Since it's Halloween, what's the scariest story or novel you've ever read?

[Baptista]

That book helped push me into AA.

The movie was a classic but i couldnt watch the mini-series. problem is they filmed it at the Stanley hotel in Estes. At that time i Lived on the other side of the hill from the stanley. When they had all this supposedly scary scenes on the gounds i kept thinking-if the turn that camear 90 degrees theyll see me sitting on my front porch.

Well, I’m glad it helped you!

But I have to differ on the movie vs the mini-series. I absolutely hated the movie. Thought the actors just didn’t fit the characters, and they changed it. I know they do that alot, but it really got to me. Not to mention, I think that was the first movie I ever went to where the ‘f’ word was thrown around. I still remember blushing in the dark.

 

[IanCorrigan]

For me the book that haunted my childhood was the Apocalypse of St John. The descriptions of the horrors visited on the world, especially in context of what some people thought was real, cost me a lot of peace of mind. The first time I saw a red moon, I nearly lost it.
As to fiction (as opposed to myth) Lovecraft’s tale ‘The Picture in the House’ spooked me pretty good. (and made me a Lovecraft hobbyist and fan in the long run) Most ‘occult horror’ I just read as interesting adventure, and wonder why the protagonists don’t have some decent spiritual defenses.
The movie that has made a lasting impression on me is ‘Sybil’, with Sally Fields. the psychotic mom in that little number was creepier to me than any vampire, demon or extra-cosmic horror. In general I’m always more frightened by torture, mutilation and the sorts of things that humans really do to one another in real life than by spooks.
Ian

 

[AlegreFe]

I hate what the secular world has done with halloween. I hate it and I don’t “celebrate” it. We go to the Vigil Mass for All Saints day on Halloween then we go out so that I won’t be home when the kids come. All the lights are off at my house.

Sorry off topic but I felt prompted to say that.

 

[musicgal4jesus]

I hate what the secular world has done with halloween. I hate it and I don’t “celebrate” it. We go to the Vigil Mass for All Saints day on Halloween then we go out so that I won’t be home when the kids come. All the lights are off at my house.

Sorry off topic but I felt prompted to say that.

We’ve been hearing a lot of those sentiments recently, it seems…

 

[Jaypeeto4]

SALEM’S LOT, by the esteemed Mr. Steve King,
scared the living wajoobies out of me when I read it as
a teenager about 30 or 31 years ago.
It made my skin crawl, it was soooooo eerie.

Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+

 

[schatzi]

The Shining by Steven King.

Steven King novels usually don’t really freak me out, but this one did. Maybe I shouldnt have read it when I was staying at a hotel

I started reading this while recuperating from pneumonia, over 30 years ago… I never finished it. eek…

 

[Zooey]

I was reading King’s “Pet Sematary” late one night, and we had a new kitten at the time. She jumped into my lap unexpectedly, & I screamed the whole house down! I really thought for a minute, that one of the pets from the book had gotten me…
Yikes!!

 

[geauxtigers]

The Shining by Steven King.

Steven King novels usually don’t really freak me out, but this one did. Maybe I shouldnt have read it when I was staying at a hotel

I read The Shining for the first time a few months ago, and it really shook me up! I was up late sitting outside on my porch when I read the part about the hedge animals, and I almost jumped out of my skin! My brother is reading IT right now, and I’m debating whether to borrow it when he’s finished.

 

[Mirdath]

While I adore both Poe and Lovecraft, the absolute creepiest stories I have read were by a fairly little-known author, Thomas Ligotti. He manages to make stuff like The Masque of the Red Death and The Shadow Over Innsmouth look like a romp through Candyland.

 

[lak611]

The Shining and Misery by Stephen King were the two scariest stories I ever read. I like almost all of his books, but those two were the most gripping.

 

[MarthaMartha]

I was reading King’s “Pet Sematary” late one night, and we had a new kitten at the time. She jumped into my lap unexpectedly, & I screamed the whole house down! I really thought for a minute, that one of the pets from the book had gotten me…
Yikes!!

