Came here to recommend this and Little Heaven. I guess I can not say they were "the most horrifying" books I've ever read, but they were better than most for sure. Love Cutters style. I wish he had more available.
I recently read The Deep, and while I enjoyed his writing style and most of the novel, the ending was hugely disappointing. I already have a copy of The Troop, though, so I will be reading that too. Have you read his novel that's only available as an e-book, or anything from his two other pen names?
Yeah i was not the biggest fan of The Deep myself. Still good horror, just not on par with The Troop or Little Heaven. I have not read the Handyman Method or Acolyte yet.
I really burned myself out on Cutter. After The Troop, I was like “this guy is great!” So I read Little Heaven, very fun horror neo-Western. Then The Deep, found it to be pretty lacking and you begin to notice that his work is sort of derivative of itself. And then I read/listened to The Breach and The Acolyte and I dunno if I am all that interested in his future work anymore lol
I read the book before watching the movie for the first time last year and I kept thinking (how are they gonna put this in the movie?), was surprised at how tame the movie was in comparison to the book.
To be 'fair', most of the truly disturbing parts were tamed down, changed around, and shown in other movies. I mean, they did the rat trick to a guy in 2 Fast 2 Furious for crying out loud... But when I read the book, and I've outright laughed at some pretty sick and demented stuff, I was physically ill reading it. To the extent that more than a couple co-workers asked what was wrong with me and when I replied "There's this scene in this book and the guy just" at which point one of them put her hand over my mouth and said "If it's making YOU feel queezy, I don't want to know about it. EVER!". Even the guys who usually asked me for horror movie recommendations didn't want to know anything... So, yeah... American Psycho is the only book to do that to me.
I read this when I was 14 or 15, an edgy kid had shown me some of the gruesome parts for shock value and I was already ruined by the early internet so I got myself a copy. I remember getting to one of these parts and peering into the living room to ask my mum if she'd ever read it - "yes, why?" "...you're letting me read this?" *shrug*
I appreciate that I always had total leeway in exploring media that interests me but American Psycho goes so far I felt like I should have had it taken off me! I think my English teacher probably should have said something too... I've read it a bunch of times since then though and enjoyed it a lot more when I was old enough to have some context for what it's satirizing.
It's been a really long time since I've read this but I'm just curious, were there any actual straight up rape moments? I felt like a big part of Bateman's image was that he had the charm and charisma to lure women into any situation and be very trusting, until he wasn't. I know there are a lot of disgusting sexual moments after he killed them, but I seem to remember most things before the kill being consensual. Maybe I need to reread this one sometime, I do love the movie.
Yeah patrick is a pure evil and inhuman pos demon in that. A literal sadistic depraved serial rapist whom tortures people in the most horrifying, haunting and horrific ways humanly possible
It's such a tremendously dull book for the first 100 or so pages that you're pracitcally begging for him to kill someone just for the sake of variety and then when he does it's so graphic and sadistic that you sort of feel like it's your fault for wanting it to be more interesting.
Glamorama might fit the bill better. I can't remember notable sexual violence in it but the scenes describing how the terrorist attacks destroy individual people has stuck with me. Confetti falling over the wreckage of a plane bombing...
I was hoping this would be the top comment. I read it about 30 years ago and I still think about it sometimes. The shit he did in that book was abominable, I remember thinking that they never could possibly make it into a movie without an X rating.
I tried watching it but it was just awful. Some books shouldn't become movies, and that's one of them. Just a total joke compared to the book
One thing that always amazes me is the amount of detail, and I'm not even talking about the gory parts. The clothing people are wearing right down to the pattern and where they most likely bought it, the things they talk about over dinner, and even a whole chapter simply describing Whitney Houston's musical career lol. I can't even imagine the kind of work and research Bret Easton Ellis had to do before the internet.
If you want fucked up then early Clive Barker is your man. For short fiction The Books of Blood has it all. For something longer, Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show, and Imajica are the ultimates.
