What horror and/or thriller has kept you up at night?
What horror and/or thriller has kept you up at night?
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The Shining
I’m just getting ready to read it for the first time. Eeek!
Sooooooo much better than the movie!
@Sarah I couldn’t agree more. The first time a book has me spooked when I was home alone. Personally I really disliked the movie. I like Jack Nicholson as an actor, but the movie was terrible.
They cut out too much of the character development in the movie. In the book you really see Jack Torrance descend into madness. In the movie, Jack Nicholson is creepy from the get go.
Jurassic Park. Both book and movie (went to it at an Imax theater!)
In Cold Blood
Yes, Sarah Hendess! You beat me to it. LOL. I read a lot of horror and/thriller books and The Shining is the only book that kept me up at night. It is now my all time favorite scary book. ?
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn… maybe more mystery than horror but still creepy good!
I agree! I’m looking forward to the HBO series.
Oh my goodness, I didn’t know there was going to be a series! Exciting!
Sharp Objects https://g.co/kgs/izUqag
The Shining… my babysitter took me to see it in the theater when I was like 8 or 9… scared the wits out of me… slept in my parents room on the floor for a week!
As far as a read goes, the Shining is up there… but “It” was probably scarier for me…
Both are just terrifying!
Definitely The Shining!! I was in high school. Read it during the summer. Slept with my lights on. My mother could not believe I was that scared by a book. ?
Salem’s Lot
Peretti’s “The Visitation”
Love Peretti!
Oh and Ted Decker!
Pet Sematary
THE EXORCIST
The Exorcist. I was a teenager at the time it came out. It freaked me out so much that I would put it outside on the porch before I went to bed ?
i couldn’t leave the book face up on my night stand!
Pet Sematary, Exorcist, Shining, IT, and the list goes on & on
Pet Sematary was really scary!
When I meet a child named Gage!!!! Why?!??
Stephen King: Carrie, Pet Sematary, the shining. He’s the master! ?
The Haunting of Hill House
Cujo
I read it at about age 12 and was terrified to sleep with my closet door open!!
Intensity by Dean Koontz. More recently Bird Box by Josh Malerman.
I read Bird Box but it didn’t frighten me. I was prepared to become frightened as so many others said that they had been in their reviews of the book. Sigh.
Communion
Amityville Horror!
I was afraid to go to sleep, nightmare fear!
Salem’s Lot! It still freaks me out..
Me too!
Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” and “Children of the Corn”, and then also Lara Parker’s “Angelique’s Descent” – gothic ‘Dark Shadows’. Lara Parker played Angelique in the ‘Dark Shadows’ gothic soap back in the 1960s. I refused to read any of these books after dark.
IT.
Of course, I read it in 8th grade…. might not have been that scary.
@Ryan I read IT for the first time in 7th grade and then again last summer before the movie came out. Scared me just as much at 21 as it did at 13. Lol
@Eric Cool. Don’t feel so bad. Can’t wait to read The Stand, too.
Bird Box – Josh Malerman
Just read that, it was so good!
The Shining.
Reading Behind Closed Doors. Slow first 50 pages then gets insane
More of a pyschological thriller but a page turner for sure
The Haunting of Hill House
Don’t need to read horror when Dystopian novels have been hitting too close to home for over a year now.
The Omen. I couldn’t move off the sofa because I was so frightened.
“IT”
Salem’s Lot and the haunting of hill house.
Thinner
Oldies..The Exorcist.
The Stand
Revival by Stephen King
Bird Box. The Butterfly Garden.
A long time ago… when I was 17… The Exorcist! ?
Pet Cemetery
Movies: The Birds and Psycho
The first Paranormal Activity…normally movies don’t get to me but I kept thinking someone was standing over my bed watching me sleep…oh damn now its gonna be back in my head??
Salem’s Lot
Gone Girl
The Mummy by Anne Rice.
Amitiville Horroe
The seed
I’m going to also say Jaws by Peter Benchley and Meg by Steve Alten for you shark lovers out there.
