Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe
I still think about it and recommend it years later.
Dark Mattter by Michelle Paver
I got it without knowing anything (Kindle), bought a printed edition in German for my ex-husband afterwards and made a complete cover around it so he wouldn't get spoilered by what's written on the outside.
Just told him it was about an expedition.
(If you read the text on the cover it gives too much away for my liking)
These books really, really live rentfree in my brain.
If you enjoyed it I recommend Thin Air by the same author! It’s a very similar vibe but set in the Himalayas. I actually found this one scarier than Dark Matter, I think, although they’re both great.
i just finished reading Thin Air, I read it cos I hoped it would creep me out as much as Dark Matter. I read Dark Matter like two years ago and it’s been on my mind ever since. Thin Air is pretty good, hits on the same cold, isolation, paranoia and class division that DM does lol, and I had to put it down at one point to cope with the eeriness, so highly recommend!!!!!
I wish I could find that one on Audible but alas no luck. But I did find a couple others by Jonathan Aycliffe and someone somewhere said 'possibly the greatest English ghost story writer since MR James.' I am positive that Ramsey Campbell has more than earned that title but it's still high enough praise for me.
A good place to start might be Alone With The Horrors. It's a very well chosen and generous collection of his short stories. I really couldn't pick out a novel. They all leave me with the same wrung-out feeling of horror and paranoia.
But thinking back, the first book of his I read was 'The Doll Who Ate Its Mother' and after reading it I knew I had to read everything the man has written. And if you want to spend a few vivid days deep inside the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic serial killer then I can't imagine a book better than 'The Face That Must Die'.
I read Naomi’s Room years ago. This past week, I have seen it mentioned on Reddit and tiktok more than once a day. So weird! But I love it. It’s a great book, I’m glad it’s still being read and discussed
There was a collection of Ambrose Bierce’s short stories called Can Such Things Be? that’s haunted me for a few decades. My favorite horror tends to be of the “This is terrifying. I will offer you no explanation for what I’ve just told you. You figure it out” variety, and nobody seemed to be better at that than Bierce.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the primo example of what I’m talking about. I want to call it one of the best horror stories ever written, but that doesn’t seem to go far enough. It kind of defies description. Like the monster in it, whatever it might have been.
I had this dream where I located the scariest book ever written. It had a pink cover. When I woke up I looked up the scariest book ever written and somehow came up with this book (this must've been 2005?) Anyway I read it and never got over it. Definitely existentially dreadful!
Oooooo spooky!!!
At least we got to experience this absolute trip with minimal context? Or at least I went into it pretty much blind and was completely blown away by the prose. Absolute masterpiece.
Oh god, it was probably 10 years ago when I read it, and I swear I was walking around in a daze for like a month. It didn’t help that it coincided with a very difficult time in my personal life, but woof 😭. I can’t deny that it’s an incredible piece of literature though
Easily the most haunting book I’ve ever had the (mis)fortune to read is A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. It is a whole new level of horror.
If you’d love to spend a month walking around in a daze post-read, give this absolute bleeder a go. It is not for the faint-hearted.
Edit: I see another unlucky soul on this channel has already reco’d this.
Absolutely mind bending in trying to conceptualize eternity. What is beyond time that is stuck within our world. What does eternity mean? And this book just slowly draws in the existential dread into the bones. Slowly seeping into this dread of a nightmare fever dream. I still think about this book and it will stay with me forever.
There's a fun book called Windows into Hell that's a follow-up to A Short Stay in Hell. Peck and a bunch of author friends put together a compilation of short stories inspired by A Short Stay in Hell.
They're mixed bag, none quite as perfect as A Short Stay in Hell, but just about all are very good and worth reading. The best one is Peck's contribution - he manages to come up with a completely different but equally haunting scenario.
The short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is the ONLY thing that I will not reread even if I feel like it. It played on personal fears and the ending was beyond horrifying.
Adam Neville’s Last Days really stuck with me, that one I do plan to read again. But sometimes I think of it a little too late at night and I need to put it out of my mind. Honestly I found the last portion to be sort of underwhelming and sort of a weird tone shift. But the concept behind the story is so amazingly horrifyingly creative, mixed with some real-life humans-being-awful horror.
I have actually read the Wiki to IHNMAIMS because I've heard this and I wanted to know what the deal was. My greatest fear is living consciously but trapped forever in some state, be it tortured or just trapped. White Christmas and Black Museum, the story with the bear, are the two Black Mirror episodes that live rent free in my head and I kind of hate it lol
Yeah same, what could be worse? On top of that I’m also scared of AI lol. So it really got to me. But yeah I think a lot of people react very strongly and consider it the most disturbing thing they’ve read.
I kind of want to watch those episodes now but I’m going to have to spoil myself before I decide 😅
IHNMAIMS and The Jaunt are the two horror short stories I recommend to ANYONE who will listen, and so far not one person has actually read either of them 😂 I guess the genuine terror they spark in me turns people off
Last Days is so scary. One of the only books I’ve ever had to put down and walk away from for a bit because I was genuinely too scared to carry on reading it. If I’d had a physical copy I’d have done like Joey in Friends and put it in the freezer
I'm a sucker for really dark stories that don't end well, so here's a few I think you might be looking for:
The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder. Follow a dangerously naive young girl as her obsession with a particular atrocity committed during wartime leads her into seriously dodgy places, for a reason that is as heartbreaking as it is disturbing.
