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Original poster

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:
HandOfTheKing · 02/08/2013 08:29

Coldheart Canyon by Clive Baxter. So, so disturbing - really got to me. Also re-read The Shining recently and found it much scarier this time round. I must be getting soft in my old age.

ClassyAsALannister · 02/08/2013 07:42

Salem's Lot by Stephen King!

Ihatemytoes · 02/08/2013 07:27

.

shazbean · 01/08/2013 23:16

House of Leaves!
The start scared me so I couldn't read it in the house alone!
But by the time I finished it I couldn't decide whether it was really clever or a load of pretentious rubbish.

hardbeingme · 01/08/2013 23:07

i read The Rats when i was 14 and absolutely shat myself!!!! i had to have the bedroom light on all night for about a week and then the hall light on for months.
i kept thinking i could see them just out of the corner of my eye and was twitchy for about a month.

i eventually had pet rats but i still don't do horror books or films although do read thriller - as long as the killer dies and stays dead or gets locked up and stays there i'm fine...

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 01/08/2013 23:05

Oh God - yes that Let's Go Play thing is the one my sister lent me. Hideous, horrible, terrifying book. It still makes me feel really uncomfortable and I only read about 50 pages of it. Shudder.

cocolepew · 01/08/2013 22:57

The Mo Hayder book that has a big man in it Hmm. Its either the first or second one, scared the crap out of me. I've read most of Stephen Kings they never scared me in the way this did.

Galaxymum · 01/08/2013 22:54

Let's Go Play at the Adams's - about a group of children who kidnap a teen babysitter as far as I can remember. But I do remember the torture.

Dennis Wheatley has gone out of favour but I read them in the early 90s when they were rereleased. The Haunting of Toby Jugg, The Devil Rides Out and To The Devil A Daughter were very scary in the original form.

The scariest story I ever read I can't remember the title. In a children's horror stories book - some teens tease this old man who has a false eye and he curses them saying "I'll always have my eye on you." When he dies the eye follows them everywhere - that completely freaked me out and I had nightmares! I'd love to reread it but can't remember the title.

SilkySocksSinkShips · 01/08/2013 19:36

The original Amityville Horror by Jay Anson. It was printed in 1978.

I've never been able to read it past sunset. I'm not sure I believe what happened did happen, but the almost emotional detachment from the characters (the author is relaying all information told to him by the family and a priest), and being written as a more factual story than fiction makes it hard to not believe it. You may laugh but I dare you to read it in bed, lights low and dark outside... shudder

millersangels · 01/08/2013 19:28

Let the right one and the Wasp factory scared me. Also made me feel quite sick.

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

patienceisvirtuous · 01/08/2013 19:12

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

AvonCallingBarksdale · 01/08/2013 19:05

The Darkest Corner Elizabeth HAynes

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.

Deffodil · 31/07/2013 10:29

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

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.

stargirl1701 · 31/07/2013 10:17

The Road.

Original poster
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:
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!

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.

AdoraBell · 30/07/2013 23:33

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

Nerfmother · 30/07/2013 23:29

The girl on the landing. Horrible.

Flourfairy · 30/07/2013 23:26

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

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.

snozzlemaid · 30/07/2013 22:03

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

Brilliant all of them.

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