Scariest Book!

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Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
65,192
59
sweden
Great books, both of them. But if i had to pick it would definitely be Pet Semetary. It gives me shivers just to think about it. The Lot is scary but not so scary that you can feel the marrow in your bones turn to ice. But, of course, always when a tree or bird or something knocks at the window i always have to persuade myself that it wasn't someone that wanted to come in. By the way, i can recommend John Ajvide Lindqvists "Let me in". At least they named the movie that. It is based on a really good vampire story that takes place in a suburb to Stockholm. If you translate the swedish original title it would be "Let the right one enter" i guess. Don't know its english title but know it was translated to a lot of languages. Not in Kings class perhaps but a sound stand by so to speak. I enjoyed it.
 

krwhiting

Well-Known Member
Jan 5, 2015
258
1,081
57
I didn't find it scary. But I did find it exceptionally entertaining and nerve-wracking. Because I cared about the characters and when they were dying or failing (that poor priest!) while I was rooting for them to slap that evil down, it was sort of exhausting. Pet Semetary didn't scare me either. Though it gave me the creeps, and while I was stationed at Fort Lewis I found a pet cemetary out there in the woods when I was running once that sort of made my flesh crawl - all by itself, middle of deep woods, dark, rainy, cold and quiet. I hightailed it out of there I can tell you and all because of the book.

The ones that actually frightened me were It, The Library Policeman (from Four Past Midnight) and Gramma (from Skeleton Crew). Libraries were, and still are, one of my favorite places to spend time and the way in those first two that King linked the horror to them, and the way my mind automatically conjured up the library I knew and loved, that was scary. And my own Grandma died slowly and very ill and my family took care of her, at her house, at the end (I was a teenager at the time). So I spent a lot of time with her toward the end and I couldn't get those images out of my mind either when I read Gramma (though mine was a sweet woman).

Kelly
 

not_nadine

Comfortably Roont
Nov 19, 2011
29,655
139,785
Behind you
I think that might be partly true for you, as you had read other SK books before it.
It was my first sk book at a young age. I had never read anything like it.
(I remember thinking, "This guy curses in a book! How can I laugh one page and be terrified the next?"
 

olivierFR

New Member
Feb 4, 2015
2
9
Marseille
I agree with MandarkC, this novel is the most scarefuly than i'v ever read.
I've already rode almost than 4 other novels but this one is.. brrr
I'm a french native and near to my citie i've a lot of small village with a strange atmosphere. This feeling was going up after reading this book and i can imagine that it's the same for you!
 

Ves-Ka Gan

Active Member
Feb 9, 2015
39
151
54
I think it was a close tie between 'Salem's Lot and Pet Semetary as to which one scared me the most. But I think this was the book that actually gave me shivers down my spine. Probably because I've always found the idea of something sinister happening in a small insular town/village to be more believable than the Pet Semetary events happening (I've never had a pet because my dad's allergic to fur and I was basically brought up in a concrete jungle so never had the opportunity to link the events from the book to real life, whereas I sort of can imagine 'Salem's Lot happening)

Did anyone else find 'Salem's Lot to be as scary?
Salems Lot scared me to death when I first read it. I was about 19 at the time and living in the Nurse's Home (was an assistant nurse) and didn't finish it then. Spoiler; I got to the bit about the teacher coming back as a vampire and was so scared I threw the book out of the window and vowed to never read another sk book again. There was a church opposite and I prayed to God for protection! I looked out the window a few hours later and it was gone. I did read it a few years later and finished it but it's the only book that's ever given me nightmares and it still creeps me out when I reread it. King's books still scare me but not to that extent. Salem's Lot and Bram Stockers Dracula are still the best two vampire novels ever written in my opinion. Truly terrifying.
 
Nov 14, 2014
23
110
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New Orleans
There's a pervading sense of unease throughout the entire book. It's unapologetic in its old school horror approach. I'm reading it again for the first time in a decade (my third time), and it does not disappoint. I just passed the scene in which Royal and Hank deliver the "sideboard" to the Marsten House basement, and was struck by how authentic the dread was--when Hank goes back into the basement (alone this time) to place the keys on the table, it's frightening in a way that evokes childhood. (And it's a nice mirror of an earlier scene, in which the Glick boys run into trouble on the way to Mark's house.) As an adult, I'm rarely--if ever--in a situation in which stepping into an empty room is terrifying. But when I was a kid? All the time. This is one of the strengths of early King, and of 'SALEM'S LOT, in particular--his ability to evoke the terror of being a child.

Is it his scariest book? That's open to discussion--THE SHINING and PET SEMATERY can't be disregarded--but it gets my vote.
 
Nov 14, 2014
23
110
49
New Orleans
First time I read it, I was a teenager. The second time, I was a young man in love. On this, my third read, I am forty, and a father of a ten year old boy. On my first read, I felt closest to Mark--his bedroom could have been my bedroom. On read number two, the burgeoning romance between Ben and Susan stood out. On this read, I had a really hard time with the Glick funeral scene--it got to me in ways it simply never could have before.

I don't think I'll be revisiting PET SEMATERY any time soon...
 

Ashcrash

Well-Known Member
Jun 10, 2015
1,326
4,898
Wutsittoyu
Pet Cemetery is another one of those books that I saw the movie of as a kid. SCARED THE living daylights out of me. Then read it as an adult and relived the nostalgic horror. But that was more suspenseful then scary to me as an adult. DREAMCATCHER however, let me tell you what. I was reading that book and thought it wasn't scaring me until I had to go outside to grab something out of my car (after dark) and suddenly thought there's something right behind me I got to hurry, did I just hear something, play it cool, F IT RUN lol.
 

Sunlight Gardener

Well-Known Member
Jul 22, 2013
375
1,273
Pet Cemetery is another one of those books that I saw the movie of as a kid. SCARED THE living daylights out of me. Then read it as an adult and relived the nostalgic horror. But that was more suspenseful then scary to me as an adult. DREAMCATCHER however, let me tell you what. I was reading that book and thought it wasn't scaring me until I had to go outside to grab something out of my car (after dark) and suddenly thought there's something right behind me I got to hurry, did I just hear something, play it cool, F IT RUN lol.

Lol, I like how different things scare different people for whatever reason. It didn't even occur to me to get scared at any point reading Dreamcatcher. I was way too busy being totally grossed out and asking myself, "What in the hell am I reading?!?" That book was like a literary version of Fear Factor or Bizarre Foods lol.