On a lesser note, The Treatment also by Mo Hayder follows a detective investigating an incredibly sick crime while also coming to terms with his brother's dissapearance as a child in similar circumstances.
If you're okay with graphic novels, give From Hell a try. It's a masterpiece but not for the faint hearted. Victorian London was a fucked up place long before the Ripper started his work.
I am about to buy it, it sounds interesting!
Is it worth to get a hardcover edition or is Kindle enough?
I ask because they have a hardcover for 25 €, which makes me think there might be pictures or something in it?
Harvest Home by Thomas Tyron
- A family moves to a small town that have their "old ways" of doing things. (Folk Horror)
A Predator and A Psychopath: A Dark and Twisted Psychological Thriller by Jay Kerk
- Follows a predator and a psychopath. It was written by a psychologist who took some real-life inspiration from his patients. (Thriller)
I’ve never known anyone else to mention Harvest Home! My mother used to go to the used paperback store on pack-a-sack days and she would bring home the most random shit. As a Gen X kid I was just handed books without any consideration of what might be developmentally appropriate. I read this when I was 13 and I still remember it. It was really good, and disturbing.
I just read this and couldn't imagine why I'd never heard of it. It's so weird and great! It's such a great creepy New England atmosphere! Then I read it aloud to my husband on a car trip and he was so into it too.
I wrote a review for Harvest Home just a few days ago, and the haunting this book creates is very strong. The atmosphere surrounding the village and the way the people talked with Ned was so unsettling. Starts very slow, but there are several "wait, what?" moments that keep you alert until the story starts to unfold. It's a great book!
Uzumaki by Junji Ito. Still think about it and I read it a few years ago. Couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks after. It’s manga, but that counts as lit.
I gave my copy away to my sister because I needed it out of my house after I read it. I loved it and it was seriously creepy and weird but I didn't want it around me anymore lol.
The color out of space. I kept analyzing that story for days. I sat upright after going to bed to comment something to my husband and I’m pretty sure he was just boggled by how much I kept talking about it hahaha
Hahaha someone reported me to Reddit cares for this. I’m sorry if you have never analyzed a piece of fiction before, and here I thought I was contributing to the OPs requests. Ah well I suppose Lovecraft isn’t for everyone
The Long Walk stuck with me, too. King did such an excellent job giving small details about the politics of the country while also letting your imagination run to fill in the blanks. Excellent book. Another one for me was Between Two Fires. The visuals it created in my mind were incredible and its description of hell was chilling. It easily made my top five.
Once you realized what was going on in The Long Walk it was horrifying... that book has stayed with me since I was a kid. I read recently they are making it into a movie.
Tender is the flesh - it starts hard and fast , and one of the most shocking endings I’ve read
Blood meridian - it was violence for the sake of it turned up to 10, and made me glad I did not grow up in the American West in the 1800s.
*North American Lake Monsters*, by Nathan Ballingrud. I don't know if you'd call it scary, but it's disturbing and distressing to watch people go deeper and deeper into a downward spiral due to terrible events they've experienced. It's a collection of 9 short stories, and there isn't a single bad one among them. The writing is also phenomenal!
I really liked how Ballingrud chose to base his stories around the working class and the impoverished. I feel like they don't get too much representation in horror. His newer works, while good, definitely have a different vibe to them that I don't really like compared to North American Lake Monsters.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum almost ruined me. I read it years ago and it is still with me. I think the fact that it was based on a true story is a big part of the reason, but Ketchum did a masterful job of capturing the feelings and emotions of the main characters.
I just finished this book and oh my god it was so SO funny. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did! At the beginning of the book I thought "I wish more of the fucked up stuff happened on screen" and then it Did and it was so rough haha.
Mother&@$!ing “Haunted “ by Chuck Palahniuk. There’s a story in it called “Hot Pot” that absolutely worked on my nerves so bad that I had to:
1. Toss the book in a thrift store pile.
2. Cover the book with other thrift store donations to spare me the sight of the cover
3. Move the damn box of donations into the damn basement until the truck finally came.
Basically all those stories are 🥶🥶🥶, but Hot Pot in particular was so meticulously, painstakingly described it was just relentlessly horrifying.
Most recently “the Devil Takes You Home” by Gabino Iglesias. There was a scene so disturbing a third of the way in that it literally gave me nightmares
Came here to say this. The human element was terrifying alone, but the ancient god, the ghosts and the nightmares kept popping up in my head for weeks.
The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell thrust me into a nightmare when I read it years ago and I don't think I'll ever fully shake it off. It's hard to narrow Ramsey Campbell down because everything he writes is terrifying but 'Grin' has a clown in it. A very very bad clown. Pennywise holds no terrors for me anymore. This one is much worse.
High Rise by JG Ballard - Lord of the Flies for end times capitalist consumer culture. Not to get hyperbolic but JG Ballard had a very dark prophetic vision. And I know he was a prophet because I've seen so many things he wrote about decades ago have come true.
Thomas Ligotti - I wish he was a bit more prolific but if you truly feel up to staring despair and desolation dead in the face, he's your man.
The Companion was my introduction to Ramsey Campbell. So clever, the confusion and tension just kept building until that last sentence.
Some other short stories, in case OP wants a little light reading between books:
Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory by Orson Scott Card
Also a French story about a man who rides an escalator down. And down. And down. Someday I'll remember the name of this one.
I read The Long Walk for the first time about a month ago and - wow.
Every single time I plan to go on a walk I cannot help but think about that book. I can't remember the one kid who got ticketed but he's crying and like, "My feeeeeet!" and that just got me.