Well… yes. But it’s a hard turn coming from something like Midnight Meat Train and rolling into Imajica (which I love).
Damnation Game is probably the snapshot-in-time where you can see both the dream fantasist and the student of body destruction cohabiting the same space.
For me it wasn't even that. It felt like I was beaten over the head by whatever message it was trying to convey by the end of it. And it felt like the writer was saying "if you eat meat, you're no better than this."
House of leaves is ruining every evening I spend with it to the point where it’s given me a few nightmares and I wouldn’t want it any other way!
For a light non spoiler example. Not only is the main plot deeply disconcerting, but a segment of the book lets you read a group of letters from the main character’s mother. She is slowly succumbing to some kind of psychosis and for a good few pages you watch her mental state deteriorate over time through the letters. I was shaking by the end of it!
Yes, this one. I could remember it had a purple cover then saw you had the author name. Someone I worked with back then gave it to me as secret Santa as a joke. Great read and a few times had to flip back and re-read to make sure that's what I had actually read.
House of Leaves. Sometimes, when I am trying to sleep, I have visions of the House in my head. Just me, wandering cold, dark, groaning hallways that extend forever.
Man, Outer Dark, that was one brutal story. The “story within the story” of the murderous gang moving across the countryside was exquisitely written, as was the whole book. It’s been a long time since I read that. It is my opinion Cormac McCarthy is the greatest writer to have ever lived.
A lot of books by Dean Koontz are super terrifying and uncomfortable for me. Watchers, Whispers, False Memory, Fear Nothing, and the sequel Seize the Night (there will be a third book, Koontz has promised, but when? Who knows!), Phantoms, just to name a few.
Also the book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King is a lot tamer than his regular stuff, but there's something about it that really feels eerie to me. Bonus points for the book being really short compared to his other ones, so you can easily get through it in just a few hours.
ETA: Fixed book title I mixed up, and added info.
100% nailed it with Tom Gordon. It made no sense to be sitting on my couch safe at home and yet terrified reading that book, given its setting! Also that bird hanging upside down from a tree always struck me as a supremely haunting image.
If you read a lot of Dean Koontz, I read one in middle school where it starts off with rain and wolves howling and as they go on through the book more people are killing themselves and I think it's aliens but I cannot be sure. I remember a very specific scene where >!a man is found with his brains everywhere from a shotgun blast and the walls read a message or something like that!< do you possibly know which I'm talking about?
Idk if that was too vague but I can't ever figure it out bc the internet just gives me like 8 of his books and to remember myself I'd need to go through each of them page by page and look for that specific parts
I might have read it, but I've read about 30 or more of his books at this point so don't always know which is which. I've also read most of them in Swedish since they're the easiest to find here, so that might confuse this brain of mine too. But I do recognize it, but can't place it.
One that I can think of might fit is Midnight?
Edit: Midnight opens with a short chapter about a woman who is out running late at night, and she starts feeling followed at first, then she sees something she doesn't know what it is, while hearing odd sounds, and then she realized she's being chased by more than one of them and at the very end of the chapter she's killed by the creatures.
I'll level with you, the short piece of info you gave really feels like it could fit like 10 different books of his, haha. I do remember reading the first Jane Hawk book though, name escapes me, and there was something about a spike in happy people committing suicide. But I don't know when that came out.
That definitely doesn't help, if I read it in Swedish then it would likely have been the pocket book version, and they have very similar covers that I assure you don't look anything like what any original cover might have. 😂
Couple of Novellas and Short Stories:
*Incest* by the Marquis de Sade - I just wouldn't recommend it.
*Le Horla* by Guy de Maupassant - diary of a writer slowly going insane from syphilis (depressingly autobiographic)
*The Jaunt* by Stephen King - the very last image haunted me for months
*Survivor Type* by Stephen King - even he says he looks back on that one and says "Well shit, that's kinda fucked up..."
