Mary I remember the old Danny Kay film of Hans Andersen and being quite scared in the ballet sequence, and was the only child in the cinema watching 'Bambi' who howled when his Mother was shot; the shame of it I was at least 5 years old.

Vee, if I had seen "Bambi", I am sure I would have cried, too. I recall seeing the Disney version of "Snow White" and finding it scary. Also, I read the "Wizard of Oz" books when quite young. I recall a strange, ominous (for want of a better word) mood running through those books....

"Bambi" must have been traumatic for many of us. My mother had to take me out of the theater to wait in the lobby because I was crying so hard during the forest fire scene. I seemed to have had a tremendous fear of fire which was not helped by our house catching on fire when I was in second grade. Considering I just dreamt a few nights ago that our house burned down due to Mr Bookmom's careless fire in the fireplace, I think "Bambi" has had a lasting effect.

Does anyone remember the story about the girl(s) dancing in the shoes ---------- it was a fairy tale ------- I think --- with a horrific ending where the shoes had to be cut off!!!

Or how about some of those tales from the old TV show "Night Gallery"????

teacats it sounds like the old Powell & Pressburger '40's film The Red Shoes, a mixture of 'real life' story about a ballet company on tour and a fantasy ballet in which, once the girl (Moira Shearer) is wearing the shoes she cannot stop dancing until . . . (taken from an Andersen tale).
I'm glad I didn't see it when young as it would have haunted me.

Poor Hans did have issues. My info comes from Boys and Girls forever by Alison Lurie. Hans was tall thin and awkward and didn't fit in as a child. Favorite occupation-making clothes for his dolls. He was severely bipolar and his writing didn't fit in with the preachy moralistic tales of his day. He was also very disappointed in love. He fell for upper class and/or prominent people who didn't want anything to do with him. He was convinced that his work was good, even though many he approached didn't agree with him. It gave me some insight into the darkness in his stories. Ginny12, when you brought it up, I remember being terrified by a version of the Snow Queen on TV.

I would just like to take a moment to thank Martin for his recommendation of The Woman in Black. It was his post that led me to this book, so I checked it out of the library but kept putting it aside and reading other books because I just didn't think it could be that good. I renewed it twice, and finally picked it up yesterday because I couldn't renew it again.

After reading it, I've got to agree with Martin. It is one of the eeriest, spookiest tales I have ever read, and my hair is still standing on end. I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm going to order my own copy, because this is one book that I will be certain to read again.

Thanks, Martin.

Stephen King's "It," "Pet Sematary" were extremely scary

Bram Stoker's Dracula wasn't very scary, but a great book...(I hate how the movie "Van Helsing" portrays doctor Van Helsing...)

Max Brook's "World War Z" was scary...an oral history of the zombie war...eerily realistic

Thanks for the suggestions on "Turn of the Screw" "The Uninvited" and "Helter Skelter" i plan on reading them

Probably Helter Skelter because it dealt with the real terror of a truly insane mind. It effectively strips away any false security we build for ourselves.

The Year of Living Dangerously by C.J. Koch....actually the movie was much more frightening than the book. Jakarta, Indonesia in 1965 during the political upheaval of the Sukarno era and you're a white journalist. I remember hardly being able to breathe the tension was so thick as to whether they'd really get out alive. I was just talking to an Indonesian woman about the shadow puppets and she said she's spooked out and afraid of them.

"In Cold Blood" for me too. I was afraid to be alone in the house at night for weeks afterward.

Try "The Descent", by Jeff Long. Scary and fascinating, what horrors are living beneath our feet? Similar in some respects, but not the same as, the British movie of the same name, which was also pretty darn scary.

Kind of a tough read, but scary in an unconventional drive you mad kind of way, is "House of Leaves", by Mark Z. Danielewski. It's hard to describe, but well worth the effort.

For me it was "The House Next Door" by Anne Rivers Siddon. She only wrote this one horror book her other novels aren't in the horror genre. It was published in 1978 and boy was it scary!! It spooked the heck out of me I can tell you.

I second muskyhopeful on House of Leaves . I got too scared and couldn't finish it.

