My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

What we're reading

What's the scariest book you've ever read?

160 replies

Thurlow · 30/07/2013 21:34

I'm currently reading IT and I didn't think it was particularly scary, maybe because I know what it's about because it's just one of those stories you know without reading/seeing it - but when I walked over a bridge over a stream today and thought "ooooh, this would be exactly the place Pennywise would hide if he lived in this town..." So it must be scaring me somehow!

Of course, it could just be the memory of Cujo, which I remember as the single most terrifying thing I've ever read at the time.

Also, Mo Hayder's first two Caffrey novels, Birdman and The Treatment, but they're probably more violent than scary. Though The Treatment was set less than half a mile from where I lived at the time I read it, which really didn't help much.

OP posts:
Report
KateCroydon · 30/07/2013 21:35

The Haunting of Hill House.

Report
HarderToKidnap · 30/07/2013 21:41

Pet sematary. Threw it down the stairs the first time I tried to read it. Tried again fifteen years later and my heart was pounding and I was in a cold sweat throughout.

Report
orangeandemons · 30/07/2013 21:41

Dracula. Shit me up good and proper when I was 18

Report
MrsHowardRoark · 30/07/2013 21:50

House of Leaves gave me such bad nightmares I never did finish it.

Report
Cheddars · 30/07/2013 21:55

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris is the only book that actually made me jump. Shock

Report
LEMisdisappointed · 30/07/2013 21:57

Pet Semetary here too - fucking awful, i could never read it now - i read it when i wa a teenager, enjoyed it but couldn't turn the page when it got to the bit where the little boy got run over by a truck :(

Dracula didn't scare me, i just thought it was really sad

Report
MikeLitoris · 30/07/2013 22:00

The shining is probably the scariest.

Closely followed by Rose Madder.

I didnt find red dragon scary at all.

Report
LaurieFairyCake · 30/07/2013 22:01

Agree - pet cemetary - still couldn't read it

Or 'the fog' - but I was about 12 when I read it so very impressionable

Report
EeTraceyluv · 30/07/2013 22:02

Probably 'the woman in black' I was v disappointed with the film tbh. And not 'scary' as such but extremely shocking - 'The boy in the striped pajamas' I really didn't see the ending coming!

Report
LegArmpits · 30/07/2013 22:02

Flesh and Blood by Graham Masterton. Horrible. But great.

Report
snozzlemaid · 30/07/2013 22:03

I was going to say the ones you mention op-
Cujo
The treatment
Birdman

Brilliant all of them.

Report
Mondaybaby · 30/07/2013 22:18

I'm easily spooked so avoid anything scary. However, a few months ago I decided to read a Sherlock Holmes novel so got The Hound of the Baskervilles from the library. Terrifying! I couldn't even get out of bed in the night to go to the loo in case a mad evil hound chased me and after 2 nights of no sleep I had to swig some piriton syrup to knock me out. I won't be reading anything scary again.

Report
Flourfairy · 30/07/2013 23:26

A true crime book called Fatal Vision terrified me many years ago

Report
Nerfmother · 30/07/2013 23:29

The girl on the landing. Horrible.

Report
AdoraBell · 30/07/2013 23:33

Stephen King's The Stand, because it all starts with a genetically fiddled with flu.

Report
RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 31/07/2013 00:08

I'm not easily scared by books tbh, but my sister lent me an awful trash horror book once about a babysitter being killed by the children she was looking after and it frightened me beyond belief. I couldn't finish it and I still had nightmares about it for weeks. Horrible.

Report
waycat · 31/07/2013 08:27

Skin by Mo Hayder - gave me the creeps and I made the mistake of always reading just before bed time!

Report
Thurlow · 31/07/2013 10:11

Mo Hayder's just grim all around, isn't she? I got quite freaked out what I was pregnant and kept smelling odd things in the house, it reminded me too much of The Treatment Blush

I saw The Woman in Black on stage and it frightened the absolute bejeesus out of me!

But then telly's much scarier than books, I think - I don't watch horror movies at all, I found things like The Fall creepy beyond words and checked all my doors and windows before going to bed - but stories of monsters just don't do it. I keep reading bits in It about giant eyeballs falling out of fortune cookies and blood spurting out of the drain and thinking "meh". But then I do remember one Stephen King, I think it must have been Needful Things because I haven't read many books by him, where someone had all their nails pulled off and that properly freaked me out.

OP posts:
Report
stargirl1701 · 31/07/2013 10:17

The Road.

Report
LeonardoAcropolis · 31/07/2013 10:22

Coma and Brain by Robin Cook are very disturbing but I was terrified reading The Shining and Haunted by James Herbert. I am reading Misery at the moment and i think that will haunt me for years to come.

Report
Deffodil · 31/07/2013 10:29

All of Stephen King,James Herbert and Dean Koontz's are wonderfully scary.

Report
iismum · 31/07/2013 21:10

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. What the actual fuck was going on? Soo creepy ... I'm not easily scared by books, but that when gave me a few restless nights.

Report

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

AvonCallingBarksdale · 01/08/2013 19:05

The Darkest Corner Elizabeth HAynes

Report
patienceisvirtuous · 01/08/2013 19:12

The Exorcist terrified me almost as much a the film did.

Report
Doyouthinktheysaurus · 01/08/2013 19:22

I've read The Shining and Pet Semetary, didn't find them very scary.

Misery was a bit freaky, but I wasn't scared as such. The film was crap though IMO, didn't capture the psychopathic nature of the female character at all. And as for The Shining, that film was laughably crap!

I've just finished James Herbert Ghosts of Crickley Hall which I didn't find especially scary but the ending did disturb me a bit.

I'm going to have to try some of the others mentioned because I would quite like to find a book that properly scares me

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.