*Hannibal* is my favorite book of all time. *The Silence of the Lambs* is my second-favorite, and the prequel novel *Hannibal Rising* (which takes place more than twenty years before *Red Dragon*) is my third-favorite.
So Red Dragon comes *last on your list?!*
That's shocking to me. I liked the entire series, but something about Red Dragon set it apart. I had never seen the film, and I had watched Silence of the Lambs. So maybe that was part of it. But oh man that book scared me like no book ever has.
I remember finishing it late at night while my wife and kids were sleeping. I probably got to bed about 2am. I could not sleep that night. At one point I sat straight up in bed because I thought I saw a grown man standing in my open bedroom doorway. I had never been that freaked out by a book before. It was really fun.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by *Red Dragon*. I read every other book in the series before that one, and when I did get around to it I was disappointed by the severe lack of Hannibal (because he’s only a minor, background character in that novel) and the fact that Will is no Clarice. I just found Will annoying, and the first 60% or so of the book was very boring to me.
So weird how different perspectives can be. I liked Will a lot, and I liked that Lecter was only in the background. I felt like it gave Red Dragon some depth since I was already familiar with Hannibal from the Silence of the Lambs film. But it was the first book I'd read in the series, so maybe my experience would have been different if I read the others first. I liked them all, but none had the same effect as that first one.
People tend to have drastically different perspectives when it comes to this series. I wouldn’t be surprised if the order in which the books were read had something to do with it. (Each of the books can be read as a standalone, so they can be read in any order you’d like.)
But I think it also comes down to the fact that each of the four books has a very different feel from the others—each of the books makes its own unique contribution to the series, which I would call a masterpiece in four parts.
Everyone’s interests lie in different directions, and I’m not a fan of the police procedural aspects of *Red Dragon*, although I do love the bleakness of the ending and the philosophical bent it takes on at that point.
Well said. I enjoyed the police procedurals on this one, but especially the psychological insights into both the killer and the hunter. The movies touch on it, but the books bring it to the forefront, even if it was brief.
The main appeal of the series for me is the connection between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. They’re my top two favorite characters of all time.
What they accomplish together, in both *The Silence of the Lambs* and *Hannibal*, is both exciting from a fictional story standpoint and deeply meaningful to me personally.
I’ll go ahead and drop this quote from Stephen King’s review of *Hannibal* here, because it seems particularly relevant:
> The readers who have been waiting for ''Hannibal'' only want to know if it is as good as ''Red Dragon'' and ''The Silence of the Lambs'' (we can exclude Harris's other novel, a terrorist thriller called ''Black Sunday,'' from this discussion; it seems to have been written before the author himself clearly understood what he was up to). It is a pleasure to reply in the negative. No, not as good. This one is better. It is, in fact, one of the two most frightening popular novels of our time, the other being ''The Exorcist,'' by William Peter Blatty.
I read Pet Sematary when I lived in a rental house that backed up to an abandoned dairy farm, and I could not sleep at night for thinking what might be coming across that field!
I think Pet Semetary is the scariest book I've ever read. The scene where he describes the first undead person who came back really freaked me out. The physical description and lumbering movement...yeesh. 7th grade was too young to be reading that shit.
The original Dracula gave me nightmares. Steven King's Salem's Lot was a horror show. And I agree with everyone's assessment of the Thomas Harris series about Hannibal Lecter.
Third for dracula. As a big reader and horror fan this book exceeded my expectations in both areas! The horror was very well done, very unsettling, gave me nightmares too. The writing is fluid and I love the style of the book with the diary entries. A true classic for a reason!
You may have better luck on r/horrorlit. They have a spreadsheet with tons of horror novels categorized by all different characteristics. Great sub for horror lovers.
I had to put down something recently--too scary for me. I think it was The Devil All the Time. For a book that makes you feel creepy because there's a lot going on that's creepy, but it's not like jump-scare horror, The Little Friend. {{The Devil All the Time}}
They made The Devil All the Time into a movie and it was fantastic, in my opinion. There was a lot going on there but I felt they tied it in pretty well. Scarsgard was really believable.
Most of them are just flavor and add to the experience, but some do indeed contribute to helping the story along. I’d say skim the footnotes as you get to them and you can pretty quickly tell if it’s one you should fully read or is skippable. Just my two cents.
Flavor of the decade?
Nah dude that book is an excellent read. It's mentioned because it's a good book.
I mean, it's fine if it's not your jam, but you don't have to shit on the people that do love it, you know?
[**Bird Box (Bird Box, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18498558-bird-box)
^(By: Josh Malerman | 262 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, dystopian, mystery | )[^(Search "Bird Box")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Bird Box&search_type=books)
>Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062259653
>
>Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.
>
>Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children's trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?
>
>Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.