I really liked House of Leaves, especially the first half or so. Danielewski's sister, who records under the name Poe, recorded a cd called Haunted, which is a companion of sorts to House of Leaves. It includes a song called 5 1/2 Minute Hallway, a direct reference to the book, and if you read the end of the liner notes that come with the cd, there are several noted references between the music on the cd and House of Leaves. It's a great cd on its own merits, even if you haven't read the book.

I agree with FriedaG (from 11/2005 post) The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle is very creepy. I'm reading it now (I stumbled across it in the library). Both my husband and I are big fans of the movie - which is well done - but doesn't hold a candle to the book. As for the scariest book.. well, it's got to be either The Shining or 'Salem's Lot by the inimitable S. King

I have to second "Insomnia" by Dean Koontz. The only book that got my heart rate way up from fright. I would have to say that was the scariest book I have read. I wanted to stop reading but I just HAD to see how it ended.

I've read Helter Skelter. I remember it being scary but it didn't reeally stick with me. I can't remember much about it. I have a family link to Rosemary LaBianca, so that was interesting to read about.

Just finished Susan Hill's "The Various Haunts of Men." It was a bit daunting reading this in a strange house, late at night, alone. Very weird twistings and turnings have now made me a wee bit paranoid..... Hill is a first-rate writer, IMO.

I'm a big fan of horror fiction, and have read most of the books recommended by previous respondees. I've recently read two books that are similar in theme and which were extremely upsetting, probably because neither book made use of any supernatural agencies to explain or justify the action. The books are Jack Ketchum's "The Girl Next Door" and Mendal W. Johnson's "Let's Go Play At The Adams'". Enjoy.

The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley is probably the creepiest book I've ever read. Forget the televised version. Read the book. Also anything by Dean Koontz and Shaun Hutson.

Today,4 1/2 years after my original post above, the first book that came to my mind was Helter Skelter about the Manson "family". The way they would enter people's homes and do "mischief", while the people were sleeping. And it doesn't help, every time Charlie comes up for probation?parole?, the media publishes pictures of him today. Still scary.

I read a book years ago called Shiver by Brian Harper, it was a book I did not want to put down and read it really fast. There are two more books that Brian Harper wrote called Shatter and Shudder. I read these as well but cannot recall them anymore, they were all good books. I am like you, I absolutely love a good scary book. My favorite was The Amityville Horror. I just read it again a few months ago and it was not as scary. The library gets a real kick out of me when I go in and they always tell me they are either not allowed to have a book I want or they never have it there and I have to ask for it and they always look at me funny...My husband thinks I have a wierd sense of what a good book or movie is too. I love psychological horror, like serial killer books. You would not know it from looking at me but I really LOVE that stuff. Anyway, hope this helps and you have not read these. Good luck! Would love to know what books you think are good and scary...Please respond. Thanks...Kimberly from Michigan ; )

Clockwork Orange,
The Stand,
It,

Anything by Peter Straub.

I also recall reading THE WITCHING HOUR by Anne Rice when it first came out and getting half way through it before it changed from being just a story to being so real I could not continue reading it.

YES ! ive been looking for this thread. thanks for all the suggestions and heres my 2cents . Steven King is a master and his short stories may be scarier than his books, those nightmares and dreamscapes collections have some stories that never leave you. Koonz is good too and literally anything by Lovecraft not just the Cthulhu stuff either , its all good and creepy. If you like him , he liked a writer named M.R. James who is also excellent. You can get Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by MRjames for free in a few different places, The Mezzotint is one of my favorite short stories ever. Lately ive also been reading a guy named Scott Sigler, light fast read , awesome si-fi smart monsters and gore. Thanks again for the tips everyone, ill be back..

LadyRose,

Stephen King's It completely changed my perspective of clowns and I haven't gone near one since first reading that book.

PAM

I just heard a story called The Bees by Dan Chaon which was terrifying in a very creepy way. I was looking over my shoulder for a few days afterwards. Excellent writer. He has published a book of ghost stories, I believe.

I also had the bejabbers scared out of me by Stephen King's Pet Sematary. We have a real pet cemetery around here and I get the creeps every time I drive by it.

I don't really like scary books.

