Scary Stuff

Hi, here's Jo (with a pic of Charlie Dracula) putting together the Halloween blog. The Wenches got talking about scary stuff. Turns out, none of us like to read or watch anything that scares us, though some of us did when young. Perhaps it's because our writers' imaginations make imaginary horrors too real? We even have a real ghost story to tell.

I hope that you'll share your thoughts about scary books and films, and especially any real ghost stories if you have any!

Pat Rice

I'm among the wimps who can't read or watch horror. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane freaked me out at a very early age, and I never could watch an entire episode of Hitchcock's The Birds even on a small B&W TV. I loved Poe's poetry when I was a kid...but that was poetry. How could bad things happen in rhyme? I don't watch TV shows with violence and suspense, and I don't read horror and thrillers even now. They literally give me nightmares.

I think my aversion to all things scary is because we live in a scary world. Reading the newspapers is difficult enough without imagining worse. And that might be another key. I can imagine far, far worse than what I read in the papers, and I can "see" the events in a horror novel as if they're real. I just don't need those images in my head!

Joanna Bourne

Like most of the other Wenches, I don't read a lot of Horror genre. No Stephen King, for instance. I get, y'know, nightmares. I don't want to be scared as I drive home in the dark through all the ancient tree and rocks and who know what all lurking in the various moon shadows. I've read the classics — Lovecraft and Poe — but I don't find them particularly horrific. Maybe the language is too old-fashioned. There’s one book, read many years ago, that’s stayed with me as very, very scary. 

Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber. (He of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fame for those of you who are fans of Sword and Sorcery.) Our Lady of Darkness is a book about spooky books. Reiterative, that. Anyhow, we encounter books filled with menace . . . books that are the conduit of madness and ancient evil . . . books that . . . You get the picture.

“From his window there thrust itself a pale brown thing that wildly waved its long, uplifted arms at him. While low between them, he could see a face stretched toward him, a mask as narrow as a ferret’s, a pale brown, utterly blank triangle, two points above that might mean eyes or ears, and one ending below in a tapered chin … a questing mouth that looked as if it were sucking for marrow.”

Mary Jo Putney

I'm another wimpy Wench who doesn't do horror! It's the only genre that I  never read or watch. I once saw a scary TV movie as a kid and had to  leave the lights on in my bedroom that night.  In some ways, romantic suspense is worse because it's scary to see characters you care about threatened. I remember a classic movie thriller called Wait Until Dark, in which a young, blind Audrey Hepburn is stalked by three murderous men looking for drugs in her New York basement apartment.

Frantically she breaks every light bulb in the place to even the odds, but she forgets the light in the refrigerator… I still get chills when I think of that movie. (Hepburn was nominated for a best actress Oscar for the role.) Way too scary! Yes, I do scary things to my characters, but that's different because I'm in control and I know I'll keep them safe!

Nicola Cornick 

Like many teenagers I went through a reading phase when I enjoyed scaring myself stupid with ghost and horror stories. I think I took a sort of perverse pleasure out of seeing how frightened I could make myself feel. I also watched the grand total of about two horror movies. Fortunately I grew out of the phase quite quickly, but I do remember a book called "The House of the Nightmare and other eerie tales" which was a short story anthology. It was a Puffin book for children so the stories were probably fairly innocuous but I can remember feeling pretty terrified when I read them at night in the old Edwardian house we lived in at the time! (It is available on Amazon. Click on the link.)

There is a real life scary sequel to this, which is that years ago, when my dh and I were engaged we went out for a drive one evening in the Yorkshire Dales. It was just getting dark and we were travelling along a quiet country lane when we came across a grand house standing all alone at the side of the road. The windows were blank and it looked empty. As I looked at it I was gripped by a terrifying feeling of fear and dread, as though something terrible had happened there. What was more surprising was that my dh felt it too and he is not remotely susceptible to atmosphere. We slammed the car into reverse and drove off as quickly as we could. It still makes me shiver to remember it over twenty five years later!

(The image is from this article in the Guardian about special effects.)

Susan King

I prefer romance and history to vampires and creepy stuff, but - having raised three boys, I've endured a parade of monsters, aliens, myths, legends and spooky stuff, from Bunnicula (that book terrified one of my kids) to Bigfoot to Lovecraft and beyond. Halloween was bigger than Christmas at our house. My guys don't like gory horror stuff - they like mythical content, which is at least interesting - and they kindly assured me that this isn't real, Mom, don't be scared. I was toughened by association, and they overcame fears through vanquishing monsters. (The one, though, has never quite recovered from Bunnicula, the celery-draining rabbit.)

