What Is The Scariest Book Or Story You've Ever Read? (11/1/21)

[Marc]

In honor of Halloween, what would you say is the scariest story or book you have ever read?

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson may not be great literature but it made me keep a light on.

[Carol]

Thinner by Richard Bachman. Although when I think of books in this category that I didn't finish because I was having nightmares, perhaps Rosemary's Baby deserves a mention.

[Carol]

I listened to the audio version of The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell and it was proper scary could only listen when I was walking into work not on the way home in the dark 😬

[Stacia]

Two that I never could finish because they creeped me out so badly:
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
House of Leaves

And one I finished & found truly disturbing (not scary in the traditional "horror" boo/monster way but scary as in extremely unsettling & uncomfortable): The Open Curtain

[Lark]

I've never been as terrified and gripped as when Ethan and Mattie are at the top of the sledding hill and about to make their second trip down in Ethan Frome.

[Carol]

lark wrote: "I've never been as terrified and gripped as when Ethan and Mattie are at the top of the sledding hill and about to make their second trip down in Ethan Frome."

If we’re going to turn serious, Roots: The Saga of an American Family is the scariest book I ever read.

[Lark]

Carol wrote: "If we’re going to turn serious..."

I'm not trying to be serious--it's really, really scary! It's the only time I can remember literally looking away from the page while I was reading the page. Ok, that's impossible, but it felt like the jump-scare part of the movie and I can't remember another time when I had that much of a physical fear reaction while reading.

Mock me if you must....

[Jerry]

For me it's close to a tie between The Ruins by Scott Smith and Stephen King's Pet Sematary. The King book kept me up till after 4am, and I couldn't/wouldn't go to sleep afterward, but Scott Smith's novel is UNBELIEVABLY horrific without, in my opinion, becoming tasteless or manipulative. The Ruins is one book that I am a little afraid to reread, although part of me would very much like to.

[Carol]

lark wrote: "Carol wrote: "If we’re going to turn serious..."

I'm not trying to be serious--it's really, really scary! It's the only time I can remember literally looking away from the page while I was reading..."

No mockery here. Perhaps I should have said, works not generally thought of as horror fiction. :)

[Whitney]

Jerry wrote: "For me it's close to a tie between The Ruins by Scott Smith and Stephen King's Pet Sematary. The King book kept me up till after 4am, and I couldn't/wouldn't go to slee..."

The Ruins came to my mind as well for sheer skeevyness. I put Nick Cutter's The Troop in the same category. Have you seen the film of The Ruins? It's quit well done (except the ending, I hated the ending).

[Robert]

I've never been scared by a proper horror novel (or comics, Junji Ito makes me go 'yuck' but never 'ARGH')but There's one bit in Haruki Murakami's Killing Commendatore, where the main character hears shuffling at night, which causes him to get out of bed and inspect. The creeping tension is pulled off brilliantly.

[Alwynne]

Stacia wrote: "Two that I never could finish because they creeped me out so badly:
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
House of Leaves

And one I finished & found truly..."

I was unnerved by the Manson book too, and even more so by Happy Like Murderers which is incredibly well-written but completely horrific.

[Kathleen]

Great topic. I love reading scary stories, but don't like gore and can't take most scary movies--the music puts me right over the edge!

I remember that scene in Ethan Frome and think it is absolutely appropriate here. Chilling!

And I was thinking of Pet Sematary too. But I've got two short stories to add to this list. One scared me to death as a kid and still think of it once in a while when someone leaves a door open. Wide O--- by Elsin Ann Graffam.

The other I read more recently and it is so well-written but ... awful. AWFUL. Incarnations of Burned Children by David Foster Wallace. It's the only thing I've read so far by David Foster Wallace, and it had me wishing I could un-read it!

[Marc]

Often, I post these questions and I have trouble answering them!

I think Graham Joyce's The Tooth Fairy might rank up there for scariest. It was just so creepy and I felt on edge just hoping that damn Tooth Fairy wouldn't return, knowing he was going to each time. More disturbing than scary.

The tunnel scene from The Stand really creeped me out and has stayed with me. I think about it almost every time I drive through a tunnel or see a tunnel scene in a movie.

[Marc]

Robert, you reminded me Junji Ito's Gyo: The Death-Stench Creeps was rather creepy. I felt like my shoulders were hunched each time I turned a page. (I want to call them "haunched shoulders" like you're being haunted... )

[Robert]

Marc wrote: "Robert, you reminded me Junji Ito's Gyo: The Death-Stench Creeps was rather creepy. I felt like my shoulders were hunched each time I turned a page. (I want to call them "haunched s..."

He's the king of creepy

[Alwynne]

I think I found fiction scarier when I was younger than I do now, there's so much that's real that scares me far more. But one story I remember was from my uncle's book of Pan Horror Stories, I wasn't supposed to read it but I pretty much read anything I could lay my hands on so I did. It was set in a medieval castle, someone's placed in a cage in the dungeon as a punishment. The cage is too small to stretch or stand or do anything other than crouch but the device is intended for short spells of time only. But the castle's then besieged and abandoned and the person's left trapped in the device. I read it when I was around 8 or 9 and it terrified me. The same book had, I think, Lovecraft's 'The Dunwich Horror' which also frightened me but less so than the other piece. I've always found fiction that details the potential for human cruelty or neglect the most frightening because it's the most possible/probable. And the possible bothers me far more than traditional ghostly or supernatural horror.

[Carol]

I've always found fiction that details the potential for human cruelty or neglect the most frightening because it's the most possible/probable. And the possible bothers me far more than traditional ghostly or supernatural horror.

