Movies That Unintentionally Convince Their Audience That Reading Is Bad

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.