Next week is Hallowe'en, so here are ten of the creepiest novels to get you into the mood.
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
James loved ghost stories, and this novella is a piece of shameless, nerve-tingling suspense. A governess put in charge of an orphaned brother and sister in their uncle's country house begins to suspect that the strangers she sees walking in the grounds are ghosts, and the children have something to do with this.
Misery, by Stephen King
It's what all bestselling novelists dread: a reader with a grudge. When Paul Sheldon has a car crash, he is rescued - he thinks - by crazed nurse Annie, a devoted follower of his historical romances featuring Misery Chastain. Hearing the writer has just killed off his heroine, Annie keeps him captive until he writes a sequel, in which Misery returns from the dead. In the meantime his jailor amputates bits of Paul with an electric carver, to creative narrative tension uniquely her own.
The Terror, by Dan Simmons
You'd think that Captain Franklin's lost expedition to the Arctic was scary enough, but in this fictionalised version of that tragic ordeal, Simmons throws in a monster to get the adrenaline pumping and - if you are of a credulous nature - maybe explain why none of the protagonists was ever found.
The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allan poe
Master of the eery and unpleasant, Poe relates the plight of a victim of the Spanish inquisition who is imprisoned in a pitch black cell, and slowly realises there is a swinging blade above him, which is slowly drawing closer. A claustrophobically unnerving experience.
Zombie, by Joyce Carol Oates
Based on a real-life serial killer, Oates's award-winning novel gets into the mind of a psychopath and dabbles in necrophilia and cannibalism as well as good old-fashioned sex slavery.
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
Wall Street banker Patrick Bateman is one of the most alarming characters in modern fiction. Progressing from fantasising about murder to committing it, his story, Ellis once admitted, came from a "personal place". Bateman glories in torture, growing depraved and violent with every killing. Sounds sick? It is, and that's just the author.
Hell House, by Richard Matheson
Set in Maine, in the world's most haunted house, Matheson's story shows a sceptical scientist and his assistants arriving to find out if the place really does harbour spirits. What happens to each of the protagonists would have even the most cynical beginning to question their doubts.
The Book of Blood by Clive Barker
This, Barker's first collection of short stories, made his name as a maistro of the macabre. With stories such as The Midnight Meat Train and Pig Blood Blues, this collection might be enough to slake your taste for unspeakable scenarios. If not, there are five more titles in the series.
The Call of Cthulhu, by H P Lovecraft
The writer Stephen King has credited with his own fascination with horror, Lovecraft was an oddball from childhood, who suffered nightmares that directly influenced his work. Cthulhu was a god-like figure with an octopus head, whose appearance in this and other stories was quite literally to change the face of modern fiction.
The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty
It ought to be dated, but this story of a girl believed to be possessed, and a priest who says he can cast out demons, remains decidedly scary, even in an age of special effects.
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