Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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So, I was thinking the other day about how I don't think I've ever actually been frightened by a book. Yet, there exists a fairly huge genre of literature devoted to achieving such a result. I have never actively pursued horror/thriller novels though, so here is where I ask.
A) have you ever been frightened by a book, or at the very least, had your heart rate skip up with anticipation/restlessness from reading? B) if you have been frightened by a novel, what novel was it? and/or who are some good horror novelists to check out. I'm also looking for short stories, so any of those would work too. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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No and no. I can't imagine being scared by a book in the horror movie sense. How would they even do that? Print the scary parts in capital letters?
BOO! |
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Queen of Confrontation
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ohio
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I never was scared of anything if I just read about it, but Stephan King changed that. It scared the living daylights out of me, long before I ever saw the movie. I guess it's still that idea of your imagination providing scarier ideas than anything you see.
But he's the only author who can do that, and it's not with every book. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I was 7. Gave me the creeping heebie jeebies, reading it under the covers with a flashlight.
I also used to voraciously read cryptozoology anecdotes as a kid - until a few years ago I had something bordering on a phobia about Mothman. It never bothered me while I was reading it... just when I was walking alone under the trees at night, certain that something big, malicious and winged was gliding from branch to branch above me in silence. For current (or at least recent) horror writers, I've gotta go with Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker and Skipp & Spector (a writing duo). Last edited by Kickaha : 2005-09-20 at 02:01. |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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I remember reading a book called 'Stranger Than Science' when I was in my single digits. Pretty much a collection of paranormal short stories...all 'true'...from around the world. That fucking book scared me to death. All sorts of Fortean ooga-booga mixed with creepy invisible fanged whatnots. I was so frightened that I would spontaneously combust I became addicted to Freezie-Pops. Still am. So it goes. |
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Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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After I posted this I remember that I used to read a handful of Goosebumps books when I was really young. I don't really remember anything about them, but they were supposed to be scary at least.
Actually, now that I think about it, I remember some short story I read about like, giant spiders taking over the earth, I think that freaked me out something mean, since I used to be pretty freaked out by spiders. Something I'm mostly over nowadays, only a couple species(black widows for instance) still give me the creeps. Also When I was small, We had a huge collection of audobahn society books. I remember I used to look at the spiders and scorpions book which featured tons of close up shots of spiders, it creeped me out, but I still did it fairly regularly. Funny how we often do stuff like that. Last edited by Wrao : 2005-09-20 at 04:04. |
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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Just one: William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist". My parents had it in paperback, all throughout my youth. I found it in a cardboard box when I was about 11 or so. I'd not seen the movie, but was aware of it and its impact (plus, I'd heard my parents talk about it).
So I took the book to my room, and read it over the course of about a week. Makes the movie look like child's play, frankly. Anyone truly "scared" by the movie will get the raging creeps from the book. Anyone seeing the movie AFTER reading the book (as I did) will wonder what all the fuss was about. As is the case with books, just so much more detail and backstory than a movie can allow for. Father Karras and his connection to his mother (without context, some of those scenes in the movie are simply jarring...in the book, they're heartbreaking and terrifying). It's a slow build-up, as Regans symptoms worsen. The movie depicts, I believe, 4-5 scenes involving fully possessed Regan. The book, it's more like 8-10...and they are SCARY. Creepy scary, violent scary, otherworldly scary, etc. That whole scene in the movie where she's speaking Latin (and then speaking backwards) is quite lengthy and creepy. But there are moments of genuine humor too, oddly enough. The demon is a bit of a playful smart-ass at times, verbally toying with the priests and others. Some really funny moments (a discussion of Shakespeare and the demon recounting his portraying Puck in a play years earlier, gleefully goading the priests into a geography quiz, etc.). But overall, very sinister and very chilling. I would literally get shivers and and "ohmigosh" reactions. I had some nightmares, would pull the covers over my head at night when it was time for bed, etc. I've re-read it over the years, cover-to-cover (the most recent being about four years ago) and it still has the same effect on me. I can watch the movie and even giggle in parts (it doesn't scare me at all, oddly enough). But the book will/does. Last edited by psmith2.0 : 2005-09-20 at 09:35. |
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Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
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Uh . . . well . . . uh . . . No!
I did, however, get the chills after watching the original version of The Blob. I think I was about 12 at the time. Couldn't sleep with the lights off for about two weeks. Since then, I have NEVER been frightened (other than the typical guy-jumps-out-of-closet" routine) by any book or movie. I have come to realize that reality and pretend are sperated by a huge chasm within the mind and that fear goes away with disbelief. - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) |
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superkaratemonkeydeathcar
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Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart" is pretty scary.
so is his "The Bells" if read properly. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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For some reason, H.P. Lovecraft's completely over-the-top Victorian style sucks me in every time, still. I think *because* it's so different than modern language, it reinforces the suspension of disbelief. (Even if he does telegraph like mad.) |
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Going Strange...