I went through my own scary-stuff phase when I read Poe in grade school (freaked out but kept reading), later The Exorcist (freaked out, kept reading) and a few Stephen King novels (yeah, and kept reading). Being benignly frightened didn't thrill me, so I moved on. I do respect horror writers who are masters of electric pacing and dark surprises. Now and then I still pick up a Stephen King because I admire his skill - and so I can follow the book discussions the guys have in our kitchen.

What I totally love are ghost stories, from Victorian tales to ghost investigations and paranormal shows on TV (Most Haunted is a favorite, but I'll watch any ghost/medium show). Behind every ghost there's a person trapped by something in their past--so for me, it's not the scare factor, but the possibility that a soul could be set free and a story resolved. I'm open to ghost-watching, but so far, nothing has happened!

Anne Gracie

Add me to the list of wenches who can't read or watch horror stories -- I think the others have described it pretty well. The result of this -- my refusal to read anything that smacked of horror--was that I came late to reading paranormal romance, because I didn't understand the difference. It was Nalini Singh's psy-changelin series that changed things first -- I'd bought her first paranormal when it was first published - mainly out of solidarity because she's a friend. Took me ages to read it, though. But I finally did, and wow! I've always been a fantasy reader, and this was definitely fantasy world stuff, and her shape-shifters were gorgeous. What's not to love about a strong, protective hero who morphs into a big sleek cat or a pale-eyed wolf?

The next stage in my conversion was when romance writer Anna Campbell lent me the first two books in J.R. Ward's vampire series. Vampires? Ick!!! I could see nothing either romantic or heroic in that. What was she thinking? I knew I'd be telling her "Not my cup of tea" when I sent them back to her, but I didn't want to lie, so I decided to read the first 50 pages of the first one so I could tell her honestly I
hadn't enjoyed them. Instead I read both books back to back and then phoned the nearest book shop to check they had the next two before I drove in to buy them.

The first is Dark Lover.

Cara/Andrea
Count me as another wimp who absolutely avoids any scary/horror books or film. Must be a hard-wired proclivity because I distinctly remember my mother taking me to a movie theater when I was around four to see a Disney animated film of Hansel and Gretel (which, if you remember involves the wicked witch plotting to put the children in an oven.) The other children were all having a grand time, but I went into a fit of hysterics, burying my head in her lap, crying so loudly she had to leave the theater and take me home. So much for my career in terror.

The scariest thing I've ever done in terms of reading was to take In Cold Blood by Truman Capote with me one night when I was babysittingfor a neighbor. Yes, I know, not very smart, but I hadn't realized just how frightening it was . . . until the floorboards started creaking as I was sitting on the couch close to midnight and I started hearing footsteps in the shadows, sure that two crazed murderers were creeping through the house. The memory still gives me shivers!

Soooo, no scary book for me! Given my love of research,I'm much more likely to read a book like Ghosts, A Natural History: 500 Years of Searching for Proof on Halloween. Now THAT'S my idea of fun!

And here I am with my contribution.

As a teenager I was thrilled by the occult and I enjoyed the thrills of Dennis Wheatly. I particularly remember The Ka of Gifford Hilary and The Haunting of Toby Jugg. I wouldn't read them now, but I think they were tolerable because I didn't think any of the supernatural elements were real.

I, too, find believable evil far more frightening. I'm not going to read or watch war and violent crime for pleasure, so I like my mysteries on the cosy side, and my action films with a fantasy element. I don't watch violent history on TV, but the gore in Game of Thrones doesn't bother me because it's in a fastasy setting.

I have read some horror in recent years -- very selectively. It could just be the books I've read, but it seems to me that male horror authors use a lot of icky grue --slime, stinks and disturbing noises. I find myself wondering if they've ever changed a poopy baby. Or if they're still working through the horror of it all.::grin:: 

I have written a ghost story, Lord Samhain's Night because the original collection was All Hallows' Eve. 

You can watch a short video introduction to it here.

I also have a recommendation. Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book is really good. It is scary in some ways, but not the ways you'd think.

Another recommendation.

At the moment BBC radio has a reading of The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe, which any Regency heroine might have enjoyed. Follow the link to listen.

 

 

So what would you recommend that's acceptably scary? Or do you not do scary at all?

Do you find modern settings scarier than historical or fantasy?

Have you had a ghostly experience?

Happy Halloween!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Shannon]

I'm not big on scary. Carrie was my scary book. Some of the Victoria Holt's and Daphne DuMaurier had scary moments.