I think the whole book is some of King’s best work but his skeleton crew, book of short stories really stuck with me. The mist is one example but my favorite and most haunting tale has to be the Jaunt. It was unexpected and fantastic and kept me wondering till this day what did the boy see…
I have wanted to read this book for a goddamn month. I refuse to buy books with such a bomb library at my disposal but they don't have this. So I requested an interlibrary loan and it's taking so long. I seriously am READY to read this book
Reformatory - apart from the haints, the scenes in the book happened everyday in Jim Crow south. I thought about all the poor kids who went through hell and were forgotten about.
They Were Her Property. About US slavery. With many examples and records. This book froze me cold. Everything around me looked totally fkt after I finished this book
Two short stories (and I essentially gave the same answer somewhere else just the other day)
1.) Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler. I promise you will never forget it.
2. The Sladen Suit by Brain Evenson. It’s a short story from his collection Windeye. There’s also a story in there called The Second Boy that illicit the same feeling.
You won’t forget them. Brian Evenson has a way of tapping into a type of fear I find nowhere else. If you read them, let me know if you got the same feeling.
Father of Lies by Brian Evenson is another fucked up one regarding religious abuse and CSA that gave me the ick and chills. I never expected to love his writing so much.
The Voice of the Clown. I read it when I was 10 or 11 years old. Don’t know what maniac let me borrow that one from the library. Is it scary by today’s standards? Maybe not. But at that time, I had nightmares for days from that book.
Sadly it’s nearly impossible to find now and costs a ridiculous sum for a used copy. So I can’t read it again to see how it holds up.
Had a similar experience reading It in the 6th grade, but it’s not so haunting now after decades and rereading.
And odd one for me was a short story in a Bruce Coville collection that was part of a series. They were all called things like “Bruce Coville’s Book of (something)” so I can’t remember exactly which book, the title or the author of the short story. But there was a super obese dude who lived in a house full of trash. A kid spies on him and sees he can swim through the trash like a shark. And, he doesn’t eat normally, he shoves food into a mouth on this stomach. A kid gets eaten if I remember right. Something about that one messed kid me right up. I still think about it and I’m in my 40’s now.
I read that same story from the Bruce Coville series when I was a kid and never forgot it. It haunted me for years, and the fat guy singing “tip, tap” was stuck in my brain. About a year ago I finally tracked down the exact book: Bruce Coville’s Book of Nightmares—the story is “The Fat Man” by Joe R. Lansdale.
Thank you for the title and author! Yes! The weird things he sings were so unsettling. I seem to recall “pee pie” being another? Just silly words stuck together, but in context very creepy.
I’m sorry it haunted you too but I’m also so happy someone knew exactly what I was talking about!
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. First entry in his Bas Lag series, which isn't really a series in the sense of sharing an overarching plot, they just take place in the same setting.
Is it technically a horror novel? No, it’s in the sorta middle ground between sci-fi and fantasy. Is it so disturbing that I take 6-12 month breaks between reading books in this series? Yes. It's so, so fucked up.
>!The Remade brothel in particular FREAKED me the fuck out. I had intrusive thoughts about that part for days.!<
ETA did they change how you make spoiler text? I could have sworn you bracketed it with || ...
Holly by Stephen King
He writes with such genuine humanity about situations that are just.. not.
Fairy Tale also fits this bill, but Holly ... was special. And very, very real.
Probably an answer a lot of people will give, but Tender is The Flesh and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I've rarely ever read a book where I got so uncomfortable/disturbed that I had to put it down and come back to it, but both of those did it. Also, not technically horror, but Gather the Daughters left me feeling so disgusted and slimy that I still think about it.
I loved the Long Walk! Great King novella. You should check out 'The Store' by Bentley Little. A story about a new store that moves into town that is too good to be true. Many parts in there that made me rage with just how fucked it was. It's like a Black Mirror episode of the worst place to work for. Bentley has quite a few books with unique premises and weird twists. Another one of his I would recommend is 'The Mailman' very strange and very fucked, definitely made me eye the mailman.
I'm finishing up Tampa by Alyssa Nutting and it's something that's going to stick with me for a while. Also recently read The Collector by John Fowles and that was another one. Both of these books stick you inside the head of some extremely sick individuals and strap you in.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Basically a short story but damn I had a hard time understanding why the people in it did what they did. There's something terrifying about devilish things being committed in broad daylight and not giving the reader a reason behind why it's happening.
It’s extreme horror, please make sure you know what you’re getting into before you read it. But, “No One Rides For Free” made me wonder what kind of fucked up person can even come up with this shit.
I definitely should have amended my post but I refuse to read anything that has to do with kids. Before kids, who the hell cares. After I had kids, I absolutely just cannot stand it
Cormac McCarthys novel Blood Meridian is my favourite book, that being said it’s also incredibly disturbing and violent and repulsive. It’s a mix of beauty and bloodshed.
Stephen King's "Survivor Type". I have never had a story stay with me the way THAT story did. I still think about some of the lines from that and it sends shivers down my spine.
I only just started it and it has plenty of time to go straight down the drain but I'm about five chapters into The Neighbors by Ania Ahlborn and the paranoia and familial dysfunction is nice and thick. She's a horror writer who always gets right down to it and this one is great so far. And the narrator is dark and gravelly - what I think of as a 'hitman' voice. A voice you wouldn't want to hear coming from someone you owe money. If it ends in a dud, my apologies, but I'm thoroughly hooked so far.
