Thursday, April 26, 2007

Scary monsters

I've longed for a truly scary read. Not a real life scary read, like the End of Oil, which is on my library book pile. No, I want a truly scary story. There aren't a whole lot of stories which make me want to keep the lights on. Some of Lovecraft's fiction fits the bill. Certainly early King fir the bill with the Shining, Pet Sematery, and 'Salem's Lot. But there isn't a whole lot else. I tried MR James, but didn't get all that into his tales. There is plenty of disturbing stuff, with horrid treatment of people, but not that much scary stuff.

On some Amazon list I found out about a book called Ghosts by Noel Hynd. So far it is OK, when he talks about spooky things, he is effective. When he talks about the characters, he is mostly boring. Lots and lots of (what seems to be) not so useful exposition. The reviews are compelling me to press on, but I may need to skim ahead for some scarier ghost scenes.

Update: Movies have it easier. And being a kid helps. For example, when I was a lad, few things scared me as much as the Space Vampire/Vorvon on Buck Rogers.

4 comments:

Brack said...

I vote for:

King's Night Shift (esp. Children of the Corn and The Boogeyman).

Clive Barker's Books of Blood vol. 1; scary stuff. Imajica was weird. Latest stuff, like the Tortured Souls novellas, is just flat out freaky.

Wm. Peter Blatty's The Exorcist and Legion. Most Definitely.

Anonymous said...

Scariest read for me was "Pet Sematary" But did I find the movie scary?
"Christ on his thrown! NO! And who ever would!"

Anonymous said...

Try "The Foundations of Fear"

Tripp said...

Foundations of Fear looks good, thanks.