Carl Beaty yes!!!!
Oh yeah! Anything by Anne Rice!!
The Shinning, The Road
Horror is my favorite genre. Haven’t been scared by a book in a long time. Get a little chill sometime though.
Helter Skelter
Salem’s Lot. Only book that made me sleep with a light on.
Probably the first horror book I read. Still one of my favorites.
Silence of the Lambs
EAP.
The Shining
Gerald’s Game
I had crazy dreams after that one.
The Exorcist
Same here!
Read it as a teen, what was I thinking?!
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Because it was a true story, I was afraid to go to sleep for months after reading that one.
House of Leaves. Possibly the most frightening novel I’ve ever read and I’ve read a lot of them. The premise alone is enough to give me the creeps.
None. But I have burned out on horror at times, usually after binging on it, and have had to set it aside for a while.
The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
That’s on sale at Amazon….$2….I snagged it because I love the movie….
@Michael , it’s a good read. Two movies, 1963 and 1999. I liked 1963 version with Julie Harris the best.
“And whatever walked there, walked alone”.
@Rose….#MeToo….1963….I rarely watch remakes….
“In the night, in the dark”….
Amityville Horror
I think that’s the only scary book I’ve ever read….
The Shining. So much more terrifying than the movie! Also, Capote’s In Cold Blood.
Rosemary’s Baby
Sybil
‘Salem’s Lot…scared me so much!
Yup, that’s mine as well. I was wayyyy to young.
Pet Semetary
The Stand, reading now.
I just scrolled down here to add that one….great minds think alike….and get scared and entranced alike too!!❤️
The shining
Christine…I’m sensing a trend. Stephen King 🙂
Pet Semetary
Silence of the lambs
Ghost Story by Peter @Straub
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.
Hill sure does have his parent’s gift!
Agreed! I still get the creeps thinking of parts of that book.
“Amityville Horror.” I read it in the 4th grade. Where was my mother and why wasn’t she aware of what her child was reading !
I read horror as a teen living in a historic style house…creaky floors etc! Never read it now!!
@Kelly I don’t read it either nor do I care for horror movies!
Agree!!! I went to IT in the theater! People say the book is even scarier!?! Nope!
Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Black Cat when I was a teen. Then I stopped reading horror stories after I got married.
Exorcist
The Amityville Horror has been the only book to ever give me nightmares!
Short story by Stephen King Boogeyman
The Shining
Yes!
Salem’s Lot.
Ditto
The Exorcist
Count me in with the ‘Salem’s Lot crowd.
Misery by Stephen King
Tommy knockers, Needful things, Dracula…..
Dean Koontz “Intensity”, Stephen King “It, Salem’s Lot & The Stand” and Stoker’s Dracula…that scene where the woman comes to the castle screaming for her baby…that was bone chilling!
Carl Beaty I think that is about as dark as you can go….
Oh…and of course the “Houses” Hill, Hell and Usher…
I am all-nighter with any book I read. I cannot get out of the world of my book until I finish it?
Salem’s Lot
Swan by Robert McCammon
The Outsider.
Salem’s Lot!
honorable mention…. Poe… The Telltale Heart, Cask of Amintillado, Pitt & the Pedulum
Silence of the Lambs
The Monkey’s Paw, Kujo
Great one!
Oh! WAR OF THE WORLDS! HG Wells! Every time I hear a crane make that loud screeching I think of those blood thirsty aliens!
IT – I had wake up screaming nightmares
I hated clowns BEFORE I read it. Even more so after.
@Wendy, I legit CANNOT read that BECAUSE I hate clowns THAT MUCH! I am a voracious reader, but damnit there’s a LINE!
? <—-it’s right there!!!
The Deep
The Stand
Cujo!
I hope you mean kept up reading, I love Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Poe, Lovecraft, all of them! Nope, never scare me awake or prevent shut-eye.
The Exorcist, The Haunting of Hill @Liz
The Amityville Horror.
The Amityville Horror
C.J. Box…mystery writer out of Wyoming who spins a gripping tale, folding in the beautiful scenery, with a chilling but well-told narrative.