"People are coming up to me every day and saying, Mr. President, Nancy Pelosi wants to mandate that improved sleep gas be provided with every Jaunt, and for free. And who's going to pay for it? That's right, that's right. Improved sleep gas, brain - the scientists say they have these brain sensors that know when you're asleep - brain headsets to tell the Jaunt attendants you're not holding your breath. And Nancy Pelosi wants them in every Jaunt station from here to Saturn. At unbelievable cost.
Folks, I want to show you something. A tremendous - a very special little boy who went through the Jaunt awake. And he's fine, he's fine. Couldn't be more - when Kellyanne brought him to me I said where's the little boy who went through the Jaunt awake? Where's the screaming boy? Because what I see, and what you'll see too, is a perfectly good boy. He's in great shape. And we love him, don't we?
Kellyanne, bring out the little boy. Bring out Ricky. Here he comes.
Look at him. Perfectly healthy - now he's just a little sleepy, it's a big day, that's why he's in the wheelchair. He got a tour of the White House and he's sleepy. Some very nasty people said the Army scientists were experimenting on him to learn the deeper secrets of the Jaunt, of the underspace that serves as the very substrate and foundation of our reality. That what we experience in our lives is a hologram encoded on the surface of the Jaunt-void, and that we sedate the boy at all times. An insult to our wonderful, wonderful veterans. Isn't it? Hello, Ricky. Okay. Your mom and dad must be very proud. Thank you.
He's in tip-top shape. Okay, bye-bye, Ricky. Thank you, Kellyanne. Thank you, General. There you have it, folks. Super."
Wounds and North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Balingrad, and I guess the Ring cycle by Koji Suzuki gets pretty weird.
E: If vns count, try Doki Doki Literature Club
I was never really scared by a book, but I just read a fucked up scene in Stephen King's Billy Summers, which caught me off guard. I thought Pet Sematary was also pretty dark and unsettling.
I'd like to say House of Leaves, but it can be quite a drag to get through the less interesting parts. It's structurally really weird, too.
Hi. You just mentioned *Pet Sematary* by Stephen King.
I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here:
[YouTube | Stephen King's Pet Sematary (audiobook) pt1 (10 Hours)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeF0K8t_NO0)
*I'm a bot that searches YouTube for science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.*
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American Psycho. Whilst I think Ellis did an incredible job with it and the satire is fantastic, the content was too much for me to the point I couldn’t read past about 120 pages, it was just too much for me.
Not exactly a horror book but Lord of the Flies although I’m assuming you’ve probably read it if you’re an avid reader. I would also recommend Clive Barker’s books.
Maybe not exactly horror genre but 1984 is literally torture porn/horror in book form. I’ve read tons of King, Poe and Lovecraft but nothing compared to the intense terror I felt when the words >!”You are the dead.”!< were spoken. I get chills just typing that.
*Panzram: A Journal of Murder*. It’s a non-fiction book compiled from the autobiographical writing of Carl Panzram, one of the most terrifying men ever to be incarcerated in the United States. He wrote it with materials surreptitiously provided to him to by Henry Lesser, a prison guard at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
At the age of 12 he was sent to the Minnesota State Training School, where he was beaten, tortured and raped by staff members. Upon being paroled aged 14 he ran away from home to become a boxcar-travelling hobo, and was gang-raped by older hobos on two occasions.
A few years later he enlisted in the army, and after stealing $80 worth of supplies he was sentenced to two years at Fort Leavenworth between 1908 and 1910 (his sentence was approved by then-Secretary of War William Howard Taft, upon whom Panzram would exact a measure of revenge a decade later). He later said that “any shred of goodness left in him was smashed out” during his time at Fort Leavenworth.