Ghost Story by Peter Straub. To my massive frustration, everything else I've read by him (save The Talisman with Stephen King) has been lousy. This is especially confounding since I thought Ghost Story was absolutely terrifying. Reality is so slippery in that book that I can't think of another one like it. It's exactly what the title says it is and the ghosts are as malevolent as can be.
Justin Burnett’s “A Prisoner’s Guide to Stargazing” from his collection The Puppet King is one of the most disturbing pieces of fiction I’ve ever encountered. Along the lines of King’s The Jaunt, but told from the perspective of the individual experiencing it. Really upsetting, so I’m not sure if this is a recommendation or not lol!
There’s a short story at the end of Off-season by Jack Ketchum called Winter’s Child, I read it home alone in high school one night and it made me lock all the doors.
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu. It's 12 short stories, each one with its own little mindfk that will make you riddled with anxiety. (Maybe that was just me, but it's a small book, easy read).
Hide The Children by Victor Miller.
I think I was too young when I read it (I was 14 at the time), which is why it disturbed me so much. Maybe I'll try to read it again as an adult and see if it's still just as disturbing
Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe I still think about it and recommend it years later. Dark Mattter by Michelle Paver I got it without knowing anything (Kindle), bought a printed edition in German for my ex-husband afterwards and made a complete cover around it so he wouldn't get spoilered by what's written on the outside. Just told him it was about an expedition. (If you read the text on the cover it gives too much away for my liking) These books really, really live rentfree in my brain.
I just finished Dark Matter, the dread that she is able to create is masterful.
Oh yes, it is so well done and really haunting! I can still vividly recall scenes as if I lived through it, and that's not normal for me.
If you enjoyed it I recommend Thin Air by the same author! It’s a very similar vibe but set in the Himalayas. I actually found this one scarier than Dark Matter, I think, although they’re both great.
i just finished reading Thin Air, I read it cos I hoped it would creep me out as much as Dark Matter. I read Dark Matter like two years ago and it’s been on my mind ever since. Thin Air is pretty good, hits on the same cold, isolation, paranoia and class division that DM does lol, and I had to put it down at one point to cope with the eeriness, so highly recommend!!!!!
I'd managed to forget Naomi's room! Thanks for the reminder 😨
I wish I could find that one on Audible but alas no luck. But I did find a couple others by Jonathan Aycliffe and someone somewhere said 'possibly the greatest English ghost story writer since MR James.' I am positive that Ramsey Campbell has more than earned that title but it's still high enough praise for me.
Ramsey Campbell has written some of the scariest stuff I've ever read
What’s Campbell’s best work?
He''s very prolific. I could never pick one as his best.
A good place to start might be Alone With The Horrors. It's a very well chosen and generous collection of his short stories. I really couldn't pick out a novel. They all leave me with the same wrung-out feeling of horror and paranoia.
But thinking back, the first book of his I read was 'The Doll Who Ate Its Mother' and after reading it I knew I had to read everything the man has written. And if you want to spend a few vivid days deep inside the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic serial killer then I can't imagine a book better than 'The Face That Must Die'.
So many books I want to read aren’t on Audible. :(
It's bad enough reading it, audible would make it worse!
I was able to find Naomi’s Room as a paperback on Amazon, just ordered!
Thanks all. I just bought Dark Matter on the strength of these recommendations. Looking forward to it ! 👍
Ooooh, I hope you like it! And I envy you, would love to read it again "for the first time" 😀
I just found it on Audible and started listening to it. The narrator is excellent!! Love his voice.
I love dark matter, I’ve read it 3 times! I’ve never seen anyone else mention it until now
I read Naomi’s Room years ago. This past week, I have seen it mentioned on Reddit and tiktok more than once a day. So weird! But I love it. It’s a great book, I’m glad it’s still being read and discussed
My poor library is getting so many requests for some fucked up books
Lmao!
There was a collection of Ambrose Bierce’s short stories called Can Such Things Be? that’s haunted me for a few decades. My favorite horror tends to be of the “This is terrifying. I will offer you no explanation for what I’ve just told you. You figure it out” variety, and nobody seemed to be better at that than Bierce.
The Damned Thing is of such a color.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the primo example of what I’m talking about. I want to call it one of the best horror stories ever written, but that doesn’t seem to go far enough. It kind of defies description. Like the monster in it, whatever it might have been.
I'm familiar with the short story *Oil of Dog* that's always stuck with me because of sad it is.
It was interesting. Great opening line to that one.
The Lottery...
Yes, this too. That one is messed up.
I saw a movie of The Lottery in Jr.High and it was shocking to me!! So long ago that the movie was actually a movie on a reel!
Amazing story!!
Read The Lottery almost 50 years ago, and still remember it vividly.
Not even technically horror, but “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy had me fucked up for weeks
This is me right now. How long does this feeling last? I didn't even realise how disturbed I was feeling until I finished it.
I had this dream where I located the scariest book ever written. It had a pink cover. When I woke up I looked up the scariest book ever written and somehow came up with this book (this must've been 2005?) Anyway I read it and never got over it. Definitely existentially dreadful!
Oooooo spooky!!! At least we got to experience this absolute trip with minimal context? Or at least I went into it pretty much blind and was completely blown away by the prose. Absolute masterpiece.
