I felt the same way. I mean, now, not as much, but as a kid, what a mind fuck. My first Twilight Zone episode that I saw at age ten (Eye of the Beholder) did that to me, too. Also, the Scary Story to Tell in the Dark where there’s a poltergeist and the author explained that it could happen to anyone. Even to me. So I waited to become a teenager wondering if I’d go all poltergeist-y.
Did you know that it was originally published in a book for children? I would have been scarred for life if I had read that as a child. (Actually, I think I’m scarred anyway.)
I’ve got another short story to add that can be read online: It’s A Good Life by Jerome Bixby. It was made into a pretty faithful Twilight Zone episode. Rather than being deliciously creepy, like Coraline and “The New Mother,” this story inspired feelings of horror and revulsion in me.
I was 11 when I read Poe’s The Premature Burial. Serious pants-crapping stuff, particularly at an age when the impact of mortality is starting to dawn. I was paralysed with fear for hours. Good times.
And The Yellow Wallpaper. (PDF file). Read it as an adult, in the daytime, and I am certain the sun darkened for me alone.
Richard Laymon. He went places other horror writers won’t go.
Ooh. Any books in particular to recommend?
The Shining. The bit where Danny is in the concrete pipe on the playground, and snow falls across the entrance, sealing him in, and he hears something in dry leaves at the other end of the pipe moving towards him. I’m getting chills just typing about it. :eek:
I really wish I could go back and read for the first time “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. I still think it has one of the most chilling lines in literature - “Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound.” Brrrrr!
Yes - this was horrifying. The idea of being completely under some totalitarian ruler is scary enough, but the notion of that ruler being someone who is obviously completely insane, unfair and unfit to be in charge is what makes it especially frightening and upsetting. It triggers some kind of deep-seated anger, as if you want to reach through the TV and beat that little kid to death.
Yep, that’s the one.
The first time I ever went camping, I woke up in the night and realized that it was very very quiet and very very dark, and we were a long way from anywhere. I started thinking about the Dudleys warning Eleanor that they would not be at Hill House. In the night. In the dark. Then I started thinking about the rest of the story. Before long, I was absolutely petrified. I could have reached out at any moment to hold my sleeping husband’s hand, but I vividly remembered what had happened when Eleanor reached out for Theo’s hand…
This is me, the rest of that night. :eek:
The scariest book I ever read is “The Stranger Beside Me.”
Image being a writer of true crime articles for magazines. Image getting a contract to write a book about the disappearance of several young women in the area, a crime for which they have no suspect yet.
Image finding out that the killer was your friend Ted Bundy.
That true story is the scariest thing I can image.
That one scared me a little bit, but more than that, it just messed with my brain. I felt weirdly disconnected from reality for a day or two afterwards.
I’ll throw out (and up) Chuck Palahniuk’s short story “Guts”. For something so completely short, it took me a long, long, long time to finish it. I’ve been traumatized ever since.
Three books that didn’t scare me while reading them but gave me nightmares as an adult-
Clive Barker’s THE HELLBOUND HEART- and I’ve seen the first two Hellraiser movies several times before I read it.
Harold Schechter’s DEVIANT- about Ed Gein
Aphrodite Jones’ CRUEL SACRIFICE- about the Sandra Sharer murder in my area of the country (teen lesbian triangle & a crazy wannabe evil witch= :eek::eek::eek:)
Makes for a great real estate ad:
Ghost Story by Peter Straub scared the bejesus out of me!
A short story by Stephen King called The Boogeyman hit all of my squick buttons:
spoiler The creature that preys on babies and small children.
(2) The children try to warn the father, but they’re too young to accurately vocalize what they see.
(3) When the Dad finally confronts the creature, it’s revealed he’s a coward.
(4) The twilight zone ending, which I have to admit I didn’t see coming.
[/spoiler]
That, plus my apparent OCD (prior to reading the story) of not being able to go to bed at night without every door in the house closed, kitchen cabinets and closets included.
And the closet door was opened. Not much. Just a crack.
Oh my God, yes. It’s been about 15 years since I read those, but I can still visualize those pictures. The White Wolf was the worst for me, due to my fear of wolves and werewolves. Another one, I think it was for a story called The Haunt, still gives me shivers if I think about it. And the one with the spiders ahtching in the girl’s skin, blegh. Those stories were hit or miss, but the images were always scary as hell.
There was another horror anthology I read when I was in junior high that I can’t remember the name of, but it had one story that has stuck with me to this day. It was about a group of kids who get this guide named Roger to take them camping, and it turns out he’s a werewolf and he pretty much picks them off one by one. I think that story was in a horror book for young readers, so I don’t know if it would be scary if I read it now, but my memory of it is pretty scary.
As for Stephen King stories, I’ll second The Boogeyman and add The Man in the Black Suit. The ending of that one gave me trouble falling asleep for several days after.
Also, Ted’s Cave Story, which someone mentioned in a previous thread here, was really freaky.
Tangent/ A question for anyone who’s read Ghost Story. Remember the part where Don recalls Alma telling him that she’s a ghost, but then later he realizes she said “you’re a ghost”? I never got that; why would she say that to him? He wasn’t a ghost.
That was a great and pretty scary book. My favorite part, a part that still gives me goosebumps to think about, was when the one kid was hiding and looking at whatshername across the park with his binoculars, and he realizes she’s looking right back at him.
I read The Exorcist right around the time it came out I’d have been 17 or 18. I kept the lights on for weeks after reading that book.
The scariest movie I’ve ever seen is The Haunting of Hill House, the 1963 black & white version. Terrified me, still does. http://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Julie-Harris/dp/B00009NHB6 The review at the bottom is brilliant, I could never describe it as well as that.
In The Stand, the scene where Stu is escaping the hospital in Vermont just scared the piss out of me. Especially after he defeats the assassin and is headed toward the exit sign and a hand grabs his ankle. That’s the only time a book has ever provoked a physical reaction from me, as I jumped in fear.
Charles Beaumont’s short story “Miss Gentibelle” scared the bejeezus out of me. It’s about an old woman who can’t stand men, so she raises her son as a little girl. The story is filled with madness and cruelty… scared me more than all the vampire or zombie books I’ve read.
Stokers "Dracula " was the scariest . Then “Hound of the Baskervilles”.