I was sitting up reading that book late at night, with my cat Oliver stretched across the foot of the bed. I got to the part about Winston Churchill (the cat in the book) coming back from the dead with his eyes all funny – and I peered over the book at my sleeping cat. Perhaps sensing me staring at him, he half opened his eyes – and his third eyelid was still up, making HIS eyes look funny! Boy, did that ever spook me! :bigyikes:

 

[crohnie4life]

I love listening to my old time radio tapes. The War of the Worlds is one I love to this day. As a freshman in HS we had to read the novel. Still nothing beats sitting in the dark, lights out w/ 1 dimly lit candle, and cuddling up in a blanket getting scared out of your mind. my mom remembers this when she was a little girl and how panic set in only to find out it was a hoax.

Too bad we can’t go back to those innocent days w/o all the gore,violence, nudity, vulgar language,etc. You can still captivate an audience w/o it.

 

[deb1]

Now that Stephen King’s The Mist is coming out, I am excited. I read this when I was 18 or 19 and it scared the poop out of me.

 

[lak611]

Now that Stephen King’s The Mist is coming out, I am excited. I read this when I was 18 or 19 and it scared the poop out of me.

I did not know this. When is the movie coming out? Is Stephen King writing the script?

 

[Kitty_Chan]

my hubby said Simons Soul was the most scared hes read very scary, curl your toes stuff. He wouldnt even tell me much about it.

I cant read scary or watch too sensitive.

The Shining was about the worst, hubby kept reading parts and we saw the movie and it didnt make sense.

The only scary I could handle reading was Stephens Kings, Christine, and From a Buick 8. (possed cars arent too bad I guess.)

Mind you I did read Frank Perettis Monster at our trailer which is in the woods. That was freaky enough for me.

 

[awfulthings9]

I’ll second someone’s mention of Ghost Story by Peter Straub. Halloween Man by Douglas Clegg was very good, too, though Clegg has now gone so far over the deep end with an homosexual agenda (not present in HM) that I won’t read any more (he calls himself “heterophobic”. From Stephen King, It was probably the creepiest. The Descent by Jeff Long is, by far, one of the best horror novels I’ve read. Bentley Little produces some incredibly morally offensive works, but with that said, his The Association is extremely creepy (though a bit corny) because it, like all of his works, takes the ordinary (in this case a home-owners association) and turns it into the horrific (in a supernatural way).

The very best Vampire novel ever is I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. (Is it being released soon as a movie staring Will Smith). It is about the last man on earth, who is trying to survive while everyone else - every last person - has turned into vampires. For a book put out in the 50’s, it’s still such a cool twist on the typical vampire junk that’s out there.

There’s more, but I’ll have to go down and look at my bookshelf.

 

[CB_Catholic]

The two scariest books I ever read were the Shining and Salem’s Lot. The Shining scared me so much that I have quit reading Stephen King forever. I read those two when they first came out, so it’s been a looong time.

 

[peary]

It’s past Halloween, but every year since 1966, I have not only made it a ‘ritual’ to read *The Haunting of Hill House *by Shirley Jackson, but also to watch the original 1963 movie called *The Haunting *starring Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.

 

[Valke2]

“The Shining”. Or anything by Ann Coultre

 

[deb1]

I did not know this. When is the movie coming out? Is Stephen King writing the script?

The previews that I have seen on tv look like they go by the book. But I don’t know if King wrote the script himself.

I don’t know when the movie comes out.

The novellette was not disturbing, just scary! It deals with an experiment done by the military that got loose. Apparently the military found another dimension and that entire dimension is trying to enter ours. There are monsters-very frightening ones-that hunt by smell.

It centers around a man and his young son who get caught in a supermarket when the fog occurs and can’t get out. The father is a very moral character and that was one fact that I liked about the story.

Because this was not a full length novel but a long short story or novellette, most people have not read The Mist. My goodness, it is good!