Same, Alwynne. Same.

[Stacia]

Alwynne wrote: "I think I found fiction scarier when I was younger than I do now, there's so much that's real that scares me far more. But one story I remember was from my uncle's book of Pan Horror Stories, I was..."

Your comments reminded me that I had Perrault's Classic French Fairy Tales when I was a kid. And the Bluebeard tale from that book utterly terrified & horrified me.

I still had the book as an adult. And I gave it away a few years ago because of the "bad" memories of it being so terrifying.

[Alwynne]

I can totally understand that, someone gave me a book about insects and crawling things when I was young that had some very scary spider photos, I stuck the pages together with chewing gum, and when I was older immediately got rid of it. Although I appreciate insects now.

[Stacia]

Alwynne wrote: "I can totally understand that, someone gave me a book about insects and crawling things when I was young that had some very scary spider photos, I stuck the pages together with chewing gum, and whe..."

The gum is a really good solution, lol. I used to hate seeing pictures of snakes. (Still do to a certain extent, even though I also appreciate the roles snakes play in the environment.) Therefore, for school reports, I never used the "S-Sn" volume of the encyclopedia lest I accidentally flip past the snake photos.

[Alwynne]

I can understand that, I'd have done that for spiders!

[Beige]

Alwynne wrote: "I can understand that, I'd have done that for spiders!"

When I worked in a bookstore many years ago, there was a big bargain spider book I didn't know we were selling. When a customer brought one to the desk to pay, I suddenly found myself halfway across the store. Those few seconds were a complete blank, I was so terrified.

It was the only book I ever censored. I hid the rest of the copies up high on a storage shelf meant for cleaning supplies. 😂

[Jerry]

Carol wrote: "I've always found fiction that details the potential for human cruelty or neglect the most frightening because it's the most possible/probable. And the possible bothers me far more than traditional..."

In line with this: for all of Stephen King's scary stuff involving monsters, ghosts, and other otherworldly creatures, one novella of his, "Apt Pupil", frightened me when I read it at least as much as just about anything else he's written. And "Apt Pupil" has no monsters, nothing supernatural going on: it's just human evil, cruelty, and monstrousness.

[Jerry]

Whitney wrote: "Jerry wrote: "For me it's close to a tie between The Ruins by Scott Smith and Stephen King's Pet Sematary. The King book kept me up till after 4am, and I couldn't/would..."

Whitney, I've not watched the movie version of "The Ruins". There are things that I can read about that I have trouble facing when they're rendered into a moving visual image. So I've actually kind of avoided this movie, although I've been tempted to watch it frequently.

[Bill]

Jerry wrote: "...one novella of his, "Apt Pupil"..."

I haven't read the novella, but the movie (with Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro) is very well-done. Yes, I'm also wary of movie adaptations of good books, and one should definitely be wary of Bryan Singer, though he directed Apt Pupil before his big Hollywood movies.

[Alwynne]

Beige wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "I can understand that, I'd have done that for spiders!"

When I worked in a bookstore many years ago, there was a big bargain spider book I didn't know we were selling. When a custo..."

Definitely feeling you there!

[Alwynne]

Bill wrote: "Jerry wrote: "...one novella of his, "Apt Pupil"..."

I haven't read the novella, but the movie (with Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro) is very well-done. Yes, I'm also wary of movie adaptations of goo..."

I liked the film of 'Apt Pupil' too, but also enjoyed the movie of The Ruins, daft but pulse-pounding a bit like the Doom movie, or the Resident Evil series. I wondered if Smith was influenced by The Day of the Triffids

[Bill]

I also enjoyed reading The Ruins, but avoided the movie. (As I recalled, a friend mentioned some of the more interesting material in the novel was left out of the movie.)

I tend not to be scared by books in recent years. The closest would be some of the stories in Joel Lane's The Earth Wire and Other Stories, but that's more a creeping unease and being fascinated by his bleak situations and (occasional) creatures, and his terrific prose. (My review has more details.)

I do remember being very disturbed by Dennis Cooper's Frisk when it first came out. I was squirming, but it was hard to put the book down. I reread it a couple years ago; it was still disturbing, but seemed so different from my memories, so airy and elusive.

More recently, I remember my first encounter with Brian Evenson's short story Altman's Tongue. I don't know if I'd call it "scary", but the narration was so obsessive and relentless, I was just carried along helplessly by its incredible momentum. Luckily it's only two pages.

[Robert]

Stacia wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "I think I found fiction scarier when I was younger than I do now, there's so much that's real that scares me far more. But one story I remember was from my uncle's book of Pan Horro..."

My copy of Blue Beard had the actual picture of the dead women on the walls with blood and everything - it was all done in a cubist way so not as graphic as I make it sound. Now and then I would peep at it so I would frighten myself.

I also remember I was also frightened of the Grand High Witch unmasking herself in Roald Dahl's The Witches. Quentin Blake did something very clever by placing the GHW with the mask on and then maskless on the next page. A guaranteed scare.

The funny thing about snakes is that when I was young they never scared me, in fact when I lived in the reserve we used to play with Garter Snakes, of which there was an abundance of but in my 30's a boy brought a Cape House Snake for show and tell and a streak of terror flashed through me. To this day I feel uneasy around them.

[Paul]

The two books that have given me nightmares in recent years have been Fever Dream (Samanta Schweblin tr Megan McDowell) and The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas by Daniel James. The latter more because it creates a sense of paranoia, exacerbated when one finds yourself being followed on Twitter in real-life by one of the (fictitious) protagonists etc.

[Clarke]

Eaarth by Bill McKibben (sic).