If Christopher’s six-day disappearance, his sharpened senses, and the kids’ desperate push to meet a terrible deadline hooked you, you’ll love how the boys in Summer of Night band together when their Illinois school awakens something ancient. Like Christopher and Kate in Mill Grove, these kids discover that what looks like a normal town hides an older, hungrier darkness—complete with secret tunnels, vanished children, and a final stand that demands courage beyond their years.

You were gripped by Kate’s fight to protect Christopher from the hissing lady’s influence—and the hunt through clues left by other missing kids in Mill Grove. In NOS4A2, Vic McQueen wages a similarly brutal, supernatural battle to save her son from Charlie Manx, a child-stealing monster with his own otherworld, “Christmasland.” The way Vic follows a breadcrumb trail across years and states mirrors Kate and Christopher’s piecing together of Mary Katherine’s fate—and the stakes feel just as personal and terrifying.

If the church bells, Father Tom’s crisis of faith, and the apocalyptic showdown in Mill Grove resonated—where scripture and belief are as pivotal as the treehouse itself—The Exorcist tightens that spiritual vice. Regan’s possession becomes a crucible for Father Karras, much like how Mill Grove’s salvation hinges on faith tested by real, invasive evil. The moral weight, the ritual, and the terrifying ambiguity of what’s speaking through a child will feel chillingly familiar.

If the wintry woods, deer heads, and brutal, small-town violence of Mill Grove stayed with you—as did Christopher’s fragile friendship and the way evil uses children—Let the Right One In scratches the same itch. Oskar’s bond with Eli mirrors Christopher’s uneasy brush with the hissing lady’s promises, contrasting tenderness with predation. The atmosphere is just as cold and unforgiving, and every kindness seems to exact a bloody price.

If the treehouse, the whispering clouds, and the otherworld bleeding into Mill Grove fascinated you, Something Wicked This Way Comes brings a similar intrusion of the uncanny. Two boys in a quiet town face a sinister carnival whose ringmaster tempts neighbors the way the hissing lady tempts Christopher—with twisted answers to secret wishes. It’s that same everyday America becoming a stage for nightmare, where simple joys hide teeth.