I live in Idaho where Big Foot is a big legend. One time Dad was pulling a deer or an elk up out of a ravine, and it was getting dark. I was left with the pickup and half of the meat. I keep hearing things. There was this rustle and a grumble. My one brother came up, and said did you hear that? Yeah, it might be a bear. No its Big Foot. More noises. Let's go look. I smell blood. Of course my other brother popped out of the bushes with a quarter of the deer/elect to scare me.

Thank you for Uldolpho. I have always heard about it.

[Gail]

I'm a wimp when it comes to scary/horror stuff too. It started for me with "The Wizard of Oz." The flying monkeys scared me to death. I've never seen the complete movie. Years later, as a teen, I peer pressured into going to see "The Omen." I spent almost the whole movie in the restroom. I've never read anything in the horror genre and don't intend to. Surprisingly, animals doing scary things are just as bad for me as traditional horror stories/movies.

[Kathy Lynn Emerson]

There are a quite a few vampire and or werewolf series I enjoy reading, but I especially like those with a healthy helping of humor and mystery, like the Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series (not to be confused with its much bloodier and more nude adaption as HBOs True Blood). I don't care for horror movies with a lot of blood and violence, but the ones on the SyFy channel are too silly to be scary. I watch some of those for grins. What scared me as a kid was the cyclops in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. I was looking over my shoulder for weeks after seeing that movie. For the 1950s, those were state of the art special effects. Scariest movie ever? The Haunting. The original black and white version, in which you never actually see anything, not the gory color remake, which was just gross. I can only think of two books that gave me nightmares, both by Stephen King. After Salem's Lot and Pet Sematary I quit reading him.

[Lil]

Many years ago I saw a movie called, I think, Isle of the Dead. In it, there is a woman who is catatonic. Everyone thinks she is dead, and she is put into a stone coffin. Everyone leaves, there is silence, and suddenly there is a scream from the coffin.
There was also a scream from me.
I've avoided horror movies ever since.

[Jobev]

You had me at "dark" and "ravine" Shannon! Not a wild-place person, me.

Jo

[Jobev]

Interesting about animals, Gail. Do you mean cartoon or live?

I think I might have watched The Omen, but at home, which is much less scary, I think.

Jo

[Jobev]

"Scariest movie ever? The Haunting. The original black and white version, in which you never actually see anything,"

I think that's key. I remember a movie ages ago about these evil creatures, and all you saw was shadows and silhouettes. But half way through you saw them. They were dark, winged devil-like creatures, but not nearly as scary as the imagination.

[Jobev]

Yeah, that would scare me, Lil!

I remember a film or TV with someone having to crawl a distance through an underground tunnel. It wasn't a horror movie, but that was horrific for me, and I don't think I'm claustrophobic

Jo

[MJ]

I do not do scary or even thrillers. I remember running into the kitchen where my Mom was when the Flying Monkeys went to go get Dorothy. Years later, my girls LOVED that movie and we watched it at least once a day so I got over my fright.

I was horrified when my critique partner Kerrelyn Sparks announced she was switching from historicals to vampire paranormal novels. Luckily for me, her books have a comedic angle, her vampires drink bottled blood and the bad guys are the nasty ones. I don't know how I could have read her drafts if there was blood being spilled all over!

[Vicki W.]

I never even worked up to the horror/scary books because the cowboy movies my grandpa liked to watch were too much for me. As soon as they would start shooting at each other I was out of the room and in another part of the house.

Unfortunately, the rest of my grandparents house was dark and I apparently never felt I could turn the lights on. So I would go as far as I could and still have light but not be in total dark. There I would stay in the half light, with my fingers in my ears, until the shooting stopped.

I've been told that the movie, The Jungle Book, scared me so bad my aunt had to take me out and stay in the lobby with me. My two younger sisters watched it with my uncle.

So no...I don't do horror, scary, yucky stuff. And it doesn't appear to matter if it if realistic or fantasy...no no no... Anytime I've accidentally read something with scary, yucky stuff, it gets stuck in my brain and I can't get it out. I'd rather have a musical earworm stuck for 10 days with an annoying phrase.

What is funny to me is how many people who favor one genre over another look down upon the reading habits of their opposite number. I work the book sales for my library (huge huge one) and during the 4 days we are sorting and putting out the books, I hear all kinds of comments.

Last month I heard the following:
No no, I don't read that silly smarmy romance crap. I only read werewolves and vampires. Inside, I go, Umm....say what?

Another sale, a lady was going to get books for her niece but truly believed that anything with a paranormal hint to it was evil and the devil was involved. She wouldn't even touch those books.

It is quite entertaining to listen to people and their opinions about the different genres.