Love his books, but don’t find them terrifying in the same way as others above.
true…not terrifying, but page-turning! Still upsets the sleep patterns!
horrifying – Exorcist and Tell Tale Heart
I have to read Joe Pickett into the wee hours too, Jennifer Amend!
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Have you read The Haunting of Hill House?
Oh yes indeed, as well as We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
It and The Telltale Heart.
helter skelter
Oh yes! That’s mine. I’ll never get over that one. And the pictures…ugh!!!
I lived in Southern California when it happened, made the book even creepier.
The Haunting of Hill House
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Oh my,how could I forget,
The Giver. That book still haunts me.
Sixth Sense, The Shinning, The Haunting of Hill House, Snakepit
The Historian
Amityville Horror
A book about identical twins, one mentally abhorrent. Everyone thinks that’s the twin that died, and end of the book it’s revealed the evil twin had survived. We’re talking the 70’s and I can’t remember the name!!!
Was it The Other by Thomas Tryon? The movie is FREAKY too!
@Kathy Yes- Thank you!! It seemed too simple of a title, but yes!
omg…I remember that book! I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Yes I think the Other is it. great book. Ghost by Peter Strauss was good too. And the first Stephen King I read, Salems Lot was really good.
@Kathy Did you happen to also read his book The Lady?
Don’t know “The Lady” but I remember Harvest Home.
@Deborah No! I should check that out. I think he died rather young, if I’m not mistaken.
@Deborah will try that.
@Laura I loved Salem’s Lot-it didn’t keep me up once finished, however.
@Kathy yes, he was an actor first. I read Harvest Home too
I happened upon the movie “The Other” a few years ago – couldn’t believe I’d never seen it or knew about it. Read the book after that. Both very good imo.
@Kristi You’re welcome! Yes, that book stays with you big time!
@Mary Scary stuff, right? Wow! Disturbing, but compelling.
Helter Skelter. OMG. And it was TRUE! That’s the worst part.
The Other by Thomas Tryon.
His book Harvest Home is so scary I couldn’t finish reading it.
I loved The Other. Stephen King really bashed Tyron’s next novel Harvest Home, but I found it riveting.
Pet Cemetary
Oh, yes! This one really got me. The little boy coming back…and the cat! Yikes!
Oh, that one too. Gross.
@Nan Yes. You just have this feeling of dread while you’re reading it.
The House on the Hill
The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
anything by Stephen King!
the long walk
Who is the author?
@Natasha Stephen king
@Natasha i think steven king but i dont remember …
that book still haunts me…
even awake (shiver)
Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.
Amityville Read it at 15 and when turned the page with the flies…scared the daylights out of me. Salem’s Lot was pretty frightening too
The Shining
The Shining
Yes! King didn’t care for the Kubrick version, but that movie was probably the scariest film I’ve ever seen..especially in a dark theater. Wow!
Yeah I read the shining recently.
Woman in black
mothman prophecy
Son of the Endless Night by John Farris. I had to remove the book from my bedroom when I slept, it was so terrifying!
Rosemary’s Baby, i read that in one sitting at night. Craziest book ever. The movie was ok
Intensity by Dean Koontz.
God, that sounds familiar to me too.
The strain trilogy!
Misery – I hate scary books and movies but was tricked into reading this. I kept reading to the end even though it scared me because Stephen King paints amazing pictures in your head as you read and I could not quite midstream.
In Cold Blood. I was in high school, and we lived in an old farm house that had doors that didn’t lock. It was late at night, and I was the only one awake. The dogs started barking. I raced up the stairs to my bed but don’t think I slept all night.
IT was the only one. I didn’t take a bath for about 10 years after reading that book.
Scared me too!
Remember when Joey put ‘It’ in the freezer because it was too scary?
“The Other” by Thomas Tryon.
a boy called it….not a horror book
but at the same time
Stephen King books.
The Shining!!
