Horror novels

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Anything by T.E.D. Klein.

“Our Lady of Darkness” by Fritz Leiber. Very creepy urban horror, based in San Francisco.

“The Sound of His Horn” by Sarban

“A Mirror of Shalott: Tales of Ghosts and Terror” by Father Robert Hugh Benson (a collection of short stories instead of a novel, but with an interlocking theme: a group of visiting priests at a rectory in Vatican City meet each night after dinner to discuss the strangest experience they ever had. Some are very creepy, but all are written with a Catholic worldview. Fr. Benson, in addition to being a prominent apologist at the beginning of the 20th century, also wrote science fiction and horror.) It’s out of copyright, so you can read it for free online (archive.org/stream/mirrorofshalottb00bensuoft/mirrorofshalottb00bensuoft_djvu.txt) or buy an easier to read copy for a buck or so on Kindle.

“The Exorcist” by William Peter Blatty

Any of the understated but quite scary short ghost stories of the Anglican cleric M.R. James.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Look into H. P. Lovecraft. The style of writing is not what we’re used to today, but some of his stories are true horror classics: “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Dunwich Horror,” many others. Anything involving Cthulhu.
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I LOVE H. P. Hovercraft!!! He’s one of my favorite authors!
 
Don’t read or go see horror stories anymore but if you read some of the supposed true accounts of hauntings those can be very interesting just keep in mind what most view as ghosts may really be demons.
 
F. Paul Wilson wrote some good ones. Some of his Repairman Jack stories were pretty creepy. And his Nightworld (which is a conclusion of a trilogy and has Repairman Jack as a minor character) is a great and haunting “supernatural end of the world” story where he deliberately avoided Biblical end of the world tropes.

While not an overall scary book, the image of the damned man at the end of Charles Williams Descent into Hell is one of the scariest visions of hell I’ve encountered. I suppose that’s because it seems so much more real and plausible than say Dante’s images.

Other than that- I don’t read many scary stories.

For a not too scary zombie story, there is World War Z – a great book.

Tom A.
 
My brother put me onto the Repairman Jack series and have, so far, only read the one about an old vampire and Nazis which frightened the heck out of me. A movie, The Keep was made based on the book which was very scary. Another fellow my brother reads is Simon Clarke.
 
Stephen King’s “It” is one of the best horror books ever written. I highly recommend it, but I’d advice prudence with it as there is a very gratuitous and unnecessary sexual scene, but it can be skipped without missing any of the actual plot.
 
Luvz2travel said:
Don’t read or go see horror stories anymore but if you read some of the supposed true accounts of hauntings those can be very interesting just keep in mind what most view as ghosts may really be demons.
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Why not?:confused:
 
AdvanceAlways said:
Stephen King’s “It” is one of the best horror books ever written. I highly recommend it, but I’d advice prudence with it as there is a very gratuitous and unnecessary sexual scene, but it can be skipped without missing any of the actual plot.
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I agree. But nothing he has written in the last 15 years or so is worth reading.
 
I saw the Conjuring this summer, so I went and picked up “The Demonologist” on Kindle by Ed Warren. Very compelling read for any Catholic.
 
Off the top of my head:

Ghost Story by Peter Straub,
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King (read it when nobody is home),
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgeson,
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (it’s produced two movies and a successful stage play so you can’t go wrong there),

People have already mentioned Fritz Leiber and Lovecraft who are brilliant.

Short stories by Thomas Ligotti and Harlan Ellison (who’s an odd ball himself) are quite good reads too. To be honest, short stories are more effective in transferring terror. Probably because you read them in one sitting and the tension isn’t dragged out.
 
I love several of the novels listed above by other posters, especially Dracula (Stoker) and almost anything by Lovecraft.

I think the best horror novel ever written is Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. It’s short, there are no monsters or ghosts or zombies, there is nothing “supernatural”–but it is absolutely terrifying. The scariest part in the novel (IMO) is the “picnic” in the woods–shudder!!! I’ve read the novel dozens of times over the years, and it always “haunts” me.

The older movie of the novel (with Julie Harris and Claire Bloom) is OK; I’ve heard nothing good about the re-make movie. I would say to skip the movies and just read the book. It’s so good.

If you can find it, try reading the short story “The Upper Berth,” by F. Marion Crawford. I’ve read several essays arguing that this is the most perfect “ghost story” ever written, and I agree.

Finally, Anne Rivers Siddons has written one “horror” novel called The House Next Door. This novel is similar to Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, but much more graphic. It’s also more modern (set in the 1990s instead of the 1960s). It’s not as well-written as Jackson’s stylistic novel (Jackson has a very quirky style of writing, while Siddons just tells the story). But it’s still terrifying.
 
“The Haunting” with Julie Harris is one of my all-time favorite movies. Don’t purchase many DVDs although this is one of them. Sad to hear that Julie Harris died recently; one of the greats, in my opinion. Have yet to read the story and must do that in the near future.
 
Pearlie_Girl said:
“The Haunting” with Julie Harris is one of my all-time favorite movies. Don’t purchase many DVDs although this is one of them. Sad to hear that Julie Harris died recently; one of the greats, in my opinion. Have yet to read the story and must do that in the near future.
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Did you read that when Miss Harris did Haunting, she stayed away from all the other actors and crew so that she could feel what Eleanor Vance was feeling (isolation, shyness, etc.) and make the character portrayal more real.
 
KatNJ said:
I second these! 👍 I would also recommend The Cabinet of Curiosities from the same Pendergast series.
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This whole series is a lot of fun, but I wouldn’t classify it as horror, more suspense or thriller.
 
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