[Artemisia]

This being Halloween, I'm re-reading Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Quin Yarbro. Le Comte de Saint-Germain. I do not like scary books since I was reading a Peter Straub book late at night and got to a scene where someone is walking on a beach and sees that his footprints are filling up with blood. That was it for me. I enjoy John Sandford's "Prey" novels, but even there I sometimes get to a point and have to stop. One I never got past the first chapter. I had to stop reading Nevada Barr too for the same reason. Not all "scary stuff" is in the horror genre.

[Joanna Bourne]

I musta read every Dennis Wheatly book out there, back in the day. Not because of the supernatural elements, though. I was reading them as adventure stories ...

[Sheri Cobb South]

Add me to the "no horror" list. OTOH, my husband watched horror movies as a kid, and was completely unfazed by them. I wonder if we, as writers, are so much affected by this genre because our overactive imaginations take what we see on the screen (or page) and multiply it a thousandfold?

I do confess, though, that over 30 years ago I watched Robert Mitchum's THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER in broad daylight. It scared me spitless, and it's still the most terrifiying movie I've ever seen. The lush, beautiful cinematography somehow makes the whole thing even scarier. The children's moonlight escape down the river by boat while little forest creatures watch from the shadows is one of the most vivid, and visually stunning, scenes ever filmed, in my opinion.

[Andrea Penrose]

Udolpho is great fun, Shannon. To a modern reader it's more tongue-in-cheek terror. Very entertaining.

As for the bloody deer . . .I would have been scared out of my skin!

[Andrea Penrose]

Gail, it's funny what frightens children. I was terrified of a cartoon!

[Andrea Penrose]

Yes, it really is fascinating what appeals to people, Vicki!

[Jobev]

Yes, MJ, Kerrelyn Sparks' vampires are fun.

The Wizard of Oz scared me as a child! But I was a nervous child. Peter Pan scared me. I can't remember if it was Captain Hook or the crocodile.

[Jobev]

What odd comments, Vicki W.

I'm with you on the shooting in cowboy movies. As I said above, I was a nervous child. Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger had me hiding under the table.

[Jobev]

" Not all "scary stuff" is in the horror genre."

So true, Artemisia. Thrillers are sometimes the worst.

Saint-Germain is definitely an excellent vampire, though.

[Jobev]

Definitely rip-roaring yarns, Jo.

[Jobev]

I've never seen that one, Sheri. Not sure if I want to or not.

[Anne Gracie]

Reading all these comments have reminded me of the Dr Who episodes that I found really scary -- the stone angel episodes. I've always loved stone angels, but now . . .

[jana]

I can't do horror either. I remember once when I was 14, I was babysitting the neighbour boy who was 10. He was watching Nightmare on Elm Street in the living room and I hid in the kitchen until it was time for him to go to bed. He was fine, that night I had nightmares. My dad told me that he was the same way with scary movies. I didn't feel like such a wimp then. As for books, my husband likes some horror. If he reads a series that isn't too dark he cajoles me into reading it. Thus, I discovered Sookie Stackhouse (Charlene Harris's True Blood series) and the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Rice, which have become perennial favourites. But, I wouldn't characterize either of those as particularly scary.

[Jenny]

AS a child I would read anything, so scary books were acceptable. But I couldn't watch cowboy and Indian movies. They always gave me nightmares.

Many years ago, a friend and I were holidaying in Austria, and one night after being out we were walking back to our hotel. We decided to take short cut through a grave yard (we should have had more sense at age 22) and on the way through we suddenly saw, or thought we saw someone sitting on one of the grave stones. I believe we would have won the gold medal in the olympics for sprinting.

[jana]

That should be Patricia BRIGGS...I guess all this thinking of horror had me thinking of Anne Rice, whom I've always deemed too scary to read!

[Janice]

I can't do horror either. It scares me. I wanted to crawl under my seat when I first saw Christopher Lee as Frankenstein.

I do like non-gory supernatural stuff, though. My favorite ghost movie is The Uninvited, with Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey as a brother and sister who buy a haunted house on the coast of England. It's dated and period and Ray Milland sings wee chickbirdee, but I still love it.

[Anne Gracie]

Jana, I'm a huge fan of Patricia Briggs, too

[Karin]

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only wimp. I totally avoid horror, books or movies, and even some contemporary romantic suspense has gotten too scary and gory for me. I also avoid war movies if I know there is going to be graphic violence, for instance I've never seen classics like Saving Private Ryan, or Apocalypse Now. I'll watch a war movie if the focus is on history, or it has a love story.
The only thing close to horror that I read and enjoyed when I was younger was Edgar Allen Poe. His plots had some clever twists and they're short stories, so easier to get through.
I also saw some classic movies when I took a film class in college that would qualify as scary. "Un Chien Andalou'; anyone who has seen the eyeball scene knows what I mean. And "M", which is a very old silent film with Peter Lorre is a classic worth seeing.
Contrarily, I did enjoy watching The Twilight Zone on TV as a child, and I love Alfred Hitchcock movies.

