 on its official site.
Whalefall is based on Kraus's 2023 novel, the earliest of the three books. The film is directed by Brian Duffield, co-written by Kraus, and stars Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin. A six-minute sequence from the film was a hit at CinemaCon, the annual event where studios present coming releases to cinema owners.
Victorian Psycho comes from Feito's 2025 novel, the most recent of the three. It is her first book to be adapted, and she wrote the screenplay herself. The film is directed by Zachary Wigon and stars Maika Monroe as a Victorian governess. The path to the screen was rough. It went through casting changes and a studio exit before securing a premiere at Cannes, the French festival that often launches international films.
Malerman arrived with the longest screen history. His Bird Box reached Netflix in 2018 starring Sandra Bullock. He said he wrote about 14 books before Bird Box was published.
Kraus described a strict divide between the two crafts. If he is thinking about a possible film while writing a novel, he said, that is the day that novel is dead. Feito stayed closest to her own text, carrying her story from novel to script on her first adaptation.
What makes this stand out is the speed and the contrast. Three books published across 2023, 2024 and 2025 are all on screen by mid-November. One author produces, one shares the writing credit and one scripts alone. Audiences can compare the results week by week through October into November.
