The books that scare the writers of scary books...

[KateESal]

Happy Hallowe'en, fellow writers!

Here are the books that spooked certain horror authors

I've read my fair share of horror books in my time, but the two books which gave me nightmares weren't from the horror genre:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

James Herbert and Poppy Z. Brite both have a reliable YUCK factor.

Which books have scared you silly?

 

[Dean Baxter]

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.

 

[Dean Baxter]

Maybe even Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It's pretty tame, but I love it.

 

[Rich.]

Happy Hallowe'en!

While at university, I read The Exorcist one Christmas while staying alone in an empty hall of residence. Lots of long dark corridors. Usain Bolt had nothing on me when I went to the bathroom.

 

[Dean Baxter]

Happy Hallowe'en!

While at university, I read The Exorcist one Christmas while staying alone in an empty hall of residence. Lots of long dark corridors. Usain Bolt had nothing on me when I went to the bathroom.

The Exorcist film was the only horror I've seen that truly put the willies up me...oof.

 

[Carol Rose]

I read The Exorcist when I was 13. Yeah. BIG mistake. Scared the crap out of me.

 

[RK Wallis]

After reading Stephen King's It, I hated going to the toilet, lol! Opposite prob @Rich.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I can't recall the title of the book that terrified me as a young reader, but it was about the battle of Rorke's Drift. It was the thought of being trapped, unable to escape and forced to fight for one's life that gave me the willies!

Battle of Rorke's Drift

Then, they made a film about it! I hid behind the sofa....

 

[Katie-Ellen]

So fantastic, that film. Epic.

'Cujo' scared me. I was scared for the mother and her son. How would I get myself and my child out of that situation? But I was also scared for the monster-dog, poor, rabid Cujo, just like I was supposed to be.

One chapter heading went roughly something like this

My dog Blue died
He died so hard
He shook the ground
In my back yard
You good dog, Blue
You good dog, you

 

[Dan Payne]

Two books that scared me: The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson - a bit of pulp horror but written in such a factual style that it felt true. And the other one is not a scary book: one of Janny Wurtz's impenetrable Wars of Light and Shadow series. I think it might have been Traitor's Knot, but I don't remember the exact book. One of the protagonists is being drained of blood in a necromantic ritual and I almost fainted during the scene. (It was a hot day and I was standing on a crowded train at the time, which might have had something to do with it.)

 

[KateESal]

Ew, @Dan Payne ....

There's a scene in Broken Angels by Richard Morgan, which is particularly unpleasant and is graphically described. Falls in the same category as the one you mention. Seriously ick.

 

[RK Wallis]

The Amityville Horror

The movie was bad enough