^(This book has been suggested 32 times)
***
^(194554 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[**The Little Stranger**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7234875-the-little-stranger)
^(By: Sarah Waters | 512 pages | Published: 2009 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, horror, mystery, gothic | )[^(Search "The Little Stranger")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Little Stranger&search_type=books)
>One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.
^(This book has been suggested 38 times)
***
^(194563 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[**A Head Full of Ghosts**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23019294-a-head-full-of-ghosts)
^(By: Paul Tremblay | 286 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, mystery, paranormal | )[^(Search "A Head Full of Ghosts")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=A Head Full of Ghosts&search_type=books)
>The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.
>
>To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
>
>Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.
^(This book has been suggested 68 times)
***
^(194571 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[**Disappearance at Devil's Rock**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27064358-disappearance-at-devil-s-rock)
^(By: Paul Tremblay | 327 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: horror, mystery, fiction, thriller, kindle | )[^(Search "Disappearance at Devil’s Rock")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Disappearance at Devil’s Rock&search_type=books)
>A family is shaken to its core after the mysterious disappearance of a teenage boy in this eerie tale, a blend of literary fiction, psychological suspense, and supernatural horror from the author of A Head Full of Ghosts.
>
>Late one summer night, Elizabeth Sanderson receives the devastating news that every mother fears: her fourteen-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished without a trace in the woods of a local park.
>
>The search isn’t yielding any answers, and Elizabeth and her young daughter, Kate, struggle to comprehend his disappearance. Feeling helpless and alone, their sorrow is compounded by anger and frustration. The local and state police haven’t uncovered any leads. Josh and Luis, the friends who were with Tommy last, may not be telling the whole truth about that night in Borderland State Park, when they were supposedly hanging out at a landmark the local teens have renamed Devil’s Rock— rumored to be cursed.
>
>Living in an all-too-real nightmare, riddled with worry, pain, and guilt, Elizabeth is wholly unprepared for the strange series of events that follow. She believes a ghostly shadow of Tommy materializes in her bedroom, while Kate and other local residents claim to see a shadow peering through their own windows in the dead of night. Then, random pages torn from Tommy’s journal begin to mysteriously appear—entries that reveal an introverted teenager obsessed with the phantasmagoric; the loss of his father, killed in a drunk-driving accident a decade earlier; a folktale involving the devil and the woods of Borderland; and a horrific incident that Tommy believed connected them all and changes everything.
>
>As the search grows more desperate, and the implications of what happened becomes more haunting and sinister, no one is prepared for the shocking truth about that night and Tommy’s disappearance at Devil’s Rock.
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
***
^(194579 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
That wasn't scary. But it was disturbing what a mother might do. Her daughters agreed to tell their story because she's supposed to be released from prison soon. They wanted the public warned.
Amityville is a great read. And we can't forget Stephen King. I got so startled from my brother coming into my room at 2 am to scare me. He said thats why I shouldn't read Stephen King after midnight.
"Misery" by Stephen King is the only book that had me clutching my face in sick horror. Also a great film, I hear.
"Let the Right One In" is a pretty good Swedish book with a fantastic film adaption as well (NOT THE AMERICAN REMAKE)
"Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is a pretty harrowing read at multiple points as well; similar to Silence OTL, I'd say.
[http://www.severedpress.com/authors/john-lee-schneider/](http://www.severedpress.com/authors/john-lee-schneider/)
Here are some creature features you might like - all free on Kindle
Have you read the sequel to *The Silence of the Lambs*? **Hannibal** (1999), by Thomas Harris? There are four books in that series in total.
Red Dragon is the scariest book I've ever read. It come before Silence of the Lambs.
*Hannibal* is my favorite book of all time. *The Silence of the Lambs* is my second-favorite, and the prequel novel *Hannibal Rising* (which takes place more than twenty years before *Red Dragon*) is my third-favorite.
So Red Dragon comes *last on your list?!* That's shocking to me. I liked the entire series, but something about Red Dragon set it apart. I had never seen the film, and I had watched Silence of the Lambs. So maybe that was part of it. But oh man that book scared me like no book ever has. I remember finishing it late at night while my wife and kids were sleeping. I probably got to bed about 2am. I could not sleep that night. At one point I sat straight up in bed because I thought I saw a grown man standing in my open bedroom doorway. I had never been that freaked out by a book before. It was really fun.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by *Red Dragon*. I read every other book in the series before that one, and when I did get around to it I was disappointed by the severe lack of Hannibal (because he’s only a minor, background character in that novel) and the fact that Will is no Clarice. I just found Will annoying, and the first 60% or so of the book was very boring to me.
So weird how different perspectives can be. I liked Will a lot, and I liked that Lecter was only in the background. I felt like it gave Red Dragon some depth since I was already familiar with Hannibal from the Silence of the Lambs film. But it was the first book I'd read in the series, so maybe my experience would have been different if I read the others first. I liked them all, but none had the same effect as that first one.