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Only book to ever really instill a 'scared' feeling in me was The Shining. Hadn't seen the movie at the time - but the description of the dead and bloated woman in the bathtub was scary enough that I wouldn't go into the bathroom when the shower curtain was fully extended for weeks.
Eep! I felt so let down by that sequence in the film (actually, the film leaves out the scarier of the sequences in that scenario). |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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So it goes. |
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superkaratemonkeydeathcar
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I think The Shining is the only time I've read a book in one sitting.
And also the book of "The Amityville Horror" is scarier than the movie made it to be. I think I read the two of them back to back. "What's a Canadian farm boy to do?" |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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So it goes. |
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Finally broke the seal
Join Date: May 2004
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BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope. Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
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Jan Potocki's Manuscript of Saragossa, the original translation circa 1950s...
Creepy language, creepy concepts, creepy translation... |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
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I read a few scenes from a book in a library shelf when I was (4? 5?), and had nightmares for months later. It featured a vampire using his abilities to hypnotize children so they couldn't move and then draining the blood off their parents in front of them.
No, I have no idea about the title. Apart from that, books haven't managed to be frightening. Lovecraft can manage the closest to scary. Stoker's Dracula is pretty good. There have been some really scary movies, but that's another topic. I do have to mention Nosferatu because many folks probably haven't seen it, and should. It's the only Dracula movie that makes justice to the book. |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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I only started reading Lovecraft's work this past year and quickly became convinced that it's beyond our ability to realize how incredibly horrid his stories must have been when they were written. So many of the ideas from his stories are part of the lingua franca of modern horror, naturally enhancing our sensitivity to his telegraphy.
If it has the word Cyclopean in it, it's gotta be Lovecraft!™ |
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snail herder
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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By 'horrid' I assume you mean 'truly horrifying' and not 'awful writing'.
Well, maybe that too. Yeah, I've pointed a number of people at Lovecraft, only to have them go "Oh but this has been so *done*..." Showing them the original author date does nothing to change their minds. They somehow think that some silly movie made in the 80s is the *source* for a book written decades earlier, apparently. Feh. Oh, and Koodari: I can only assume you mean the original Max Schrek Nosferatu silent film, and not the laugh-a-minute Klaus Kinski remake. They weren't trying to make it funny, but oh dear god is it bad. The original is quite creepy though. |
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On Pacific time
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
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Have I ever been frightened by the written word?
I was frightened by reading Newsweek articles about that guy in New Jersey 12 years ago (?) - what the heck was his name - who kept a woman prisoner, lying on a mattress, naked from the waist down, chained by the arms to a wall in his basement. He would rape her several times a day, and when he got tired of her, sawed her up and put her in a stewpot to boil on the stove - as food for his *next* victim. Just your basic average neighborhood guy, doing what others might 'want' to do but don't. 'That' aspect was probably the scariest - that a normal-seeming guy in an ordinary neighborhood could be the devil incarnate of every woman's nightmares. And that guy, Ng, and his cohort in the Pacific Northwest, I believe, who kidnapped people, chained them in a concrete bunker, then tortured and killed them for fun while videotaping the agonies of their deaths. What's especially scary is that stepping over that 'first' line isn't really so hard, probably for more people than we'd care to imagine; and once over, everything goes. *shiver* As for books: I think that Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat had some 'entities' that gave me the creeps - these evil, rotting sub-creatures of the 'old world' (Europe) - small, underground-dwelling, disgusting entities that lived on human flesh, that were always present but never seen, in an eternity of nights. She made it seem like they 'really' existed - in 'real' life. Just convincing enough to make a reader half believe they did. |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Massachusetts
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Windswept, Carol your first story of torture certainly reminded me of Hannibal Lecture. Sends goose bumps up the spine just reading and thinking about that.
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Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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Reminded me of Sin City, creepy that something like that actually happened. Well, a lot more than creepy, outright gross and disturbing. Unfortunately... it's not exactly scary... hard to reconcile I know, but for me, being scared is a lot more active than being grossed out or disturbed/creeped out.
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On Pacific time
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
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Rather, the fear is the shadow of menace that lurks deep in the heart of every woman. |
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Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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Yea, guess it's just one of those things.
