So what sends chills up your spine?

[Skywarp]

I like religious and spiritual horror like ghosts, demons, abstract entities but not vampires or zombies.

On that note anyone got any suggestions for me?. I picked up one of Lovecraft's compilations awhile ago but found the old English writing style with painfully excessive detail a snooze fest and stopped after the Cthutlu story.

[Mara-Marie]

what i think is really creepy is when the villan has there victem or is in the process of ensnareing them and they say things in a creepy evil or all knowing voice and they say certain things in such a way that it makes you feel like they not only know everything about there victem but they know everything about you as well even though your just the reader. I think it's creepy when they really "know" you.

[NO-F.X.]

I have always found cosmic horror very frightening. The thought that ancient horrors exist outside the realm of our understanding, influencing the universe in dark and twisted ways so they may prey upon our world and minds has always freaked me out. Lovecraftian type stuff. Scary ****.

[Ariana]

I don't know if I "enjoy" this, but a story where something foreign and alien and so perverse yet somehow human-ish, devours you! Not like vampires or Were folk, but something other, something that is not of this reality or plane of existance... something that freezes you in your tracks and you can't run or scream or move an inch. Very like Lovecraft's descriptions of the "Old Ones".

Hugs
Ariana

[fantasmic]

what really gets me is the serial killer stuff, things that can really happen like the movie vacancy, it could actually happen.

[Ariana]

what really gets me is the serial killer stuff, things that can really happen like the movie vacancy, it could actually happen.

Now it never occurred to me that we were talking movies... That *vacancy* was one of the creepiest movies and my Hubby and I travel all the time to out of the way places in nevada... Tonapah & Gold Ranch is so like the weird burg in that movie! We actually slept in our car!


Hugs
Ariana

[fantasmic]

we werent talkin movies (I think )but I jus had ta put it out there since it freaks me out so much lol

[Robert T.Knight]

Anytime an author can write about something common, then make it terrifying. I don't really like the "out there" stories because I can't connect to them, or interject myself into the storyline. If you can get me thinking twice about going to the supermarket, though, or taking a stroll in the county park... I'm also not much of a gore fan - much more interested in stories that can lead me, that can set up a tantalizing line of suspense.

[Ariana]

I know this ventures off of the original thread, but I agree with Robert! The best sci-fi or horror or mysteries are always the ones that creep you out with the banalities of life, and don't have a bucket of blood and bodyparts being flung all over. I like the scene in "Alien" where the captain is in the air ducts, and the lifeform indicator lights were the focus of the threat... made me sit there and yell at him to move his butt outta there! That is definitely creepy! Stuff that is there, but you can't see it!!!

Now back on topic, one of my fav novels is of course, 'The Stand' only because I don't trust the yahoo's in charge and you know they are cooking up something very like Capt.Tripps as we speak. THAT is scary.

Hugs
Ariana

[Bob Gray]

I'm with you -- take something everyday and tweak it, very effective.

What I don't like is splatterpunk horror, where gore is more important than the characters.

It's hard to give me a chill, but I got one recently in a fantasy, The Bone Doll's Twin by Lynn Flewelling. There was a scene where a ghost simply turned and looked at someone with an angry look, I had to go get a blanket I was so cold. Great book.

I like a chase too -- what Robert McCammon did in Stinger worked well for me.

The Splatterpunk that I've read (Skipp & Spector) was actually more well written than a lot of horror novels I have read. Sure, there is plenty of gore but there is a lot of substance as well. Check out The Scream or The Bridge, two great novels by those guys. I'm about halfway through Joe R. Lansdale's The Nightrunners right now and to be honest, there hasn't been any gory parts yet. I think that really it is the punk part of splatterpunks that stand out more with those guys.

For me it is the unknown that scares me the most, weird fiction like Lovecraft, King, Poe, or Machen.

Top 10 scariest/creepiest books or stories I've ever read:

1. It by Stephen King
2. Lurking Fear by H.P. Lovecraft
3. Pet Semetary by Stephen King
4. The Shadow Out of Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft
5. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allen Poe
6. Floating Dragon by Peter Straub
7. The Return by Bentley Little
8. Dark Hollow by Brian Keene
9. Crimson by Gord Rollo
10. The Hollower by Mary SanGiovani

Honorable Mention: The Shining by Stephen King

[PeteMC]

I don't find monsters or gore scary at all, but medical/body-horror stuff always creeps me out. I think one of the most memorable horror stories I ever read is the Stephen King short about a guy shipwrecked on an island with a ton of drugs and no food, who ends up amputating parts of himself and eating them...

[Randy M.]

I am unnerved by signs of internal rot:
"The Fall of the House of Usher"; "William Wilson" -- Poe
"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" -- Conrad Aiken
Turn of the Screw -- Henry James
The Haunting of Hill House -- Shirley Jackson

I am disturbed by forces beyond my ability to reason with:
"The Call of Cthulhu"; "At the Mountains of Madness"; "The Colour Out of Space"; etc. -- H. P. Lovecraft
"The Frolic"; "Les Fleurs"; "Teattro Grotesco" -- Thomas Ligotti

I am shaken by the things that happen to families:
Pet Semetary -- Stephen King
The Cormorant -- Stephen Gregory
Midnight Sun -- Ramsey Campbell

I am wary of the enemy within:
"Who Goes There?" -- John W. Campbell, Jr.
"The Autopsy" -- Michael Shea

I am apprehensive of the misapplication of knowledge:
"Microcosmic God" -- Theodore Sturgeon
"Sandkings" -- George R. R. Martin

I am terrified by people:
"The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" -- Thomas Burke
The Killer Inside Me -- Jim Thompson
Red Dragon & Silence of the Lambs -- Thomas Harris
Finishing Touches -- Thomas Tessier


Randy M.

[algernoninc]

Death, not the flashy, spectacular type - I've become desensitized to the cinematic type - but the quiet, insidious and unavoidable one, that's waiting around the corner especially for me:
- Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
- The Winds of Marble Arch - Connie Willis
- On The Beach - Nevil Shute
- Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

[Christopherjmf]

It's funny how the movie Poltergeist nailed so many things people are afraid of.

When I was a kid it was 'something under the bed'. Now it's the idea that something is waiting for me in the dark and will only move when I turn my back to it.

[saintjon]

what really gets me is the serial killer stuff, things that can really happen like the movie vacancy, it could actually happen.

The things the bad guys did leading up to that movie could actually happen. What happened in the movie itself could never happen because those were two of the stupidest protagonists I ever saw in a suspense movie. Any right-minded person could have made about a dozen weapons out of what was in that room (especially if they took a minute to bust up the furniture) and wouldn't have abandoned what weapons they did arm themselves with at the soonest opportunity. About a third of the way through that one I was sitting there going, "If these two die good riddance."

Sorry I know it is an old comment but I just hated that stupid movie too much. Almost as bad as Blind.