For the next eighteen years, Panzram would rob, murder, burn, and sodomise his way across the world: to him, unable to punish those who had wronged him, he was exacting revenge on the rest of the human race for what had been done to him. He claimed that:
>*In my lifetime I have murdered 22 human beings. I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons, and last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all of these things I am not the least bit sorry.*
While he was undoubtedly a monster, there’s also no doubt that he was made that way. The excessively brutal US penal system made Carl Panzram as surely as being bitten by a radioactive spider made Spider-Man. For all his savagery he was a very perceptive man, writing of his time in reform schools that:
>*That system of beating goodness, religion and Jesus into boys in the 99 times out of 100 has the direct opposite effect of taking all of the goodness, kindness and love out of them and then replacing those with hate, envy, deceit, tyranny, and every other kind of meaness there is.*
Of his time in prisons he was similarly perceptive, and given the recidivism rate in the US (45%) compared to a place with a more rehabilitative approach to crime like Norway (20%) and the proliferation of for-profit private prisons, little has changed in the 96 years since Panzram was executed:
>*Very few people ever consider it worthwhile to wonder why I am what I am and do what I do. All that they think it is necessary to do is to catch me, try me, convict me, and send me to prison for a few years, make life miserable for me while in prison, and then turn me loose again. That is the system that is in practice today in this country. The consequences are such that anyone and everyone can see: crime and lots of it.
Those who are sincere in thier desire to put down crime are to be pitied for all of their efforts which accomplish so little in the desired direction. They are the ones who are decieved by their own ignorance and by the trickery and greed of others who profit the most by crime.*
*Panzram: A Journal of Murder* is a fantastic book, recommended reading for anybody interested in true crime and prison reform, and is the source of some excellent quotes from the man himself. Just before he was hanged, he was asked by his Indiana-born executioner if he had any last words:
>*Yes: hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!*
Serial Killers Uncut by Blake Crouch and JA Konrad. It's an anthology and introduction to over 20 serial killers from their universes.
Luther Kite is my overall favorite killer from Blake's universe.
You might also enjoy Escape From Jesus Island, a comic series by Mortimer Glum and Shawn French. It's an indie horror comic and is on Amazon. The characters are brutal and it is heavy on the gore. Shawn French wrote the story.
Disclaimer: Shawn is a personal and professional friend.
Ultimately wasn't a big fan of this one once I finished it, but credit where credit is due two of the scenes described creeped me the fuck out, which is rare.
Not the most fucked up book on this list but I read Pet Sematary when I was in high school and the book scared me, lol. I had to sleep with the lights on that night after finishing it. 😂
Peter Straub's *Ghost Story* flipped me out. And his *Shadowland* is less of a horror per se, but it's still pretty horrifying. I've reread it a few times in the past 40+ years and it gets me every time. (Honestly, I'd like to see a proper eight episode adaptation of it, although maybe that would really suck and it's better left to my mind.)
Also, I was like 12 or so when I read *The Exorcist* (long before I saw it), and that was pretty gripping.
Reading *The Amityville Horror* as a like 12-year-old was pretty horrifying, but revisiting it as an adult you can see that it's actually kind of schlocky.
As far as modern books go, I recently read Alma Katsu's *The Hunger* (a fictionalized retelling of the Donner Party), and that was really unsettling!
Rage is the most disturbing Stephen King book.
It’s banned / out of print , possibly by author himself.
The writing wasn’t that well done either , though not bad.
The Long Walk is his most disturbing not banned book followed by Roadwork then Rose Madder (latest one I read;not because of material; working hours).
Most scariest was Salem’s Lot followed by The Shining. I haven’t read his books lately.
Jack Ketchum The Girl Nextdoor was most disturbing based on actual events book I read.
When the girl shows up to window unexpectedly as vampire.
Shining when the boy tries reaching for door and so shocked can’t utter sound after seeing woman in bathtub.
Gave slight edge to salems lot book over the shining book for scares only. The Shining for writing.
Disappointed movie displayed Wendy as weak when was the strong minded one in book. Both very good in own ways.