Read it in HS… took me many years to read another King book- Misery – stayed off until my fav-Green Mie
Pet Cemetery by Stephen King
The only King book I could never finish.
Silence of the Lambs
Some of Stephen Kings short stories have stayed in my imagination more than his novels.
Agreed!
Yep, like his 1982 The Raft
@Linda yes!! ?
The Hideaway by Dean Koontz – major heebie jeebies
The Exorcist, more so the movie
Saw movie in HS. Keep a night lite on in my room for weeks. That’s why The Stand bothered me too
11-22-63 by Stephen King
Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens (Thriller)
Velocity by Dean Koontz
My favorite Koontz book.
@Karen I couldn’t sleep afterward! But it was great! I could really appreciate the imagery and the brilliant plot.
Thunderhead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
love their books
Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi. The story of the Manson murders. Scared me to death!
I forgot about this one. Definitely gave me the creeps since it’s true
I forgot about that one. It was just too creepy, especially since it was true!
Oh, yes! It was actually on a high school book report list of choices. And I picked, and had trouble sleeping. Weird how that crime is still just absolutely horrifying.
@Alison Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood
The Shining, The Exorcist. Among many others!
Silence of the Lambs scared the stew out of me! I was staying with family on a farm near Pryor, OK when I read it. Since they were in the middle of 150 acres the curtains on the windows were Lace. It was so dark at night & I kept imaging Hannibal Lecter peering in the window at me. I couldn’t finish the book ?
I don’t know if most people think of it as a thriller, but Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the spookiest things I’ve ever read.
“We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson! The Haunting of Hill House gets all the attention, but I think WHALITC is spookier and more atmospheric.
Yes, I think so too.
I don’t like horror, but my book challenge has one in it. Is Shirley Jackson a good choice? Stephen King is just too much for me!
I would say so, she also wrote Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons, not horror, nonfiction about raising her children. I mention them because the titles read like horror stories but they are very funny.
@Janice I read Raising Demons when I was young and before I had read any of her other books. It was years later that I realized they were by the same author.
@Kelly Yes! Shirley Jackson is an excellent choice, You’ve probably already read her short story, “The Lottery” in high school or college. “The Haunting of Hill House” is a great book–don’t be discouraged by the many horrible movie adaptations, but I’ll bet you’d like “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.”
@Stacy, thanks! I think this may be my choice for my book list this year!
Cool! Let me know what you think of it.
Comes the blind fury by John Saul. I love the book and have read it often but it still scares me every time
Silence of the Lambs
Never saw silence of the lamb so there you go! I’m 72 and the wicked witch of the west was the villain of my day??
Book way better than the movie.
Edgar Allen Poe. The Bells. The raven and the tell tale heart. Annabelle Lee. Fall of the House of Usher. Etc. anything Poe.
Pet Sematary.
Yes! Talk about a ‘feeling of dread’ through that one. Whew.
@Kathy I had to put it down for a couple of days because of that feeling! I had to get away from it before l could finish it.
Pet Semetary is disturbing…..
Stephen King novels… I read most of them in my teen years. I did not sleep well for three months.
da vinci code. picked it up on a sat. afternoon, read straight through to sunday eve.
Was that scary? Maybe I’ll try it…?
not scary—just suspenseful.
a page-turner, as they say. 😉
The Shining. Such an awesome horror book by the master of horror. Also, The Dark Half was good, more suspenseful than scary though.
Misery
Carolyn Haines’s Darkling! So haunting and suspenseful!
‘Under the Dome’
Cujo and Pet Cemetary….thanks Mr King…
It
When I was a teenager I read Helter-smelter and it absolutely gave me the willies. I wouldn’t go to sleep (When I could sleep) without a light on for months.
Pet Semetary scared the hell out of me, gave me nightmares, and made me get up to check on my sleeping children. Yikes.
The Shining.
The Shining
Blair witch project
A short story by Stephen King called The Raft! I hollered for my husband to make sure he was still in the house with me, LOL. Also, Jaws scared me too.
The Exorcist…as a teen. Then my father freaked out!! Oh boy was I in trouble!
