Most frightening books of all time

See what made our list for the best scary movies ever made, and find out why theyre so bonechilling. The 20 scariest books of all time do yourself a favor. I agree with nichali ciaccio on cormac mccarthys blood meridian or the evening redness in the west being one of the most frightening books of all time. Everything seems to be going smoothly, at least until all the guests leave and jacks family remain the only inhabitants of the hotel. If its meant purely to scare, then some of the heftier books on this list would have wracked up a body count, terrifying readers to death over 700 pages or more. Stines teen and adult horror books stories that are meant to scare you deeply and sincerely, rather than rattle you, but with a safety net always in place, reminding you that the book is just a book.

For all horror books with more than 50,000 ratings see. The books are listed in alphabetical order by title. Warming is a type of shampoo and i found it to be an enjoyable read, but it is definitely up there as one of the most disturbing books i have ever read. To quote harold bloom, judge holden is a villain worthy of shakespeare, iagolike and demoniac, a theoretician of war everlasting. When mcqueens son is abducted, she alerts the police, who try to.

Shakespeare often used ghosts in his plays, most famously in hamlet and macbeth, and charles dickens wrote the greatest pure ghost story of all time in a christmas carol. The most popular horror on goodreads score a books total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book. Best scariest horror books of all time cosmopolitan. Inspired by a true story of a child who was possessed by demons in the 1940s, blatty created a novel that focuses on regan, an 11year old girl who has the same fate. Not to mention that while i love supporting authors, i cant afford to buy every book for full pricebut at the same time, i dont want to hurt the bottom lines of community bookstores and. This tale of extreme, ruthless, and pervasive violence in the american west emerges from under a sheen of the unreal to become all too real, and the greatest trick mccarthy manages here is by making the single most terrifying aspect of the storythe main characters deaththe one act of brutality he doesnt depict, leaving the terrors contained within that scene to our imaginationwhich is infinitely worse than anything he might have conjured. Another year has passed, delivering us a terrible bounty of new horror books to terrify us on quiet nights. If youre looking for a lengthy thread of bitesized true scary.

Helter skelter tells the true and horrifying story of the manson murders and is the bestselling true crime book of all time. Literature of all eras abounds in ghosts stories, and there is a great crosssection in the big book of ghost stories. Best horror books of all time list of scariest novels. Are you looking for really scary books to creep you out. Every time i reread this, im on the edge of my seat, even though i know how it ends. What are the most frightening books youve ever read. From these writers and more, here are the ten most disturbing books ever written. The 10 scariest books of all time read at your own risk. Top ten scariest books of all time 1 the shining stephen king.

These are the best books for halloween to scare you and your friends. The production uses sound design and music to create the atmosphere youre missing from the artwork here, and the results are impressive. These are the legendary opening words of the haunting of hill house, our pick for the bestand bestwrittenhorror novel of all time. Audreys door was easily scary enough to make me utilise my tried and tested technique of hiding it between two good books. They produce physical sensations in the body, like impending dread in the pit of your stomach, or the hair on the back of your neck standing on end. The 100 scariest horror novels of all time horror novel. While we often discuss lovely, lifeaffirming quotes and sweetly memorable scenes in books, reader slovenia46 recently suggested we talked about the grim. A cyber genius questions his own sanity in this chilling read that was one of the best thriller books of the past decade. Come on, you cant leave out the guy that wrote the book of the scariest movie of all time. But the novel on which the movie was based is itself hugely exciting and frightening. List rules scary horror novels or other freaky works of fiction. Haunted is one of the most terrifying psychological books becausedue to the nature of the narrativeeach character brings a new, fresh hellscape.

A comingofage story about rejection, loneliness, and abuse, all of which is just as scary as the supernatural horrors that eli, a 200yearold vampire who looks 12, commits. Whether youre most horrified by creepy little kids, jumpscares, psychological thrillers, ghosts, or zombies. Regardless of ones interests, one can find a book he or she finds engaging. One of the most popular and horrifying tales of all time, frankenstein was the product of a competition amongst other greats including lord byron and percy shelley of. Vampires have become a little too familiarsexy to be scary most of the time, but this existential, unusual novel. Anyway, there are approximately a million different ways for a movie to be scary. Weve read your emails and dug deep into the gravesorry, the greys to find the most buried, most frightening stories submitted by you, our. I bought a few books, but i miss being able to wander through the new arrivals and the stacks and picking up something i hadnt planned on reading at all. The novel jaws tells the story of a monster fish, a great white shark, that starts attacking swimmers off the coast of america. The scariest horror books of all time 2 the shining stephen king the shining is a horror novel by american author stephen king. They build in that slow, suspenseful way that has you sitting on the edge of your chair, furiously flipping pages to see what happens next. The first novel in the series, harry potter and the philosophers stone, has sold in excess of 120 million copies, making it one of the bestselling books of all time. These scariest unsolved mysteries are based on the opinions of the people over on runresolvedmysteries who know enough about unsolved cases at large to be experts on the creepiest ones.

I suggest house of leaves house of leaves without spoiling the plot, there are three nested stories, of which the core is about the finding of a set of documents and videos about a house that becomes slightly longer on the inside than the outs. Some authors really appeal to the gore lover, the thrillseeker, and the horror junky, such as cormac mccarthy, bret easton ellis, and stephen king. Not only one of the most jarringly horrific movies of all time also a scary novel. Writers are accepted into a retreat where their ties to the world are completely severed. Jaws is one of the most exciting, frightening movies ever made. A 17yearold girl named alice has had it rough in life.

Bradbury is betterknown for sciencefiction novels like fahrenheit 451, but something wicked this way comes is one of his best and most. Charlie giles is the senior director of his own successful startup company, and everything in his life is going to planuntil his coworkers start dropping dead, and all the evidence points to charlie. Coming up with a list of the 25 best horror movies is a good way to weed out the scary movie veterans from the scaredy cats. The following fearsome five are all creatures taken from the early days of fright, when pages did the talking, and movies, as we call them, didnt quite exist yet. The exorcist is one of the scariest books of all time and remains one of the most controversial novels ever written. What is the most frightening book youve read, fiction or. Shirley jacksons chilling, lean haunted house tale. They are the most frightening monsters in english literature of all time. As of june 2017, the series has been translated into 80 languages, placing harry potter among historys most translated literary works. One of the most frightening horror books of the decade tells the story of vic mcqueen, a young woman who tries to save her son from a supernatural killer that feeds off the souls of young children. Taken together, 2017s best horror books were a little more introspective than last years, striking at the heart and bringing us visceral scares, from scott thomass psychologically affecting house of horrors in kill creek, to the raw rage and grief at the center of paul cornell. First of all, kate mulgrew, tatiana maslany, and haley joel osment are among the narrators of this one. Once there, each of them tries to curate a survival experience, unaware that all the others are, too. Danielewski put simply, house of leaves is one of the most frightening books ever written.

Top 5 most frightening monsters in english literature. The 21 best horror books of the 21st century paste. Others among the worlds greatest authors who have written in the genre include jane austen, nathaniel. The shining by stephen king, it by stephen king, pet sematary by stephen king, salems lot by stephen king, the exorcist b. The most horrible skin disease in the world has to be the one where tiny men erupt out of pustules all over your body and want to kill you. What is the most terrifying book you have ever read. He spends his time working on the site, doing research for new lists, and collecting oddities. The best horror books of 2017 will keep you up all night.