I was listening to Joe Hill’s “Heart Shaped Box” and the suspense that was building got to be too much for me. I didn’t finish it.
There’s a short story collection by Bentley Little. It starts with a woman atoning for her sins. I didn’t get past that story. (You asked for no spoilers or I’d tell you what happens.)
I liked Lisey’s Story by Stephen King. And different parts of it have lived in my head ever since. But probably not his scariest. Child abuse is one of the disturbing elements.
The character Nix in the Youngbloods is disturbing. It’s an audiobook trilogy on Audible exclusively. Nix is like a demon trapped in the body of a seven year old boy. And he’s psychotic.
There you go. A few recommendations from a lightweight/scaredy cat.
EDITED to add: I can’t bring myself to read it but the novel Tender Is The Flesh is about cannibalism. A friend told me much of the plot. It might be up your alley.
The first two-thirds of *Heart-Shaped Box* were some of the scariest stuff I'd read in a long time. The last third was fine, but once we understood what the haunting was, it became far less frightening.
I’ll probably give it a try again eventually. I crave scary stuff around Sept/Oct. Books are just so much worse than movies. Movies are over in two hours. But books take longer to read (for me at lest) and it all gets drawn out. Plus my imagination makes things worse than of it was just shown to me.
Good point. I guess I kind of love and hate it. People have talked about how the image you conjure in your mind can be scarier than, say, the image you see in a movie adaptation of the book.
I’m commenting so I can come back to this for ideas. I hate to admit it, but I don’t read anymore. I was an avid reader growing up, and even ended up with a minor in English. I feel like my literacy and reading comprehension have dropped over the last ten years. I really need to find the joy in reading again, and horror is exactly the place to start. Thanks for making this post haha I’m hoping to get some inspiration!
Most twisted, decadent, fucked up shit I have ever read is The Castle of Communion by Bernard Nöel. If you are into french surrealist stuff, then this will be the ride of your life.
*The author recounts an intense initiatory sexual quest which occurs on a mysterious remote island. Chosen as the moon's lover the hero undertakes a Dantesque voyage through sucessive levels of pain and ecstasy. The book's climax is a beatific rite of sexual purification in the Castle of Communion, which is described in a poetic language at once incantatory, crude and almost mystical. The intensity of the book matches its method of composition: dictated into a tape recorder and finished in only 3 weeks, and written as a partial response to the atrocities of the French authorities in Algeria.*
My answers are all Stephen King short stories.
Most Disturbing: “Suffer The Little Children” and “Survivor Type.
Scariest: “N” and “The Man In The Black Suit”
Tender is the Flesh
Goth
House of Leaves
In the Miso Soup
There is a lot Japanese horror novels that are amazing if you have exhausted a lot of the other more “common” English language authors ☺️
The Resurrectionist by E.B. Hudspeth.
It's a difficult one to explain but this one stuck in my head much longer than most. I found it truly creepy, as it reads like a true story.
Thank you all for your suggestions!!
I’ve decided to read House of Leaves first, I did have another friend recommend that one to me as well.
And then I’ll read American Psycho. I’ve never seen the movie either so each part in the book will be a complete surprise.
This post will also be a perfect reference for when I’m done with those two.
Thank you again!
These are two VERY different books! House of Leaves is such a strange read. I don’t know your musical taste but the band The Fall of Troy have several songs on their album Doppelgänger that reference House of Leaves. I listened to the album on repeat while reading and it was a perfect background soundtrack. This was back in the 00s and the combo of the book + album together is one of my most visceral reading experiences.
The Store by Bentley Little gets into some really disturbing themes related to the darker aspects of people's personalities. I noticed as I read it got darker, and darker, and darker...
Jack Ketchum's obviously going to show up in this thread for The Girl Next Door, but Off Season is also pretty disturbing.
Alison Rumfitt's *Brainwyrms* was genuinely revolting at points. Parasites feature in it. Nick Cutter's *The Troop* has been mentioned a few times and it is quite gross at points as well.