It, Cujo, basically anything by Stephen King
The Exorcist when I was in college. Heard two cats fighting outside my bedroom window one night right after reading it, and thought the demons had come for me for sure!
The Birds.
The Exorcist
Me too!
Anything
Stephen King writes ?
Harvest Home by Thomas Tyron
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The lives they left behind
Love Clive Barker, but still have nightmares once in a while about pinhead!
The Silence of the Lambs
Jaws
The Exorcist
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King?
Salem’s Lot
Carrie
King.
The Exorcist
The Shining did that for me yikes lol
Pet Cemetery. We had a fluffy gray cat and my hubby was deployed. Slept with the lights on for weeks!!
Christine.
Salem’s Lot-it still scares me.
The stand by stephen king.
In Cold Blood
Pet Semetary
Helter Skelter
The Road by:Cormac McCarthy
“Gerald’s Game” by Stephen King
Ghost Story by Peter Straub, read it in college, had to sleep with the light on for a while.
Helter Skelter. Read it as a teenager and had nightmares about it!!
IT, Pet Cemetary and The Exorcist.?
The Witching Hour
Rockinghorse by Wiliam W. Johnstone
The Shining
Pet Cemetary
It. I slept with the lights on the entire summer of my 15th year thanks to this book ?
Amityville Horror
Flowers In The Attic when I was younger.
In Cold Blood many years ago.
The Shining. Pretty much the last horror book I ever read and we are talking over 30 years ago!
Same here, The Shining did me in for never reading another horror book
Salon’s Lot.
Salem’s lot
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Salem’s.
The Exorcist
A new one by Billy O’Callaghan.. “The Dead House.”
Even though it’s non-fiction, Helter Skelter.
I could never finish that book – tried reading it twice – made me ill
In Cold Blood
I SO agree with Helter Skelter–scared me more than anything else.
I always lock my doors even when home!
The Shining
Amityville Horror. I was afraid when looking out a window after dark of seeing red, glowing pig eyes staring at me.
Black House by Stephen King
It
The Trap by Tabitha King
Pet Semetary
Silence of the Lambs
Intensity by Koontz (which I was watching a scary movie one night and realized they had ripped off the beginning of the book almost exactly- and then read that they knew they were plagiarizing, but didn’t seem to care!) The book as a whole just gets strange, but the beginning still freaks me out!
It and Pet Cemetery
Amityville Horror. I read it as a teen and I haven’t read a scary book again. I don’t enjoy them.
Salem’s Lot.
Cujo
The day ‘ The Shinning’ arrived at my house was memorable. I read some that evening but when my husband went to work on night shift, I thought I would read a bit more. At 5 AM I locked all the doors in the house. At 8 AM when he got home and couldn’t get in, he sacred me half to death with the banging. AT 9 AM I finished it. That is still the scariest book for me. What a ride!!
LOL. Yep, my hubbie was working the night I started The Shining. My brain automatically turned REDRUM around in my head. I threw the book across the sofa and ran next door to a neighbor’s house where I sat for the next few hours. hahahaha. Great read though. Hated the movie. Left too much out but then that happens with King books. Hard to put all that head stuff on the screen. Thanks for the memory!
It was fun!!
I was reading it at home alone. It was during the day but I eventually had to call my friend to come over and sit with me.
The Shining.
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
In cold blood. Read it as a teen and slept with the lights on for weeks
King’s short story 1408
Diary of Anne Frank.
Anything by Stephen King
IT Stephen King.
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I kept thinking there were vampires scratching on my windows to get in!
Salem’s Lot, when I was pregnant in 1988. Didn’t sleep for days.
The Witching Hour. Anne Rice always made me use the night light!
Heartsick thoroughly freaked me out
The Exorcist.
Oh yes! The Exorcist made my skin crawl!!!!
Ooh yeah, I remember The Exorcist. I was 14 when I read it. Clearly too young. Scared the pants off me!!!