I read only scary books. have read A bunch and have grown bored and jaded. But I am reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, and it is so disturbing that I am laboring through it. I do not want to read it anymore but I am determined not to let it beat me.
If you read alot of scary books and have become jaded just like me, and feel that nothing can suprise you anymore, then read this. It is absoloutely maddening

Night by Elie Wiesel

Hi, Does anyone know what this might be? Is it possibly the Tell-Tale Heart? I'd like to read it. Thanks.

RE:
Melody_Nelson (My Page) on Thu, Dec 22, 05 at 10:07

It's funny but I can't remember the name of it,if any of you can help me, it would be very nice because I've already tryed to recommend this book but I can remember the name, it was a short story of Edgar Alan Poe where someone was reading a ghostly story and the things that he was reading where actually happening at the same time. it was the only time that I closed a book out of fear, and the horror movies most of the times let me cold.

The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike.

Also,a True Crime book that creeped me out called Wicked Intentions by Kevin Flynn.

I only read scary books too,mostly.Good thread!

I have to agree with NYJetts0666! Haunted is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read! I agree with all the books I recognize on this thread and have found a list a mile long to add to my TBR list! Although not something that I would normally find scary, The Ruins scared me to death! Just finished The Haunting of Hill House,.. creepy! Another one is Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill! Thanks for that suggestions!!

The Poe story you're referring to is "The Fall of the House of Usher." Fabulous, scarey story!! I love Poe!

Thank you, Marita. I've read a few, but not that one. Peter Ackroyd wrote a very good biography called Poe; a Life Cut Short.

I don't seek out scary books, but I found Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow to be deeply disturbing. Mostly because it made me question the cheerful future I'd always envisioned for space exploration. My whole life was predicated on space exploration!

I also like Daphne DuMaurier and find some of her stories scary (novels not so much), but I find Flannery O'Connor much scarier. I had to read Everything That Rises Must Converge and A Good Man is Hard to Find when I was majoring in English at university, and those books gave me serious nightmares. I'm not sure they were meant to be as scary as they were to me, but I had a hard time thinking of the characters as fictional, despite whatever extreme personalities they had. They just seemed to real to me, and that's what made them scary to me.

I've read Grimm's folk tales in German, and they are definitely scary than what you commonly find in English translations made for children. But I also did find the movie Snow White especially scary when I was a child. I've also read a lot of Russian folk tales, and they are pretty grim also, but not as much as German. I've read them in German translation and in the original Russian, although I need the German translation to help me understand some of the Russian. Here again, English translations of Russian folk tales tend to be watered down for children.

When taking German literature at university, I was told that the Grimm's stories were "folk tales" because they did not have a single author, whereas Anderson's stories are "fairy tales" because they have a single author. They make this distinction clearly in German, but I don't think it carries over into English. When the Grimm brothers were collecting folk tales, their primary goal was to describe the etymology of words, and they are credited with creating the firstcomprehensive German dictionary. However, they only got to the letter "B", and their dictionary was not completed until the 20th Century and has 32 volumes. Fortunately, the university where I was studying German had a copy of all 32 volumes in its library in the reference section.

Like many others, I have found Stephen King's books quite frightening from time to time :-) I remember when I first read Salem's Lot I had trouble sleeping soundly for a few nights. Pet Semetary also really creeped me out but then I'm a pet lover and the entire concept/plot of the book I found very disturbing. And IT is a classic horror story (which I just found out is about to be released next month as movie) - I never did like clowns before I read it and like them even less now!! Not sure if I will see the movie or not........I can read scary stories usually without too much issue but a well-done scary movie is.....well, just too scary to sit through easily. I don't like things jumping out at me and the suspense and tension wears me out!! Not sure I could sit through the clown scenes............

Red Dragon was also pretty darn scary.

lars, what an interesting post. I, too, have found some of Flannery O'Connor's work to be very scary. I think this author has been labeled "God-haunted." I also agree about certain German and Russian fairy tales being geared to frighten children. Even now, I find the thought of Babi-Yar, the Russian witch, riding in her mortar in the sky very frightening. And what about the German boy with the long fingernails? Perhaps these old tales were used to keep children in line, evoking fear, in former days.

I also find clowns scary -- always have, even before the notoriety....