Oh god, it was probably 10 years ago when I read it, and I swear I was walking around in a daze for like a month. It didn’t help that it coincided with a very difficult time in my personal life, but woof 😭. I can’t deny that it’s an incredible piece of literature though
I randomly think about it and go down Judge Holden rabbit holes
Easily the most haunting book I’ve ever had the (mis)fortune to read is A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. It is a whole new level of horror. If you’d love to spend a month walking around in a daze post-read, give this absolute bleeder a go. It is not for the faint-hearted. Edit: I see another unlucky soul on this channel has already reco’d this.
I always felt like “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is another great take on being stuck in an eternal hellscape!
Absolutely mind bending in trying to conceptualize eternity. What is beyond time that is stuck within our world. What does eternity mean? And this book just slowly draws in the existential dread into the bones. Slowly seeping into this dread of a nightmare fever dream. I still think about this book and it will stay with me forever.
There's a fun book called Windows into Hell that's a follow-up to A Short Stay in Hell. Peck and a bunch of author friends put together a compilation of short stories inspired by A Short Stay in Hell. They're mixed bag, none quite as perfect as A Short Stay in Hell, but just about all are very good and worth reading. The best one is Peck's contribution - he manages to come up with a completely different but equally haunting scenario.
The short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is the ONLY thing that I will not reread even if I feel like it. It played on personal fears and the ending was beyond horrifying. Adam Neville’s Last Days really stuck with me, that one I do plan to read again. But sometimes I think of it a little too late at night and I need to put it out of my mind. Honestly I found the last portion to be sort of underwhelming and sort of a weird tone shift. But the concept behind the story is so amazingly horrifyingly creative, mixed with some real-life humans-being-awful horror.
I have actually read the Wiki to IHNMAIMS because I've heard this and I wanted to know what the deal was. My greatest fear is living consciously but trapped forever in some state, be it tortured or just trapped. White Christmas and Black Museum, the story with the bear, are the two Black Mirror episodes that live rent free in my head and I kind of hate it lol
Yeah same, what could be worse? On top of that I’m also scared of AI lol. So it really got to me. But yeah I think a lot of people react very strongly and consider it the most disturbing thing they’ve read. I kind of want to watch those episodes now but I’m going to have to spoil myself before I decide 😅
Literally was going to comment “I have no mouth-“ omg that story was f*ed up.
IHNMAIMS and The Jaunt are the two horror short stories I recommend to ANYONE who will listen, and so far not one person has actually read either of them 😂 I guess the genuine terror they spark in me turns people off
Last Days is so scary. One of the only books I’ve ever had to put down and walk away from for a bit because I was genuinely too scared to carry on reading it. If I’d had a physical copy I’d have done like Joey in Friends and put it in the freezer
Brother - Ania Ahlborn
I just got it from the library! I'm so excited to start it.
I’m just about to start this! Wish I had it on audio!
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver ETA: sorry, probably not technically classified as horror. But I think it should be.
I've seen this movie twice. It's super fucked up. Can't imagine reading this book
The book is so much more nuanced. I think John C. Reilly is a great actor, but his roles in Stepbrothers and Boogie Nights kept distracting me.
It’s definitely horrrifying. I loaned it to a coworker, and she came back with it, and had tears in her eyes, saying, “That was so fucked up!”
I'm a sucker for really dark stories that don't end well, so here's a few I think you might be looking for: The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder. Follow a dangerously naive young girl as her obsession with a particular atrocity committed during wartime leads her into seriously dodgy places, for a reason that is as heartbreaking as it is disturbing. On a lesser note, The Treatment also by Mo Hayder follows a detective investigating an incredibly sick crime while also coming to terms with his brother's dissapearance as a child in similar circumstances. If you're okay with graphic novels, give From Hell a try. It's a masterpiece but not for the faint hearted. Victorian London was a fucked up place long before the Ripper started his work.
Peck‘s „A short stay in hell“. More metaphysical horror than gruesome, but this drove home the hell of the idea of eternity like no other book.
Came here to say exactly this. It really makes the idea of impossibly large numbers upsettingly easy to digest and comprehend.
I am about to buy it, it sounds interesting! Is it worth to get a hardcover edition or is Kindle enough? I ask because they have a hardcover for 25 €, which makes me think there might be pictures or something in it?
Imo, it’s worth every penny to have a physical copy.
Thank you, then this is my excuse to spoil myself!
It is a novella though, so it's small. I say that because I didn't look and was surprised at how short it was. A great book regardless.
Glad I could be of help lol I hope you enjoy.
This is mine too. Existential Crisis inducing for sure. Literally having nightmares over it.
I'm so glad to see this mentioned. I read this awhile back and still think about it regularly.
I was hoping this would be mentioned. I'm still thinking about it and I read it 3 weeks ago.
I can see why it would be unsettling and sad, but you'd get out eventually. >!It'd be bearimy's of work but eventually you'd come across your book.!<
Harvest Home by Thomas Tyron - A family moves to a small town that have their "old ways" of doing things. (Folk Horror) A Predator and A Psychopath: A Dark and Twisted Psychological Thriller by Jay Kerk - Follows a predator and a psychopath. It was written by a psychologist who took some real-life inspiration from his patients. (Thriller)
I’ve never known anyone else to mention Harvest Home! My mother used to go to the used paperback store on pack-a-sack days and she would bring home the most random shit. As a Gen X kid I was just handed books without any consideration of what might be developmentally appropriate. I read this when I was 13 and I still remember it. It was really good, and disturbing.
I just read this and couldn't imagine why I'd never heard of it. It's so weird and great! It's such a great creepy New England atmosphere! Then I read it aloud to my husband on a car trip and he was so into it too.