And here's one of these things: So, last week I went on a 15 mile hike with a couple friends. About 2 miles in we met up with a young couple, clearly hikers, with proper boots, small packs and a couple dogs. They had just come from the tram station;discarded remnants of an old tram system that used to ferry people up the mountain to a luxury hotel which burned down almost 100 years ago. Although We were hiking to a spot called "inspiration point" which is 5 miles from the tram station, If there has ever been a place I've been to that I've thought could be haunted, it is the tram station. Very spooky vibe you get up there. A couple months ago we camped up there for a night, it was a unique experience. I remember getting paranoid at like 4 AM in the morning that there were people stalking about around the remaining foundations for the long since destroyed buildings. One of my companions that night swears he saw something stirring about as well. Now, The 2 hikers we encountered, were friendly, sociable, and all around good hikers. We chatted with them for a bit, and then were on our way. It's not exactly normal to go hiking at 11 at night, especially distances greater than a mile, so that encounter was a great surprise for us. As we parted ways we started talking softly(so that they might not hear us) about the peculiarity of it, we concluded that they must have hiked up before sundown to watch the sunset. We turned a bend in the trail and resumed talking loudly and acting as though we owned the mountain, because we did, people don't come up on these hills much at all, only hikers, and even they don't typically tread up here at these hours. We turned the bend in the trail and my friend gasped a little bit, but before he could get out the words we saw some figures approaching us. Feeling good I gave them a cheerful "ahoy hikers!". the cheer was not returned and these people were not hikers. There were 3 of them, an elderly man in a heavy coat wearing a fedora that he slowly removed as he passed. A younger woman, perhaps 27 or 28 looking nervously at the ground and wearing a dark dress and shoes clearly not made for hiking. And finally, a short girl with a peculiar looking face, walking awkwardly with her arms half extended in front of her. None of them smiled, none of them talked. Aside from the autonomous hat removal they did not acknowledge our presence at all. We trekked forward, waiting for them to cross the bend and fall out of earshot before my friend revealed why he had gasped earlier. "I saw someone fall off the edge" he said "bullshit!" I countered, I was in front I didn't see anything" "you weren't looking" my other friend noted "you were looking up at the mountain" "hm, well, I didn't see anything, nor hear anything, but what the hell was with those people we just saw? why was that girl wearing a dress?" I commented "ya, they didn't seem like hikers at all, that looked like a fairly fancy dress too" said my friend "they were ghosts!" my other friend said excitedly "Dude, you're retarded" my friend observed but no sooner had he said the words that we began to hear two dogs barking madly from down the side of the mountain. "what the hell? you think it's those two we saw earlier?" I said but shortly after I said it I had my answer. The dogs stopped barking and we heard a really weird noise, something, unlike anything I've heard before, mostly indescribable, but very unnerving. It wasn't exactly loud as it was present. It seemed to reverberate through the hills and echo against the air. Quickly we ran back around the bend, there was a break in the tree line where we would be able to see a few hundred feet down the trail and mountain. But there was nothing there. Nothing on the trail, nothing down the mountain, no sign of anything, there was no way the 3 weirdos from before could have made it out of sight that quickly, and why had the dog's stopped barking, they didn't sound all that far away to begin with. We stayed at our vantage point for a few more minutes before finally deciding to return to the hike. No clue what happened. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
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I have been intending to see Shadow of the Vampire, whose plot revolves around the filming of Nosferatu. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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It's *wonderful*. If you liked the original, you'll love Shadow.
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Ninja Editor
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bay Area, CA
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That's pretty weird, Wrao.
As to the original question, I've never been scared by a book per se, but I have a fairly active imagination and I often try to place myself in the shoes of the characters (so to speak), and in that way I can kinda imagine how scary stuff that happens in books could be. Does that make sense? There have been a few scenes in a couple books I've read that've made me cringe at the descriptions, though. (The description of the sounds coming from over the hill as an entire village was slaughtered in one of the Wheel of Time books comes to mind). When I was a kid, people who did wrong were punished, restricted, and forbidden. Now, when someone does wrong, all of the rest of us are punished, restricted, and forbidden... and the one who did the wrong is counselled and "understood" and fed ice cream. |
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
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Um Wrao, that story right there creeped me out. So to answer your question, yes.
When I was younger, I think some of the Goosebumps and Fear Street books were creepy. The Boxcar Children series also sometimes had suspenseful stories. I should pick up some horror books though. I've always been interested in vampires so I'll probably roll with Anne Rice. I'll tell you what did creep me out as a kid: the clown episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark! I know people who are still freaked out when it is mentioned! |
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
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Um Wrao, that story right there creeped me out. So to answer your question, yes.
When I was younger, I think some of the Goosebumps and Fear Street books were creepy. The Boxcar Children series also sometimes had suspenseful stories. I should pick up some horror books though. I've always been interested in vampires so I'll probably roll with Anne Rice. I'll tell you what did creep me out as a kid: the clown episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark! I know people who are still freaked out when it is mentioned! |
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