I don't find clowns to be particularly scary, but I also don't find them at all funny, even though when I was a child they were presented to me that way. I just don't like them. In fact, I don't like slapstick humor in any form. I rarely laugh at it, and when it is broad enough that it forces an unwilling laugh, I feel resentful about it.

Oh, I'm with you, Rosefolly. I can't remember appreciating clowns the way a kid is expected to, even in my youth , which was long ago. Not scary, but certainly not funny; in fact, way in the back of my mind, I am conscious of feeling a kind of resentment of them. I hate the idea that simply having too-big shoes and a red nose, etc., is in any way fun or funny. Now that I've read your comment, it occurs to me that the resentment may be tied to my dislike of slapstick, too.

I've always felt sad and sorry for clowns. Kids are often frightened of them or just downright mean to them.

Well, perhaps the people made up as clowns deserve sympathy. But if they frighten kids or the kids disrespect them so much that they are mean to them, that raises the question of whether or not there should be clowns. Or, rather, whether anyone should choose that occupation.

Of course, if I had kids, they (unless mere toddlers, who can't be held responsible) would be in trouble if they harassed a clown at a party or anywhere else. There is such a thing as basic decency to other humans.

I agree. Children (or adults for that matter) should not be permitted to harass ANYONE. I don't understand adults permitting this behavior in their children.

Back to the scariest book, for me that is without question The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I've never read anything that frightened or depressed me so much, and I deliberately avoided seeing the movie. It took me about six months to return to a normal frame of mind after reading it.

Rosefolly

Rosefolly, I had forgotten about "The Road". Maybe because I wanted to forget it. I agree that it was beyond frightening and depressing. I have avoided McCarthy's other books, as well. I found the movie a bit less scary.

Haven't they made "It" into a movie before? I think that was my first Stephen King book, and it was definitely scary!

The Wizard of Oz movie terrified me when I was a kid. I've never seen it all the way through. The flying monkeys did me in!

I remember "Cape Fear" being a very scary book (haven't seen the movie) and "The Amityville Horror" both book and movie scared the stuffing out of me.

Donna

Donna - I can verify that Cape Fear is a very scary film. I can't believe you haven't watched the entire Wizard of Oz ... that's funny!

Rosefolly, I totally agree about The Road being depressing. Terribly depressing, and terribly annoying in its writing style. I fear, though, that reading a lot of apocalytptic scifi has rendered me somewhat immune to the scariness of that particular book. However, looking back, after reviewing some of the old comments here, I remembered that Poe's "The cask of Amontillado" and (I may have the title wrong) "The Black Cat" were so horrible that I try not to recall their contents and have practically succeeded in the case of the latter story (remembering only that it was horrible). But decades ago, I had a year of teaching English at a girls' school, during which I unfortunately had to take up "The Cask...," and now much more of it than I like has taken up residence in my long-term memory! I avoid reading anything by Poe. [Edited the next day to echo Woodnymph's "I have avoided McCarthy's other books as well." Oh, I sure have done that, too!]

Also awful (for me, though I know it is highly-regarded by some) was Where the Red Fern Grows). It started out pleasantly enough about a boy and his dogs, but there are some horrific gory scenes that I would never want to expose a child to. I detested The Day No Pigs Would Die, too, for the idea behind it. Again, I am sure many people would disagree with me.

Fairy tales and some other children's stories can make me feel sad--like The Little Mermaid and The Little Match Girl--but not scared. Sci-fi is also not generally scary, although many episodes in the Lord of the Rings were enjoyably scary. So I offer the latter book, and--I just remembered another thoroughly enjoyable book that was also scary, The Thief of Always by Clive Barker--for the reading pleasure of Jennmonkey, who started this thread nearly 12 years ago. It was a shock to see that ancient date!

And Kathy t: Oh, yes, I remember the scariness of Cape Fear, even though it was decades ago that I saw it. Very scary--partly because you knew it could happen; it wasn't just a fairy tale or fantasy.

After posting about "The Amityville Horror" I thought it would be interesting to read it again. It was published in the late 70s and I'm sure I read it then, when I was in high school.

I started re-reading it a week or so ago. I've read about a third of it and am not even interested enough to finish it. The writing is terrible (way too many exclamation points!!!!! LOL) and it's not even scary any more.

Donna