I don’t know if it’s in honor of Halloween or I’m just in the mood for a scary story but I’m interested in what you consider the scariest books you’ve ever read.
And please don’t write in things like “Audacity of Hope” by Obama or something by Saul Alinsky. Yes, they’re scary but that’s not the kind of scary I’m talking about.
A few off the top of my head:
Salem’s Lot by Steven King. I don’t know if it’s because I read it as a teenager but this book scared me to death at the time. One night when I was up reading it, my brother Kevin stayed out late and got himself locked out of the house so he threw rocks up at my window and started calling/whispering out my name. Yeah, I freaked. So that one holds a special corner of horror in my heart.
Ghost Story by Peter Straub. Just a really creepy tale. But like Salem’s Lot the movie stunk. So don’t watch the movie but the book is a scary read.
Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin. It’s scariness comes from how very real it all feels. Details the possession of five different people. Scary.
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. This may be the only book on the list that was made into a great movie.
Dracula by Bram Stoker. The father of all vampire books. Scary. And the vampires don’t sparkle. They’re all demony and need killin’ just the way I like them.
I open it up to you. Let me know the scariest books you’ve ever read.
October 6, 2010 at 3:57 pm
I echo The Exorcist. Very creepy. I also remember being freaked out reading Whitley Striber's Communion. The again I was 9 or 10 and a little more gullible.
October 6, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Misery. Also a movie just about as good as the book. Read the book in two days, and winced while reading the book when she brought out the sledgehammer.
October 6, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Without a doubt, Malachi Martin's "Hostage to the Devil". Truth is much stranger than fiction and Fr. Martin has put together a sampling of cases from his days assisting an exorcist in the diocese where he was assigned.
I read this book over a few days on vacation in Aruba where the temperature is never below 83 and the water is at least 87 degrees. I was shivering the whole time I read this in the hot sun and the warm water.
Freaky, huh? Better than that the goosebumps were like gooseeggs and the hair on my arms stood straight up! No joke…
the scariest thing about this book? Some of the examples of the possessed are exactly like people I have known, met or seen in public office! No fooling. Get this one, its the real deal.
God Love you!
Sofia
October 6, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Any number of stories by H.P. Lovecraft. His descriptions of lonely places are extremely evocative:
"Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days; and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream."
or..
"Most horrible of all sights are the little unpainted wooden houses remote from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp grassy slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two hundred years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory of unutterable things."
October 6, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I was going to say Salem's Lot, too. Definintely the scariest thing I've ever read.
I was wigged out by "The Lovely Bones," but it was really the suspense more than it being truly frightening. I still haven't been able to get past the part where the ghost's sister goes into the killer's basement. I have no idea how it ends.
October 6, 2010 at 4:21 pm
One of my favorite books I like to read about this time every couple of years is "The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Loraine Warren" by Gerald Brittle.
Back in my teens, our Parish Priest knew the Warrens and read some of the book late at night during at the CYO "Hunger-thon.' (We fasted for 24h).
October 6, 2010 at 4:22 pm
If I had to narrow it down to one, it would probably be Ghost Story by Peter Straub.
October 6, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Robert E. Howard / H.P. Lovecraft – Their horror stuff mostly following the 'Cthulhu' mythos created by H. P. Lovecraft. Used to keep me up at nights as a teenager. Still get the willies from it!
Marc
October 6, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Jawats beat me to it! Dang it! 🙂
October 6, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Stephen King's, The Stand was pretty intense, but not the kind of scary you're probably looking for.
How about Frank Peretti's and Ted Dekker's, House?
(both authors are good)
October 6, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Mike in CT:
Misery is one of my favorite books of all-time, and by leaps and bounds the best of the King movies. I've read it at least 5-6 times, and oddly enough is the book that inspired me to want to become a writer. I wasn't scared by it, but I love it.
October 6, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I loved the horror genre as a teenager. When I came back to the Church, I realised that some of my collection made for very unsuitable reading material, so got rid of them all.
Pet Cemetery by Stephen King was one which really made my skin crawl.
The Omen scared me – though the film didn't, same with The Exorcist. Rosemary's Baby was creepy, but when I re-read it as an adult it had lost its scare potential, possibly because I knew the ending…
October 6, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Rosemary's Baby, followed by The Shining.
October 6, 2010 at 4:54 pm
The Taking by Dean Koontz. All about separating the wheat from the chaff. I think it was written about the time he converted to Catholicism. Scary and gruesome.
October 6, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Another vote for "Salem's Lot."
Also "IT." In this one, the scariest scene was, for me, the episode when "IT" appeared to Ben as he stood on the bridge over the frozen river: the cold; wind; fading winter light; all combined to make that scene quite visceral.
October 6, 2010 at 5:08 pm
HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL was the first one that came to my mind, too. Although I remember reading a magazine article, at a very early age, about the Amityville Horror house story, and the alleged events that occured there, long before the movie was made…and it made a definite impression on my young mind. The Shining, too.
THE STAND is one of the best books in the world, IMHO…scary in a different way.
October 6, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Another vote for The Omen.
I can't do scary anymore…
October 6, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I am sooo with you on Salem's Lot. I read it at my sister's house, first visit. She and her husband had gone out to dinner, so I was reading it alone, in the living room, in front of a large picture window. I somehow managed to get up to my room with out once ever looking at any of the windows, because I KNEW that someone would be on the other side, looking in. Just thinking about how scared I was is giving me the chills now!
October 6, 2010 at 5:29 pm
"The Shining", and "The Stress Of Her Regard" by Tim Powers. Supernatural gothic horror that was chillingly brilliant. Highly recommend it.
October 6, 2010 at 5:35 pm
i'd have to say, Amityville Horror, and several Steven King books which I eventually forswore because they provoked unpleasant personality changes.