I stopped reading horror stories a few years back (I’m a big weenie!) but years ago Stephen King’s “The Stand” kept me awake!
I was reading The Stand at work on my lunch hour. A coworker coughed and I thought Oh No! Captain Trips!
@Laura, sorry! But I had to chuckle at that!
scared me to pieces. I liked her alot! glad she pulled through. 🙂
Never books, only movies do this
The book It keeps me awake now-so does Jaws at the beach. lol
The Exorcist
Definitely! ?
Amittyville Horror
It did me too. It was a long time ago, but I won’t read it again. It gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Good word choice
The Stepford Wives ☺️
The Shining, The Stand
Agreed!
“Ghost Story” by Peter Staub.
Pet Semetary, Carrie, Thinner, It and the Shining. Stephen King has scared me.
My life…
The Shining and Pet Cemetery
Stephen Kings’ books, especially “The Shining”.
Nothing has ever kept me up, but Shirley Jackson’s the Haunting (of Hill House) scared me to bits.
When I was about junior high age I read Prophecy. It’s about a giant mutant bear terrorizing the woods. Scared me to death. Lived in the woods and wouldn’t go by a window at night for a couple of years!
That was a frightening book. The movie was unnerving, too.
@Carol I agree!
Helter Skelter
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I just knew vampires were coming for me.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote ?
None. I love scary books.. now they might make me check the closet and under the bed, but I sleep fine.
First Rosemary’s Baby, then Silence of the Lambs. Both kept me awake for a week. Never saw or read anything scary since then!
Me too
I have 2 that really got me – Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining. I had to read all night just to know what happened….
The Stand
Salem’s Lot by Steven King.
I just remembered, Stephen Kings’ The Mist” terrified me, because I during my reading of the book I went to the local A&P and was standing in the check out. I was looking out the glass windows and realized the fog had rolled in. It was like I was sucked into his story. Very creepy ride home.
IT
That does it! I was going to give Stephen King a shot, but not now. I’m sure even his tamer books have a bit of terror in them!
He is a master storyteller! Try his novellas in the book Different Seasons. There are 4 short stories. Two of them I didn’t like (especially the one about a Nazi— ghastly disturbing), but the other two are classics. One is called The Body (made into the movie Stand By Me) and the other is Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (you know the movie ?). I read them 30+ years ago and don’t remember them being scary. Their movie versions were not scary, just great storytelling.
Ok. I’m back in!
Joyland is great and it’s not a horror, even though there is a ghost. ?
Try 11.22.63. It‘s a what-if done King style. Not horror at all and I think it’s one of his best
I loved Stephen King and read every book. But I’d get such night mares that I had to give them up. Now when my son talks about King books I’m envious but can’t go there.
Helter Skelter ?
Don’t read them
The Exorcist. Read it straight through in one night. The only book I ever stayed up all night to finish.
https://goo.gl/images/4wiyRY
No can do, Don’t read them either.
Intensity by dean koontz
That book scared mr to death!
Definitely the scariest and most appropriately titled book I have ever read! I read it over 10 years ago and still think of it often.
Exorcist
Had nightmares
The scene between the lawyer and Lisbeth in Girl with a Dragon Tattoo really got to me.
Those books need to be in the top 100!
I have It, I want to wait around first of October to read tho
The Stand, Steven King!
Any thing by Dean Koontz
Silence of the Lambs
Almost forgot that one. A really good book. I also liked The Red Dragon.
I found Red Dragon more frightening.
Mine is a movie—-Blue Velvet.
Mine was a movie—–Blue Velvet!
Pet Cemetery!!
The Shining, Cujo, and not really horror but Flowers in the Attic haunted me.
Me too!!
Ghost Story by Straub. I was staying by myself at a beach house on a stormy, windy night and the damn book kept me up all night. I finished it as the sun rose and finally got some sleep wit some weird dreams. Loved it by the way
Exactly, I was at a cottage on the beach. Up all night!
I just bought that. I’m glad to know others like it.
The tag line still gets me at times-“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Ghost Story.
Helter Skelter