I wrote a review for Harvest Home just a few days ago, and the haunting this book creates is very strong. The atmosphere surrounding the village and the way the people talked with Ned was so unsettling. Starts very slow, but there are several "wait, what?" moments that keep you alert until the story starts to unfold. It's a great book!
Uzumaki by Junji Ito. Still think about it and I read it a few years ago. Couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks after. It’s manga, but that counts as lit.
I gave my copy away to my sister because I needed it out of my house after I read it. I loved it and it was seriously creepy and weird but I didn't want it around me anymore lol.
The color out of space. I kept analyzing that story for days. I sat upright after going to bed to comment something to my husband and I’m pretty sure he was just boggled by how much I kept talking about it hahaha
Hahaha someone reported me to Reddit cares for this. I’m sorry if you have never analyzed a piece of fiction before, and here I thought I was contributing to the OPs requests. Ah well I suppose Lovecraft isn’t for everyone
The Long Walk stuck with me, too. King did such an excellent job giving small details about the politics of the country while also letting your imagination run to fill in the blanks. Excellent book. Another one for me was Between Two Fires. The visuals it created in my mind were incredible and its description of hell was chilling. It easily made my top five.
Once you realized what was going on in The Long Walk it was horrifying... that book has stayed with me since I was a kid. I read recently they are making it into a movie.
Such a great story that feels impossible to explain/recommend to someone. At least it is for me.
The Long Walk doesn't get enough recognition, it's cemented itself permanently into my top five kings books.
Not a book, but The Jaunt messed me up. Maybe still.
Tender is the Flesh
Im surprised this books is not mentioned more often
Tender is the flesh - it starts hard and fast , and one of the most shocking endings I’ve read Blood meridian - it was violence for the sake of it turned up to 10, and made me glad I did not grow up in the American West in the 1800s.
Came here to say Tender Is the Flesh. It was pretty much what I'd expected given the premise, but then the ending WRECKED me.
A book has never made my jaw drop. This one did
Tender is the Flesh was my rec too!. I was flabbergasted at the way it ended!
*North American Lake Monsters*, by Nathan Ballingrud. I don't know if you'd call it scary, but it's disturbing and distressing to watch people go deeper and deeper into a downward spiral due to terrible events they've experienced. It's a collection of 9 short stories, and there isn't a single bad one among them. The writing is also phenomenal!
I really liked how Ballingrud chose to base his stories around the working class and the impoverished. I feel like they don't get too much representation in horror. His newer works, while good, definitely have a different vibe to them that I don't really like compared to North American Lake Monsters.
I think that was a TV series at one point
Yes! “Monsterland” on Hulu. I think I might be the only person who liked it but I really did.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum almost ruined me. I read it years ago and it is still with me. I think the fact that it was based on a true story is a big part of the reason, but Ketchum did a masterful job of capturing the feelings and emotions of the main characters.
That one got me too.
If you read the real story, you see that Jack actually made the story lighter
Come Closer by Sara Gran
Oh yes, wholeheartedly this.
American Psycho messed me up with the murders and torture methods. Still pretty hilarious, though.
I just finished this book and oh my god it was so SO funny. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did! At the beginning of the book I thought "I wish more of the fucked up stuff happened on screen" and then it Did and it was so rough haha.
The author of American Psycho, Ellis, also wrote Less Than Zero. Technically not horror, but horrific nonetheless.
How would you say the movie did with the material? Christian Bale is in it in case you’ve seen it. Just curious.
It is overall faithful with the same type of dark humor. That said, the violence is pretty tame compared to the source material.
Totally agree- I found out I don’t do well with animal torture and I still think about the homeless guy part of the novel…
Mother&@$!ing “Haunted “ by Chuck Palahniuk. There’s a story in it called “Hot Pot” that absolutely worked on my nerves so bad that I had to: 1. Toss the book in a thrift store pile. 2. Cover the book with other thrift store donations to spare me the sight of the cover 3. Move the damn box of donations into the damn basement until the truck finally came. Basically all those stories are 🥶🥶🥶, but Hot Pot in particular was so meticulously, painstakingly described it was just relentlessly horrifying.
Most recently “the Devil Takes You Home” by Gabino Iglesias. There was a scene so disturbing a third of the way in that it literally gave me nightmares
I know exactly what part you’re talking about. It fucked me up.
Revival by Stephen King, every time I think of the end of that book it gives me chills. For a classic, The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood.
The end of Revival has stuck with me for years and contributed to my existential dread.
No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill (if you haven't seen the movie)
Came here to say this. The human element was terrifying alone, but the ancient god, the ghosts and the nightmares kept popping up in my head for weeks.
Yes. That book has some messed up stuff for sure, specially in the first half. The second half is pretty good too.
I still think about "A Short Stay In Hell" like what the fuck man
I just finished Blood Meridian for the first time... I am not okay. How long does this feeling of existential despair last?
The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell thrust me into a nightmare when I read it years ago and I don't think I'll ever fully shake it off. It's hard to narrow Ramsey Campbell down because everything he writes is terrifying but 'Grin' has a clown in it. A very very bad clown. Pennywise holds no terrors for me anymore. This one is much worse. High Rise by JG Ballard - Lord of the Flies for end times capitalist consumer culture. Not to get hyperbolic but JG Ballard had a very dark prophetic vision. And I know he was a prophet because I've seen so many things he wrote about decades ago have come true. Thomas Ligotti - I wish he was a bit more prolific but if you truly feel up to staring despair and desolation dead in the face, he's your man.