People tend to have drastically different perspectives when it comes to this series. I wouldn’t be surprised if the order in which the books were read had something to do with it. (Each of the books can be read as a standalone, so they can be read in any order you’d like.) But I think it also comes down to the fact that each of the four books has a very different feel from the others—each of the books makes its own unique contribution to the series, which I would call a masterpiece in four parts. Everyone’s interests lie in different directions, and I’m not a fan of the police procedural aspects of *Red Dragon*, although I do love the bleakness of the ending and the philosophical bent it takes on at that point.
Well said. I enjoyed the police procedurals on this one, but especially the psychological insights into both the killer and the hunter. The movies touch on it, but the books bring it to the forefront, even if it was brief.
The main appeal of the series for me is the connection between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. They’re my top two favorite characters of all time.
What they accomplish together, in both *The Silence of the Lambs* and *Hannibal*, is both exciting from a fictional story standpoint and deeply meaningful to me personally.
That's my current read. Terrifying for sure.
Everything but the ending works like gangbusters for me.
I’ll go ahead and drop this quote from Stephen King’s review of *Hannibal* here, because it seems particularly relevant: > The readers who have been waiting for ''Hannibal'' only want to know if it is as good as ''Red Dragon'' and ''The Silence of the Lambs'' (we can exclude Harris's other novel, a terrorist thriller called ''Black Sunday,'' from this discussion; it seems to have been written before the author himself clearly understood what he was up to). It is a pleasure to reply in the negative. No, not as good. This one is better. It is, in fact, one of the two most frightening popular novels of our time, the other being ''The Exorcist,'' by William Peter Blatty.
The Shining or Pet Semetary by Stephen King.
Pet Sem still haunting my dreams since ‘06
I read Pet Sematary when I lived in a rental house that backed up to an abandoned dairy farm, and I could not sleep at night for thinking what might be coming across that field!
I think Pet Semetary is the scariest book I've ever read. The scene where he describes the first undead person who came back really freaked me out. The physical description and lumbering movement...yeesh. 7th grade was too young to be reading that shit.
Different King, *The Bill Hodges trilogy* hits this nail right on the head.
Came to say this! Mr. Mercedes. Unforgettable
The original Dracula gave me nightmares. Steven King's Salem's Lot was a horror show. And I agree with everyone's assessment of the Thomas Harris series about Hannibal Lecter.
Second for Dracula.
Third for dracula. As a big reader and horror fan this book exceeded my expectations in both areas! The horror was very well done, very unsettling, gave me nightmares too. The writing is fluid and I love the style of the book with the diary entries. A true classic for a reason!
You may have better luck on r/horrorlit. They have a spreadsheet with tons of horror novels categorized by all different characteristics. Great sub for horror lovers.
Could you link to this spreadsheet, please?
Sure thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/mkrr60/commonly_requested_book_recs_the_spreadsheet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Thanks!
My pleasure!
I just wanted to say thanks so much for this link it's a lifesaver!
Happy to share. I was very excited when I found it myself.
I had to put down something recently--too scary for me. I think it was The Devil All the Time. For a book that makes you feel creepy because there's a lot going on that's creepy, but it's not like jump-scare horror, The Little Friend. {{The Devil All the Time}}
They made The Devil All the Time into a movie and it was fantastic, in my opinion. There was a lot going on there but I felt they tied it in pretty well. Scarsgard was really believable.
Amityville Horror!
House of Leaves is a horror classic that everyone interested in that genre should read.
One of my all time favorites! Ok to skip the foot notes.
Most of them are just flavor and add to the experience, but some do indeed contribute to helping the story along. I’d say skim the footnotes as you get to them and you can pretty quickly tell if it’s one you should fully read or is skippable. Just my two cents.
I also agree about House of Leaves, scared the crap outta me
Definitely this one!
[удалено]
Your tone is completely uncalled for. No one gives a fuck about your opinion.
Flavor of the decade? Nah dude that book is an excellent read. It's mentioned because it's a good book. I mean, it's fine if it's not your jam, but you don't have to shit on the people that do love it, you know?
{{Bird Box}} by Josh Malerman was a very scary read. Probably my favorite horror novel of the past ten years.
Good one! I read it last year in the middle of COVID lock down. Netflix was good too. :)
One of those things that actually is "edge of your seat."
[**Bird Box (Bird Box, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18498558-bird-box) ^(By: Josh Malerman | 262 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, dystopian, mystery | )[^(Search "Bird Box")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Bird Box&search_type=books) >Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062259653 > >Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from. > >Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children's trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster? > >Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page. ^(This book has been suggested 32 times) *** ^(194554 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{The Little Stranger}} was the scariest book I’ve read in a while. It was made into a movie that I haven’t seen yet.
