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 5:35 pm
World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War. by Max Brooks (Mel Brook's son).
Zombies almost take over the world and we fight back. Told from a journalist's perspective. The scene in Paris' catacombs is downright unsettling.
October 6, 2010 at 5:36 pm
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice was so scary that I stopped reading it. Same w/Malachi Martin–can't finish those–way too creepy. (I'm such a wimp!)
Also the Stephen King ones that everyone has mentioned–love them/hate them–esp a collection of his very early (and very weird) short stories called Night Shift.
October 6, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Technically it's a short story, but "Children of the Corn" gave me nightmares for weeks after reading it(Which is weird since I read Dracula when I was 9 and was totally fine). I generally don't read horror though so I'm not a very good judge of scariness.
October 6, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Stephen King has a couple short stories that terrify me. One is called "The Jaunt" and I think the other is called "Here There Be Tigers." Just thinking about them totally freaks me out!
October 6, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Oh, Here There Be Tygers isn't the right one. I'm thinking of the one with the woman who teaches disabled children who goes nutso and shoots them.
October 6, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Definetly H.P. Lovecraft. From the bit I've read he was slightly unbalanced and it shows in his more macabre writings. More than one of his stories kept me awake as a teen.
October 6, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Salem's Lot scared the heck out of me and I still can't look at a window at night if it doesn't have any curtains.
October 6, 2010 at 6:40 pm
The scariest book of all for me was the Bible. Reading certain parts of the Gospels and Revelations scared the hell out of me – for which I am now very thankful!
JDTB2012
October 6, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Charles Williams– He was an Inkling who wrote Supernatural thrillers– creepy.
Also, (for kids) the varius books by John Bellairs….. (shiver)
It by Stephen King. Except the ending was really dumb.
'Children of The Dust'–but it was nuclear war, not goblins or Zombies.
October 6, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I'm a bit of a collector of horror stories and books, though I enjoy them, they don't scare me. There is one story that did scare me, as in made me sleep with the lights on all night scary, and that was "The Judges House" by Bram Stoker. The overall tone of the story was so erie and uncomfortable and the conclusion was very satisfying in that scary curl your toes manner. The only other contender for truly scary (I mean nightmare scary) would have to be most of H.P. Lovecraft's work.
October 6, 2010 at 7:26 pm
I'm a social misfit, I guess. I've never read any of these books. Why in the world would I want to scare myself? Creepy stuff is just creepy and I don't want it in my head. The only book I ever read that gave me nightmares was Crime and Punishment in the 12th grade. That murder scene was way creepy enough for me.
October 6, 2010 at 7:27 pm
I would Dracula at night before bed, and then see the glow of the red digits on my alarm clock and freak out! Definitely a scary book!
October 6, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Almost anything by H.P. Lovecraft, such as At the Mountains of Madness
The Haunting of Hill House -Tight psychological horror and the original movie made from the book was very good.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Infected, by Scott Sigler. One scary novel from a man who podcasts all of his books for free and later sells them.
While Stephen King's The Stand is his best novel, I think The Shining, Misery, and It are scarier.
Peter Straub's Ghost Story would also top my list.
On the topic of supernatural thriller I would have a different list than a pure horror list.
October 6, 2010 at 7:57 pm
I used to love the Fear Street series by RL Stine.
One of the books was about a busload of high school cheerleaders that flipped in an accident and a bunch of them died. Later, one of the survivors was showering in the gym locker room and a ghost of a dead cheerleader entered the locker room, turned on all the water to scalding hot, and the surviving cheerleader was scalded to death.
Between that and seeing Disney World's visual demonstration of the shower scene from Psycho, I was pretty much afraid to shower throughout my entire pre teen and teenage years.
In fact, I think I was in my twenties before I finally started fully shutting the sliding glass door to the shower, rather than leaving it open a crack.
(I'm not sure what leaving the door open really did for me. I mean, if crazy dead cheerleader ghosts had the ability to turn the shower knobs, I'm sure they could also slam the door shut too).
October 6, 2010 at 8:34 pm
"Zodiac" by Robert Graysmith . I read it as a teenager, and I was terrified – particularly by the facts that a. it was real and b. some of the victims weren't much older than me. c. the guy was never caught.
October 6, 2010 at 9:15 pm
I echo Hostage to the Devil. I should've prayed and fasted before I read it.
Well, 1984 scared me then and continues to scare me now, so it is "up there" on my list.
-Theo
October 6, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Most of Dean Koontz's stuff. Scary, but always informed by his Catholic beliefs and with a moral. Also, "The Screwtape Letters" scares me witless, especially the last page!
October 6, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin.
October 6, 2010 at 11:49 pm
"Lord of the Flies" by William Goldman. I had the misfortune to read this as a precocious 10-year-old, and for years after, I couldn't even look at the bookcase that held the book.
October 7, 2010 at 12:21 am
Now, now, I think you're not being quite fair in not allowing someone to mention post-Vatican II CCD materials.
— Mack