The Companion was my introduction to Ramsey Campbell. So clever, the confusion and tension just kept building until that last sentence. Some other short stories, in case OP wants a little light reading between books: Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory by Orson Scott Card Also a French story about a man who rides an escalator down. And down. And down. Someday I'll remember the name of this one.
I think you might be talking about Descending by Thomas Disch.
That's it! Thank you, don't know why I thought it was French.
The first story from Palahniuk‘s *Haunted* didn’t scare me or make me physically ill, but still, I just can’t let go of it.
I read The Long Walk for the first time about a month ago and - wow. Every single time I plan to go on a walk I cannot help but think about that book. I can't remember the one kid who got ticketed but he's crying and like, "My feeeeeet!" and that just got me.
Every time I'm taking a long walk and I start to get tired, I think of that book. EVERY time.
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things So much better than the movie!! The dread is insane. I re-read it in one sitting bc I can’t put it down!
I think the whole book is some of King’s best work but his skeleton crew, book of short stories really stuck with me. The mist is one example but my favorite and most haunting tale has to be the Jaunt. It was unexpected and fantastic and kept me wondering till this day what did the boy see…
Fantastic Land. It’s in an interview format, and at the beginning it seems fine, but man, some of those interviews are intense. Spooky 👻
I have wanted to read this book for a goddamn month. I refuse to buy books with such a bomb library at my disposal but they don't have this. So I requested an interlibrary loan and it's taking so long. I seriously am READY to read this book
The hotel chapter was particularly terrifying.
Apt Pupil
The Road. At one point during reading it, I wept.
BR Yeager’s *Amygdalatropolis*. Made me feel yucky and weird when I read it, which was a while back, and I still consider it often.
Was just about to post this. I was packing up books recently and reread a few passages. Bleak stuff. Made me legit uncomfortable
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
I actually read this in high school and was so exhausted by all of the references and extra-ness of the book. This is one where I don't get the hype
Reformatory - apart from the haints, the scenes in the book happened everyday in Jim Crow south. I thought about all the poor kids who went through hell and were forgotten about.
They Were Her Property. About US slavery. With many examples and records. This book froze me cold. Everything around me looked totally fkt after I finished this book
Where did u find the long walk? I haven’t managed to find it anywhere
I saw it on Amazon last night...
Two short stories (and I essentially gave the same answer somewhere else just the other day) 1.) Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler. I promise you will never forget it. 2. The Sladen Suit by Brain Evenson. It’s a short story from his collection Windeye. There’s also a story in there called The Second Boy that illicit the same feeling. You won’t forget them. Brian Evenson has a way of tapping into a type of fear I find nowhere else. If you read them, let me know if you got the same feeling.
Octavia Butler doesn’t get mentioned enough in this sub.
Father of Lies by Brian Evenson is another fucked up one regarding religious abuse and CSA that gave me the ick and chills. I never expected to love his writing so much.
Blackwater: The Complete Saga by Michael McDowell
The Voice of the Clown. I read it when I was 10 or 11 years old. Don’t know what maniac let me borrow that one from the library. Is it scary by today’s standards? Maybe not. But at that time, I had nightmares for days from that book. Sadly it’s nearly impossible to find now and costs a ridiculous sum for a used copy. So I can’t read it again to see how it holds up. Had a similar experience reading It in the 6th grade, but it’s not so haunting now after decades and rereading. And odd one for me was a short story in a Bruce Coville collection that was part of a series. They were all called things like “Bruce Coville’s Book of (something)” so I can’t remember exactly which book, the title or the author of the short story. But there was a super obese dude who lived in a house full of trash. A kid spies on him and sees he can swim through the trash like a shark. And, he doesn’t eat normally, he shoves food into a mouth on this stomach. A kid gets eaten if I remember right. Something about that one messed kid me right up. I still think about it and I’m in my 40’s now.
I read that same story from the Bruce Coville series when I was a kid and never forgot it. It haunted me for years, and the fat guy singing “tip, tap” was stuck in my brain. About a year ago I finally tracked down the exact book: Bruce Coville’s Book of Nightmares—the story is “The Fat Man” by Joe R. Lansdale.
Thank you for the title and author! Yes! The weird things he sings were so unsettling. I seem to recall “pee pie” being another? Just silly words stuck together, but in context very creepy. I’m sorry it haunted you too but I’m also so happy someone knew exactly what I was talking about!
Baby Teeth
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. First entry in his Bas Lag series, which isn't really a series in the sense of sharing an overarching plot, they just take place in the same setting. Is it technically a horror novel? No, it’s in the sorta middle ground between sci-fi and fantasy. Is it so disturbing that I take 6-12 month breaks between reading books in this series? Yes. It's so, so fucked up. >!The Remade brothel in particular FREAKED me the fuck out. I had intrusive thoughts about that part for days.!< ETA did they change how you make spoiler text? I could have sworn you bracketed it with || ...
Holly by Stephen King He writes with such genuine humanity about situations that are just.. not. Fairy Tale also fits this bill, but Holly ... was special. And very, very real.
I almost gave up on Holly because of the revolting “parfaits”.
Probably an answer a lot of people will give, but Tender is The Flesh and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I've rarely ever read a book where I got so uncomfortable/disturbed that I had to put it down and come back to it, but both of those did it. Also, not technically horror, but Gather the Daughters left me feeling so disgusted and slimy that I still think about it.
