The movie is based on a book **BOOK /MOVIE SPOILERS**

"The Red House" by George A. Chamberlain. I found a copy recently and was very disappointed with it. The movie is much better than the book. Here are the differences I found:

IN THE BOOK:
Pete and Ellen are much older and are actually twins.

Some character names are different.

Eerieness and suspense are lacking.

Meg doesn't go inside the Red House.

The icehouse was at Pete and Ellen's farm instead of the Red House.

As a young woman, Ellen had an affair with the married owner of the Red House, resulting in an illegitimate daughter, referred to as her "shame". The daughter grew up, married, and died in childbirth. She was Meg's mother. So Meg was actually related by blood to Pete and Ellen.

Several characters in the book were cut from the movie.

Teller was much more dangerous in the book.

One thing that puzzled me about the movie was cleared up in the book. In the movie, the events at the Red House which haunted Pete took place about 17 years earlier. When telling Meg what had happened there, Pete mentioned that he heard Meg's father driving his surrey up to the Red House. If the story took place in 1947, that would place Meg's father driving a surrey in 1930, long after the horse and buggy days. But in the book, the events at the Red House took place 50 years earlier and it was Meg's grandfather, the owner of the Red House, who drove the surrey.

What happened at the icehouse was pretty much the same in book and movie.

The movie FAR surpasses the book!