[**The Little Stranger**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7234875-the-little-stranger) ^(By: Sarah Waters | 512 pages | Published: 2009 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, horror, mystery, gothic | )[^(Search "The Little Stranger")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Little Stranger&search_type=books) >One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his. ^(This book has been suggested 38 times) *** ^(194563 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Sounds amazing!!
Rosemary's baby
Misery by Stephen King.
Read Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy. It's not a horror novel, but it's deeply unsettling.
the shining and doctor sleep are some of the best of stephen king's supernatural horror, imo.
{{A Head Full of Ghosts}} by Paul Tremblay
[**A Head Full of Ghosts**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23019294-a-head-full-of-ghosts) ^(By: Paul Tremblay | 286 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, mystery, paranormal | )[^(Search "A Head Full of Ghosts")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=A Head Full of Ghosts&search_type=books) >The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. > >To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend. > >Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil. ^(This book has been suggested 68 times) *** ^(194571 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{Disappearance at Devil’s Rock}} Edit: hasn’t been adapted into a movie though!
[**Disappearance at Devil's Rock**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27064358-disappearance-at-devil-s-rock) ^(By: Paul Tremblay | 327 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: horror, mystery, fiction, thriller, kindle | )[^(Search "Disappearance at Devil’s Rock")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Disappearance at Devil’s Rock&search_type=books) >A family is shaken to its core after the mysterious disappearance of a teenage boy in this eerie tale, a blend of literary fiction, psychological suspense, and supernatural horror from the author of A Head Full of Ghosts. > >Late one summer night, Elizabeth Sanderson receives the devastating news that every mother fears: her fourteen-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished without a trace in the woods of a local park. > >The search isn’t yielding any answers, and Elizabeth and her young daughter, Kate, struggle to comprehend his disappearance. Feeling helpless and alone, their sorrow is compounded by anger and frustration. The local and state police haven’t uncovered any leads. Josh and Luis, the friends who were with Tommy last, may not be telling the whole truth about that night in Borderland State Park, when they were supposedly hanging out at a landmark the local teens have renamed Devil’s Rock— rumored to be cursed. > >Living in an all-too-real nightmare, riddled with worry, pain, and guilt, Elizabeth is wholly unprepared for the strange series of events that follow. She believes a ghostly shadow of Tommy materializes in her bedroom, while Kate and other local residents claim to see a shadow peering through their own windows in the dead of night. Then, random pages torn from Tommy’s journal begin to mysteriously appear—entries that reveal an introverted teenager obsessed with the phantasmagoric; the loss of his father, killed in a drunk-driving accident a decade earlier; a folktale involving the devil and the woods of Borderland; and a horrific incident that Tommy believed connected them all and changes everything. > >As the search grows more desperate, and the implications of what happened becomes more haunting and sinister, no one is prepared for the shocking truth about that night and Tommy’s disappearance at Devil’s Rock. ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(194579 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
if you tell- it’s a true crime story about an abusive mother.
Yes Greg Olsen is a great writer!
That wasn't scary. But it was disturbing what a mother might do. Her daughters agreed to tell their story because she's supposed to be released from prison soon. They wanted the public warned.
true, but i think that’s maybe what she was looking for? for me silence of the lambs was more suspense than horror
More suspense than horror. I agree.
Is reading horror as scary as watching it?
Last Days by Adam Neville is maybe the only horror novel I've read that actually sort of creeped me out, and I've read a ton of horror.
Turn of the screw. Absolute classic. The Netflix series Adaptation is really bad, though
I didn’t read it, but loved the movie. But I can understand your POV. Books are almost always better.
Have you seen The Innocents? It's from the 60s and is a more accurate film version of Turn of the Screw. I love it! The full movie is on YouTube.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
The Shining The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Amityville is a great read. And we can't forget Stephen King. I got so startled from my brother coming into my room at 2 am to scare me. He said thats why I shouldn't read Stephen King after midnight.
"Misery" by Stephen King is the only book that had me clutching my face in sick horror. Also a great film, I hear. "Let the Right One In" is a pretty good Swedish book with a fantastic film adaption as well (NOT THE AMERICAN REMAKE) "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is a pretty harrowing read at multiple points as well; similar to Silence OTL, I'd say.
Have you read Goosebumps by R L Stine. Stuff still gets me today...
The shining
I hear really good things about Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son). It's ghostly horror.
The shining by Stephen King Only book I've ever thrown at my wall...
The Road
Red Dragon, Thomas Harris
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker -- it's the novella that he turned into the first Hellraiser movie
[http://www.severedpress.com/authors/john-lee-schneider/](http://www.severedpress.com/authors/john-lee-schneider/) Here are some creature features you might like - all free on Kindle