[Jackie]

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill is an excellent scary read. The scary stuff happens in your head due to the skilled writing of this ghost story.

[Barbara Kuterbach]

I grew up on scary. My older brother paid me to clean his bedroom so that our Mom wouldn't see his preferred reading material--H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker et all. Ha, what warm blooded 12 year old could resist. I also saw all the horror movies, crouching down in my seat, with hands in front of my face, peeking between my fingers. I no longer read horror novels, except for Stephen King. By age 16 I was into Romance Novels, and now am fond of Traditional Regency.

[Mary M.]

When I was young, I was afraid of fire–wouldn't even light a match. I've pondered why, but now I'm thinking it might have been triggered by the forest fire in Bambi, which as I recall killed off Bambi's mama. That says more about helplessness than cruelty, but still ... Scary!

[Janice]

I like Stephen King because he is so good at characterization and at being a contemporary writer -- somebody said that 200 years from now people will still be reading his books to find out what it was like to live in the 20th century. But there is much of his stuff that I haven't read because of the horror element.

The most horrible horror book I ever read was The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. I was listening to it on audio on my daily commute and had no idea where it was heading. I had nightmares and the grues for days.

I too like vintage trad regencies and I like reviewing them; not much blowback from (sadly) deceased authors. I also like some of the historical mystery writers - Charles Todd, Jacqueline Winspear, Rose Melikan, Anna Dean - for some of the same reasons that I like the trads: complex, well written prose, a sense of place and time, and a fuller canvas than just the bedroom.

[Jobev]

It's interesting what we find scary or not, Jana. Horror on the screen is much worse than in a book for me, but fear on the screen generally not so much. If an author can convey fear, then it'll terrify me.

[Jobev]

I can imagine, Jenny! Perhaps someone paused for a drink from the bottle in his pocket?

[Jobev]

I too don't necessarily find supernatural scary, Janice. Partly because I don't believe in most of it, but also because I think if there are ghosts and other spirits they're probably harmless.

[Jobev]

Karin,I'm with you on war movies, especially of more recent wars. Didn't mind Sharpe and the Napoleonic ones!

[Jobev]

Ah, that's what I meant above, Jackie. A skilled writer can really scare us.

[Jobev]

From horror movies to trad regency, Barbara. Quite a journey. :)

[Jobev]

Janice, I agree that King is a vivid writer, but I do think he only conveys a slice of today, as must all writers. I don't think I'd want people from the future to base their opinion of today, even in America, solely on him because he does have a dark filter.

Historical mysteries can be great, yes. :)

[Sonya Heaney]

I LOVE romantic suspense because there’s so much opportunity for high drama and emotions when a character is threatened in some way. And the thing with ‘romantic’ suspense is that you know hero and heroine will survive. :)

Vampires and the like seem to have gone out of fashion, but I still have a few favourite authors (like Patricia Briggs). Straight out horror, on the other hand, is a bit much for me. I read the Sonja Blue stories mostly because I share my name with the character, but it was very gory for me!

[Joanna Bourne]

The Stone Angels. Yes. Scary.

Famously scary. They're a Who cult thingum.

[Janice]

Jo, what was meant about Stephen King is not the horror plots, but the sense of place and time -- what people were reading, eating, doing, where they were going, what movies and books, what clothing, how they spoke, things like that -- not that zombeez were hiding in the sewers or any some such plot element.

[Jobev]

Yes on the stone angels. It's a bit like the horror movies with evil dolls. Some things are not supposed to be evil.

[Jobev]

Yes, Sonya. Knowing there'll be a happy ending does help!

[Jobev]

I know you meant that, Janice, but I still think his take on modern life is a bit dark. If someone was judging only from him they'd not find the truly happy families and the people living joyfully everyday in quiet ways through jobs that satisfy them, singing in a choir, growing a garden, lunch with friends and taking walks in a wood where they don't expect anything bad to happen and it doesn't.

I haven't read a lot of King, though, so I might be wrong. The most ordinary of his work I've read is Hearts in Atlantis, which certainly is a snapshot of a particular period in America.

[Janice]

Jo, from what I've read of King, you do find that sort of "normal" life -- just before the bad thing happens. But generally it is the nice normal people who make it through - Under the Dome (the novel) is an example.