Top 15 Scariest Titles of All Time
Not in any particular order…
Have you ever encountered a book or an ebook that does the trick of raising your heart beat, giving you goosebumps, forcing you to stop reading or making you lock it in a freezer because it’s so creepy. Have you ever found stories so intriguing and scary with every sentence, as they explore a profoundly disturbing idea, and lay it out in a thoughtfully terrifying way. How about a book which gives you the shivers, or at least make you check the locks twice. Don’t hesitate – cover your eyes and head swiftly towards the door in an attempt to escape.
These titles include:-
- House Of Leaves – Mark Z Danielewski
- It – Stephen King
- The Shining – Stephen King
- Pet Sematary – Stephen King
- Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark – Alvin Schwartz
- The Road – Cormac McCarthy
- I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream – Harlan Ellison
- The Pit And The Pendulum – Edgar Allen Poe
- Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury
- Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill
- Haunted – Chuck Paluhniak
- Hell House – Richard Matheson
- In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
- The Monkey’s Paw – W.W. Jacobs
- The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
House Of Leaves
by Mark Z Danielewski
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth – musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies – the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.
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House Of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
It
by Stephen King
They were just kids when they stumbled upon the horror within their hometown. Now, as adults, none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them all back to Derry, Maine, to face the nightmare without end, and the evil without a name…
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It by Stephen King
The Shining
by Stephen King
Danny was only five years old but in the words of old Mr Halloran he was a ‘shiner’, aglow with psychic voltage. When his father became caretaker of the Overlook Hotel his visions grew frighteningly out of control. As winter closed in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seemed to develop a life of its own. It was meant to be empty, but who was the lady in Room 217, and who were the masked guests going up and down in the elevator? And why did the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive? Somewhere, somehow there was an evil force in the hotel – and that too had begun to shine…
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The Shining by Stephen King
Pet Sematary
by Stephen King
When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son – and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all… right down to the friendly cat. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth – more terrifying than death itself… and hideously more powerful.
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Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
by Alvin Schwartz
This spooky addition to Alvin Schwartz’s popular books on American folklore is filled with tales of eerie horror and dark revenge that will make you jump with fright. There is a story here for everyone – skeletons with torn and tangled flesh who roam the earth; a ghost who takes revenge on her murderer; and a haunted house where every night a bloody head falls down the chimney. Stephen Gammell’s splendidly creepy drawings perfectly capture the mood of more than two dozen scary stories – and even scary songs – all just right for reading alone or for telling aloud in the dark.
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Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-and each other.
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The Road by Cormac McCarthy
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
by Harlan Ellison
Among Ellison’s more famous stories, two consistently noted as among his very best ever are the Hugo Award-winning, postapocalyptic title story of this collection of seven shorts and the volume’s concluding story, ‘Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes’. Since Ellison himself strongly resists categorization of his work, we won’t call them science fiction, or SF, or speculative fiction or horror or anything else except compelling reading experiences that utterly unique. They could only have been written by the great Harlan Ellison and they are incomparably original.
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I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
The Pit And The Pendulum
by Edgar Allen Poe
The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe’s stories which are aided by the supernatural.
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The Pit And The Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe
Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Ray Bradbury
A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show’s smoke, mazes, and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes – and the stuff of nightmare.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Heart Shaped Box
by Joe Hill
Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals… a used hangman’s noose… a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest purchase, an item he discovered on the Internet: I will sell my stepfather’s ghost to the highest bidder…
For a thousand dollars, Jude has become the owner of a dead man’s suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. Suddenly the suit’s previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door… seated in Jude’s restored Mustang… staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting-with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one hand…
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Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Haunted
by Chuck Paluhniak
Haunted is a novel made up of twenty-three horrifying, hilarious, and stomach-churning stories. They’re told by people who have answered an ad for a writer’s retreat and unwittingly joined a ‘survivor’-like scenario where the host withholds heat, power, and food. As the storytellers grow more desperate, their tales become more extreme, and they ruthlessly plot to make themselves the hero of the reality show that will surely be made from their plight. This is one of the most disturbing and outrageous books you’ll ever read, one that could only come from the mind of Chuck Palahniuk.
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Haunted by Chuck Paluhniak
Hell House
by Richard Matheson
Can any soul survive? Regarded as the Mount Everest of haunted houses, Belasco House has witnessed scenes of almost unimaginable horror and depravity. Two previous expeditions to investigate its secrets met with disaster, the participants destroyed by murder, suicide or insanity. Now a new investigation has been mounted – four strangers, each with his or her own reason for daring the unknown torments and temptations of the mansion…
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Hell House by Richard Matheson
In Cold Blood
by Truman Capote
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.
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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Monkey’s Paw
by W.W. Jacobs
Writer W.W. Jacobs’ haunting tale of how a man’s cavalier wishes are tragically granted by an exotic but cursed talisman, wreaking havoc on what was previously a content family.
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The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs
The Yellow Wallpaper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
First published in 1892, The Yellow Wall-Paper is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband and doctor forbid it, prescribing instead complete passivity. In the involuntary confinement of her bedroom, the hero creates a reality of her own beyond the hypnotic pattern of the faded yellow wallpaper – a pattern that has come to symbolize her own imprisonment. Narrated with superb psychological and dramatic precision, The Yellow Wall-Paper stands out not only for the imaginative authenticity with which it depicts one woman’s descent into insanity, but also for the power of its testimony to the importance of freedom and self-empowerment for women.
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The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Conclusion
Think the list is incomplete?
This list is by no means a complete version. We think that a list such as this is greatly dependent on the readers’ taste, experience and a lot of other factors. If you think that this list needs any additions, please leave your recommendations in the comment box below. Of course, don’t forget to share with us your experiences and your futile attempt of getting rid that vivid images and disturbing voices in your head.
Happy reading!
