A friend is reading STephen king's It. and it's creepy and all but his book Gerald's Game still wakes me up terrified at night, five years after i've read it.
so Anyone else ever read anything that just totally petrified you for life? I'll take movies too if that's all you got.
And has anyone read Gerald's game?? The reviews aren't great because there is so little action and so much head games instead, but i'd love to hear wha tyou though.
lol, i love a good book but i think i'll stick with romances until i feel braver.
Pet Cemetery. Frequently, when I am getting into bed I think of that kid hiding under the bed and cutting the back of his father's ankles with an ax or cleaver or whatever it was.
I second the "In Cold Blood" answer. So scary because it's true. When my father first read it, he ran out and bought a gun.
Also, "Helter Skelter". You know, Charles Manson. Brrrrrr. Truth is weirder (and scarier) than fiction.
"Communion" (an alien abduction book). I started reading it one night while baby-sitting. Scary as hell.
"The Hunger Games" was something that disturbed the heck out of me last week. Not so much scary as haunting. I had to finish it within a day of starting so that it only haunted my dreams one night.
ETA: @Jennifer I think it's horrifying to us because the premise of the game is so appalling, but that's a perspective that I think is most haunting if you're a parent. Once you get past the haunting insanity of the whole idea, the action in the game itself is violent but not, IMO, nearly as gut-wrenching and terrible as the first part of the book. There are a few disturbing deaths but it's more like any war book in that part - the idea that these are children killing each other is not as immediate and overpowering in that section.
When I was in Junior High (Middle School is what they call it now), I read Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" ....... that had me terrified for a couple of years, probably.....
If you don't know the story, it was a true story.... about a family in Kansas that was literally murdered in the middle of the night...... a couple of low-lifes had the idea that they had a bunch of money at the house, and broke in.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Cold_Blood
To top it off, I grew up in Topeka, Kansas..... and that happened in Holcomb, Kansas (1959).
For the longest time, I wanted a light on until VERY late at night...... so I would read very late, if possible, thinking that if someone were watching the house, they wouldn't break in because someone was awake..... and then, once the lights all went off, they would wait a couple of hours to make sure everyone was asleep..... and if I timed it right, it would be too close to morning, and they wouldn't break in!
I don't know when I read the book..... I think I was in Junior high, but I'm not sure. I was always reading the books my brothers and sister brought home, so I may have gotten it from them.
History Books.
Hands down.
Kay Hooper has a series of books called, the blood series blood sins, blood ties and blood something can't remember the 3rd one. but they are seriously creepy. My daughter was complaining about nothing to read so I loaned her the first one. She called me the next morning and said thanks for that. I had to get up and check all the windows and doors and slept with all the lights on lol.
I liked Gerald's Game, but not in the way that I like most of his other books. I certainly didn't think it was scary...but then, I haven't felt like any of the books have "scared" me. When you are reading, you are in control...nothing's going to "shock" you by jumping out and catching you by surprise.
Alternately, I love all his books and the Dark Tower series are my absolute favorites. That's an epic series if there ever was one. My other favorite of his is under his Bachman pseudonym, called "The Long Walk." Check that one out...again, not scary, but one of those books that makes you think and that you can't put down. It's a short story (less than 200 pages, I think) so it can be done in a night.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. As a parent, you can't help but put yourself in the place of the main character and wonder what you would do to protect your child in the face of unspeakable horrors and with questionable hope for any good outcome. Completely haunting.
This book isn't scary, but it's morbid - It's called Stiff and it's about real life stories from from medical examiners (car wrecks, airplanes, you name it) and cadaver testing. I can only read a couple chapters at a time.
http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/...
Whoa! As soon as I read this post I immediately thought of 'It'. I read it when I was 13 or so, and it scared me to death. Pennywise the clown was nothing to mess around with. My mother is a huge Stephen King fan, and I wasn't allowed to watch a lot of TV. So I read a lot, and that included many Stephen King books. 'Misery' is my favorite book of all time. The movie didn't do the book justice. The same thing with 'Thinner'.
"The Hunger Games" has had me really freaked out for days. I didn't even read the whole book. I read the first four chapters and then skipped to the last third of the book, because I just had to know that someone survived. I'm so freaked out by it that I keep asking everyone around me if they've read it or heard of it or know anything about it. No one does, so I'm still very unsettled. My husband is out of town this weekend, so I'm trying not to think about it until he gets back. My boys do not need me to be unable to sleep this weekend!
Someone please tell me how this book is ok for teens to read! I am so completely disturbed by the premise.
Book: Pet Semetary
Movie: IT
Stephen King has a very dark imagination
I think any of Stephen King's horror books like The Stand.
The only horror movie that really scared me was The Exorcist. I was raised Catholic and that movie scared me so much, maybe too because I was a child when I saw it. My mom went to see it in the drive-in and thought that my brother, sister and I were asleep in the back of the car. Turns out we would pretend to be sleeping to watch the movies too.
Kafkas stuff makes me rethink my existence.
The book that kept me awake was Stephen King's Salems Lot. I kept picturing the vampire boy scrapping on the window of his friends room. That was really scary.
The Exorcist. I had a class called Literature of Terror in college and the prof wasn't kidding. I didn't finish the book. Even my horror-movie loving roommate had to only read it in the daylight.
The Shining. And ditto Helter Skelter.
"Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry. It is the true story about the Tate / Labianca murders committed by the Manson gang.
Book - 'The Heart-Shaped Box' - Joe Hill
Movie - Nightmare on Elm Street 1
i don't have any but im surprised to see people say The Hunger Games. I didn't find it scary, but more intriguing on how they'd allow those things to happen. I finished all 3 extremely quick because I couldn't get enough! I seriously wish there were more in that series!!!
You have to finish them Jennifer!
Book: The boy in the striped pajamas
Movie: Sophie's choice
and
An American Werewolf in London (couldn't get through the whole movie)