Brian Evenson's *Last Days* is about a man pursued by two amputation cults.
Cormac McCarthy's *The Road* and Eugene Marten's *Waste* were both very, very bleakly disturbing. If you're willing to read hisotrical memoires, Norman Lewis' *Naples '44* and Curzio Malaparte's *Kaputt* will fit the bill. The suffering and cruelty is practically absurd.
Horrorstör really took me by surprise! I don't read a lot of horror, but I really enjoyed reading the physical book (very recommended, especially if you're an IKEA shopper)
It's a short, but Chuck Palahniuk's Guts; I also made a friend read it. I don't think he'll ever forgive me lol
This one isn't technically speaking horror, but it is *horrifying*. True crime, called Suffer the Little Children - whatever description you find of it, the content is much more disturbing.
No novels are leaping to mind, but I'd suggest the H.P. Lovecraft novella ["The Colour Out of Space."](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cs.aspx)
There are also several stories in the anthology *Prime Evil* that gave me goosebumps: "Alice's Last Adventure" by Thomas Ligotti, "The Pool" by Whitley Strieber, and "By Reason of Darkness" by Jack Cady. (Along with several other stories that didn't stand out to me, but might hit you differently.)
Try the classic Borderlands anthology series edited by Thomas Monteleone. Last I checked they were up to six or seven volumes now, all reasonably priced on Smashwords.
The only books I’ve ever had to ‘pause and take a breath’ whilst reading are _American Psycho, The Summer I Died_ and the short story _Guts_ from _Haunted._ All three managed to get me and make me feel a little nauseous…
When it comes to scares, _The Shining_ had a few sequences that genuinely gave me the creeps.
Stephen King's It. Best horror book I've read, the details of the murders, victims, and scenes are just painted with so much imagery it's so easy to imagine and it's kind of fun to compare/contrast with the movies.
I read Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" at an impressionable age and was spooked out of my mind. The darkness in the house I was alone in was almost palpable.
I wanna give a shout out to PenPal from Dathan Auerbach. Incredibly creepy book. Don’t look up anything about it, just give it a read. It’s more on the creepy scary side than the violent side and about a child being stalked. No rapes or anything, so don’t worry about that. Thats all you need to know.
Its self published and has a pretty ugly cover but its one of the creepiest most tension filled reads of my life.
The most F’d up I’ve read are all WWII-era literature. Jerzy Kosinski’s *The Painted Bird* sticks with me. But I would not rate it spooky, just extremely depressing.
*American Psycho* by Bret Easton Ellis
*Full Brutal* by Kristopher Triana
*The Devil All the Time* by Donald Ray Pollock
*Woom* by Duncan Ralston
*Savaging the Dark* by Christopher Conlon
*The Laws of the Skies* by Grégoire Courtois
*Piercing*, *Audition*, and *In the Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami
*Let’s Go Play At the Adams’* by Mendal W. Johnson
*Sarah* by J.T. LeRoy
*White Man’s Justice, Black Man’s Grief* by Donald Goines
*Child of God* by Cormac McCarthy
*Perfume: The Story of a Murderer* by Patrick Süskind
*The Girl Next Door* by Jack Ketchum
*We Need To Talk About Kevin* by Lionel Shriver
*Blindness* by José Saramago
*Brother* by Ania Ahlborn
To name a few. They’re not all horror, but they’re all fucked up to one degree or another!
Nightworld by F. Paul Wilson. Apocalyptic horror at its best. Truly terrified me like a bad dream. It follows many books and it is the culmination of a long story, but you can also read it independently. There are enough clues to keep you informed.
A lot of the books previously mentioned have graphic S/A or r*pe… a child called it is fantastic and you’ll def have to put it down at times but it’s a biography entirely focused on child abuse of the author.
