After reading the novel first – my review – I decided to watch the movie. Netflix bought the movie rights to the book and released their adaptation in 2021. Honestly, I loved their version. The motive, the killer, and some of the characters changed, and with it they satiated all the things I felt the book was lacking or missed an opportunity.

Anyways, let’s start with the comparisons.

1. The Opening Scene
   
   The novel opens with Hayley Whitehall returning home alone and finding her mother’s egg shaped kitchen timer on the welcome mat. She remains confused but brushes it off. After talking with her friend, Brooke, she hangs up and decides to take a nap after experiencing more eerie things. Hayley is jolted awake by the egg timer that is now sitting on her nightstand where her phone was. The book doesn’t detail her death but the event circles the school’s gossip ring and we quickly learn how she died. Her throat was slit.
   
   In the movie, we’re introduced to a new character, Jackson, who takes Hayley’s place as the first kill. Jackson, like Hayley, returns home alone to an empty house. Shortly after walking in the front door, he received a call from his friend and heads to the kitchen for a snack. There he notices an egg shaped timer on the counter, but it’s ticking and set to go off. But no one’s home. Unsure if maybe he’s wrong, he tells his friend to hold on while he calls out for his mother to see if may she’s upstairs. She’s not. It’s then Jackson says they’re out tailgating before the town’s football game, in which Jackson is part of the team. Shortly after hanging up with his friend, he takes a nap and is woken by the timer now on his nightstand in place of his phone. Feeling uneasy, he brushes off the feeling when he realizes he’s late for the game. Rushing downstairs, he finds the door open which makes him pause and then he notices his truck is gone. Side note: both versions of the character live in a farmhouse surrounded by corn fields so not really the ideal place to bolt. We all know when people run into the corn fields, they rarely make it out. Anyways, he returns inside to find his house plastered with images of his deepest secret. Enraged and afraid, he yells for the intruder to show themselves and follows the photos into his room then into his closet. In the closet is where he meets God. Or rather a killer with a God complex… From behind the hanging clothes, the killer slashes Jackson’s Achilles’ heels and then stabs him to death.
   
2. The Dead and the Wounded
   
   Victim #2: Matt Butler
   While Matt doesn’t make an appearance in the movie, he does die brutally in the books. He was killed in the school’s locker room while everyone attended Hayley’s vigil on the field. After playing tricks and hiding Matt’s clothes and belongings, the killer stabbed him in the abdomen before plunging the knife into Matt’s skull. Once Matt was dead, the killer removed the top of his skull then placed it back on neatly… very strange. He was left for a custodian to find.
   
   Victim #3: Rodrigo Morales
   The Book: Rodrigo was killed while home alone after playing video games all night. Around midnight, he took a break and grabbed a drink from the kitchen. When he returned to the living room he noticed his chair was moved but thought nothing of it and continued playing. After falling asleep and waking up the next morning, he saw that all his furniture had been moved around. Searching the house and thinking it was a prank, Rodrigo was confronted with the killer in his kitchen. The killer was hooded and had his back to him. Uneasy and concerned, Rodrigo went to touch the hooded figure’s shoulder and was stabbed in the heart. As he fell to his knees, the killer proceed to stab him repeatedly in the back. Once Rodrigo was dead, the killer put his body back into the computer chair and sawed off Rodrigo’s ears. Then he put the ears into Rodrigo’s headphones and placed them back onto Rodrigo’s head. Then the killer sat on ground, picked up the controller and continued playing Rodrigo’s game for hours as no one was expected home anytime soon.
   
   The Film: Rodrigo’s death in the movie was completely different. He was killed at a classmate’s house party. After sending out a mass text revealing Rodrigo’s addiction to fentanyl, the killer chases him till they’re outside before tasing Rodrigo. Once Rodrigo is compliant, the killer forces more pills down his throat before slitting his throat. Then he leaves Rodrigo’s body in the fountain outside.
   
   Victim #4: Caleb Greenley
   The Book: While working his job at a store, Caleb was chased by the killer and repeatedly stabbed in the chest and back. Once he was dead, the killer placed him on the town’s football merch stand and laced his fingers together over his heart before severing them from Caleb’s body. Ollie and Makani were the ones who found him.
   
   The Film: In the film, Caleb was actually one of the survivors. He suffered a knife wound to the chest while trying to console Makani in the empty school hallway. The killer couldn’t finish the job due to Ollie rushing in and scaring him away.
   
   Victim #5: Katie Kurtzman
   The Book: This one was actually pretty heart-wrenching and the one death that affected me the most while reading… Katie was killed in her home with her twin siblings asleep upstairs. She purposely didn’t scream as she died so she won’t wake them. She noticed feminine products moved around but thought her siblings were playing a prank. After putting the twins to bed, she worked downstairs on her college applications. She heard the basement stairs creak a few times and realized someone was in the basement. Rushing to try to block the door with her weight, she heard pounding footsteps coming up the stairs before a body crashed against the other side of the door. Failing to keep the door from opening, the killer stabbed her in the abdomen. Once she’s dead, he used the knife to break open her rib cage and remove her heart. He placed it on her college brochures “because her heart was set on college.” During the struggle, Katie managed to call 911 and the cops find her body.
   
   The Film: In the film, Katie was the second to die. She was killed brutally in the town church while setting up for Matt Butler’s memorial service. She was stabbed through the mouth while trying to hide in the confessional. This was after already suffering multiple stab wounds. After she’s dead, the killer hung her by the neck from the beams above the alter. She is found when the townspeople gathered to commence the memorial.
   