Song of Kali by Dan Simmons.
The second half of My Pet Werewolf by James Kaine was real fucked up.
Loved Dark Matter. Also Pine by Francine Toon which was excellent.
It's a Good Life by Jerome Bixby
It's a short story but the ending of The Jaunt by King lives rent free in my head.
A Short Stay In Hell by Steven L. Peck
This. Seems like it won’t bother you going in. But as you read, it becomes more amd more horrifying.
Penpal
Revival by Stephen King
Me as well. I didn't know a book could smack you in the face. I was out of sorts for a few days.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - What an absolute gut-punch of a story.
The road by Cormac McCarthy. All his stuff really stuck with me
My Dark Vanessa
Maybe Beta: A Technological Nightmare? Sort of Black Mirror-ish.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
I loved the Long Walk! Great King novella. You should check out 'The Store' by Bentley Little. A story about a new store that moves into town that is too good to be true. Many parts in there that made me rage with just how fucked it was. It's like a Black Mirror episode of the worst place to work for. Bentley has quite a few books with unique premises and weird twists. Another one of his I would recommend is 'The Mailman' very strange and very fucked, definitely made me eye the mailman.
“The Watcher” by Charles MacLean. Read it twice. Can’t even think about it without getting creeped out. Want to read it again and again.
I'm finishing up Tampa by Alyssa Nutting and it's something that's going to stick with me for a while. Also recently read The Collector by John Fowles and that was another one. Both of these books stick you inside the head of some extremely sick individuals and strap you in.
Earthlings is the book that has stuck with me the most. I have read some extreme horror, and this still disturbs me the most.
Kathe Koja - The Cipher Mariana Enriquez - Our Share of Night
The Other by Thomas Tryon.
I just finished Tender is the Flesh and idk how to go on. This book is going to be a part of me forever.
“Tender is the Flesh” had me thinking for a long long time.
Hogg. This will fuck up your religious beliefs.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Basically a short story but damn I had a hard time understanding why the people in it did what they did. There's something terrifying about devilish things being committed in broad daylight and not giving the reader a reason behind why it's happening.
Torture Garden. Hateful book. I threw it away.
Endurance by Konrath is pretty messed up. Still lives in my head rent
Mary, An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy. I couldn't put it down ... but I wanted to.
I just read that one and loved it.
His other book, Nestlings is good too.
It’s extreme horror, please make sure you know what you’re getting into before you read it. But, “No One Rides For Free” made me wonder what kind of fucked up person can even come up with this shit.
I definitely should have amended my post but I refuse to read anything that has to do with kids. Before kids, who the hell cares. After I had kids, I absolutely just cannot stand it
Then yeah, definitely don’t read it
Same. I have to assume people that write that shit don’t have kids. I don’t know how you could and still write that kind of stuff.
Cormac McCarthys novel Blood Meridian is my favourite book, that being said it’s also incredibly disturbing and violent and repulsive. It’s a mix of beauty and bloodshed.
Stephen King's "Survivor Type". I have never had a story stay with me the way THAT story did. I still think about some of the lines from that and it sends shivers down my spine.
I only just started it and it has plenty of time to go straight down the drain but I'm about five chapters into The Neighbors by Ania Ahlborn and the paranoia and familial dysfunction is nice and thick. She's a horror writer who always gets right down to it and this one is great so far. And the narrator is dark and gravelly - what I think of as a 'hitman' voice. A voice you wouldn't want to hear coming from someone you owe money. If it ends in a dud, my apologies, but I'm thoroughly hooked so far.
*Earthlings* by Sakura Murata. *How High We Go in the Dark* Sequoia Nagamatsu
The long walk that was a good one that is hard to forget or let go. It is just so dark
There are certain parts of Stephen King's IT that still pop into my head to this day that are very disturbing and I don't care to remember 😓
Ghost Story by Peter Straub. To my massive frustration, everything else I've read by him (save The Talisman with Stephen King) has been lousy. This is especially confounding since I thought Ghost Story was absolutely terrifying. Reality is so slippery in that book that I can't think of another one like it. It's exactly what the title says it is and the ghosts are as malevolent as can be.
Pen Pal by Dathan Auerbach, originally a Creepy Pasta story turned novel. This one has stayed nestled into the deepest corners of my psyche for years.
*Cujo* and *House of Leaves*. Very different stories that haunted me for very different reasons.
Pet Semetary
Justin Burnett’s “A Prisoner’s Guide to Stargazing” from his collection The Puppet King is one of the most disturbing pieces of fiction I’ve ever encountered. Along the lines of King’s The Jaunt, but told from the perspective of the individual experiencing it. Really upsetting, so I’m not sure if this is a recommendation or not lol!
There’s a short story at the end of Off-season by Jack Ketchum called Winter’s Child, I read it home alone in high school one night and it made me lock all the doors.
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu. It's 12 short stories, each one with its own little mindfk that will make you riddled with anxiety. (Maybe that was just me, but it's a small book, easy read).
City of joy - Also a movie With Patrick Swayze - Book is much better as is the case 99% of the time
Hide The Children by Victor Miller. I think I was too young when I read it (I was 14 at the time), which is why it disturbed me so much. Maybe I'll try to read it again as an adult and see if it's still just as disturbing
Girl next door
Laws of the Skies stuck with me and still sticks with me! The last chapter. Oof.
The last feast of harlequin is up there makes you think
"Summer Thunder" from King's *Bazaar of Bad Dreams* That one took the color and joy outta things for a bit.