   Victim #6: Alex Crisp
   The Book: Alex died while trying to save Rosemarie from the killer. Alex, along with Makani and Ollie, tackled the killer and in the scuffle the killer slashed Alex’s throat so deep that you saw the vertebrae of her spine and she was nearly decapitated. Due to it being an improvised kill in the middle of a farm, the killer didn’t stage her body. He just fled when he realized he was outnumbered.
   
   The Film: In the film, Alex was spared any injuries. Hallelujah!
   
   Survivor #1: Makani Young
   The Book: While her grandmother was at a sleep center for her sleepwalking, Makani invited Ollie over so she wouldn’t be alone. During the night, Makani was attacked by the killer and suffered a knife wound to her forearm. She was saved when Ollie and her grandmother, who returned home during the fight, attacked the killer and ran him off. It was during this, that the killer’s identity is revealed.
   
   The Film: While the film does set up the scene similar to the book, minus Ollie, Makani was attacked differently. She woke from a nap to find the front door open and images of a girl with severe burns plastered all over her living room. Oh! And a chalk figure outline on the floor. The killer stood outside the window before breaking it and tasing Makani. Once she is incapacitated, the killer douzed her in gasoline and lit a newspaper on fire then went to drop it on Makani as she begged for mercy. Right before he could drop the newspaper, Alex came charging in the door and scared him off. He left behind his mask, which is a replica of Makani’s face.
   
   Survivor #2: Grandma Young
   The Book: Grandma Young sustained a knife wound to the chest during her scuffle with the killer while saving Makani. She survived and spent some time in the hospital.
   
   The Film: Thankfully, Grandma Young was excluded from any injury or death in the movie!
   
   Survivor # 3: Rosemarie Holt
   The Book: Rosemarie was grooming her horse when the killer attacked her. She fought back and lunged at him with a pitchfork. She managed to stab him in his left side with it. The killer ran away and she followed. Suddenly he came out of one of the stalls and grabbed the pitchfork. While they struggled over the pitchfork, the killer grabbed his knife and cut her left thigh. She was saved when the gang showed up and tackled him to the ground.
   
   The Film: There is no mention of Rosemarie in the film.
   
   Survivor #4: Darby
   The Book: Darby suffered a chest wound during the confrontation with the killer in the corn maze.
   
   The Film: Darby went with Alex to help get the rest of the townspeople out as the corn field was on fire. He was not there for the confrontation so he wasn’t wounded.
   
   Survivor #5: Oliver “Ollie” Larsson
   The Book: Immediately after the killer stabbed Darby in the chest, he rushed Ollie and stabbed him in the chest as well.
   
   The Film: After the tase gun malfunctioned and Ollie was unable to subdue the killer, said killer rushed him and stabbed him through the torso with a ninja sword (?). After momentarily distracting the killer as he’s bleeding on the ground, Makani was able to stab and kill the killer.
   
   
3. The Killer & His Motives
   
   In the novel, the killer is revealed to be David Ware – a minor character who was briefly mentioned in the beginning of the novel. David just snapped. He became so frustrated knowing that he wouldn’t get into college and leave his small hometown. He also knew that the town was the type of town where if you didn’t get out young, you didn’t get out at all. That enraged him. So as payback to the universe? The town? His victims? Who knows. What we do know is that he killed the ones who were going to leave out of jealousy and envy at the fact that he couldn’t. David revealed he wanted to get caught, too. He knew he’d be transferred to an out of county prison which would mean he’d finally get to leave. Some messed up logic there, Bucko.
   
   In the film they got rid of David. In fact the only David mentioned in the movie was a creepy Uber driver. Instead, they incorporated another minor character, Zach, into the main group of friends. Zach was given more of a character arc as the town’s billionaire son. Said billionaire who made his money buying up the townspeople’s farms. This caused Zach to undergo a ton of bullying which only made him grow angrier and angrier with his stoic a$$ of a father. His motive was very different from David’s, Zach’s reasoning was to expose and punish the townspeople of their hypocrisy. He toyed with his victims by moving things around as well as plastering images of their deepest darkest secrets all over their place of death before exposing them to the town and then killing them off as penance.
   
   Both are certifiable.
   
   
   
4. Makani’s Background
   
   Makani’s big secret in the novel was that during a hazing prank, she lost control of her temper and in a drunken rage she cut off her best friend’s ponytail. What a crime. Such a big no no.
   
   The movie, thankfully, made her secret much darker. Instead of cutting off the girl’s ponytail, Makani shoved the girl into the bonfire causing her to suffer burns all over her body. Makani was acting in retaliation to the girl shoving her first, unfortunately the girl ended up on fire.
   
5. The Reveal
   
   As mentioned in my review of the book, David was revealed as the killer halfway through the book when he initially attacked Makani. The town spent the remainder of the book hunting him down and looking over their shoulders in fear that David might pop out and off them next. The movie kept up with the tropes and waited till the end to reveal the killer. Makani and Ollie confront Zach as he kills his father. Once his father dropped to the ground, Zach removed his mask and scolded them for stealing the thrill of killing his father. Cited that he spent so much time planning this event and now they had messed it all up. Naturally, that enrages a killer.
   
   Conclusion:
   Honestly, I preferred the movie. I felt that the plot was scarier and flowed a bit better than the novel. I enjoyed the fact that the reveal was at the end, that Makani’s background was more severe, and that the motive was more than a temper tantrum. Nonetheless, I absolutely recommend the book! It’s a thrilling read that will keep you on your toes!
   
   Read the book. Watch the movie on Netflix. Comment your thoughts below!