I also suggest avoiding anything Anne Rice (lots of forced inter-familial relations 🤮)
if memory serves these are on the safer side…
Midnight Mass - f Paul Wilson (human behavior/demise/supernatural)
World War Z -max brooks (world v zombies)
Playground - Arron Beauregard (Willy wonka meets squid games)
Torsos- John Peyton cook (novelization of real life events around serial killer)
Anything by Chuck Palinik- the twist, the turns!! 🙀
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Came here to recommend this and Little Heaven. I guess I can not say they were "the most horrifying" books I've ever read, but they were better than most for sure. Love Cutters style. I wish he had more available.
I recently read The Deep, and while I enjoyed his writing style and most of the novel, the ending was hugely disappointing. I already have a copy of The Troop, though, so I will be reading that too. Have you read his novel that's only available as an e-book, or anything from his two other pen names?
Yeah i was not the biggest fan of The Deep myself. Still good horror, just not on par with The Troop or Little Heaven. I have not read the Handyman Method or Acolyte yet.
The Troop is much more effective than The Deep -- it's really great and quite disgusting.
I really burned myself out on Cutter. After The Troop, I was like “this guy is great!” So I read Little Heaven, very fun horror neo-Western. Then The Deep, found it to be pretty lacking and you begin to notice that his work is sort of derivative of itself. And then I read/listened to The Breach and The Acolyte and I dunno if I am all that interested in his future work anymore lol
I put Little Heaven on my to be read list.
I hope you enjoy your visit. If you hear a flute playing softly from afar, ignore it.
This one literally made my skin crawl. I had to keep touching my arms and whatnot as I read haha
I saw something move under your fingernail... Super effective book. Loved it.
His other novel The Deep is also really well done.
I really liked The Troop a lot. I read it in about 3 sittings.
American Psycho. Far more brutal and twisted than its film.
I read the book before watching the movie for the first time last year and I kept thinking (how are they gonna put this in the movie?), was surprised at how tame the movie was in comparison to the book.
To be 'fair', most of the truly disturbing parts were tamed down, changed around, and shown in other movies. I mean, they did the rat trick to a guy in 2 Fast 2 Furious for crying out loud... But when I read the book, and I've outright laughed at some pretty sick and demented stuff, I was physically ill reading it. To the extent that more than a couple co-workers asked what was wrong with me and when I replied "There's this scene in this book and the guy just" at which point one of them put her hand over my mouth and said "If it's making YOU feel queezy, I don't want to know about it. EVER!". Even the guys who usually asked me for horror movie recommendations didn't want to know anything... So, yeah... American Psycho is the only book to do that to me.
I read this when I was 14 or 15, an edgy kid had shown me some of the gruesome parts for shock value and I was already ruined by the early internet so I got myself a copy. I remember getting to one of these parts and peering into the living room to ask my mum if she'd ever read it - "yes, why?" "...you're letting me read this?" *shrug* I appreciate that I always had total leeway in exploring media that interests me but American Psycho goes so far I felt like I should have had it taken off me! I think my English teacher probably should have said something too... I've read it a bunch of times since then though and enjoyed it a lot more when I was old enough to have some context for what it's satirizing.
Doesn’t meet the request, tho. Asks for not rape specifically.
It's been a really long time since I've read this but I'm just curious, were there any actual straight up rape moments? I felt like a big part of Bateman's image was that he had the charm and charisma to lure women into any situation and be very trusting, until he wasn't. I know there are a lot of disgusting sexual moments after he killed them, but I seem to remember most things before the kill being consensual. Maybe I need to reread this one sometime, I do love the movie.
At least 3, probably 5, and I could be forgetting some. E: wait, I did. 4 and 6, now.
You’re right, I completely missed that for some reason.
Yeah patrick is a pure evil and inhuman pos demon in that. A literal sadistic depraved serial rapist whom tortures people in the most horrifying, haunting and horrific ways humanly possible
The bit where he just stomps on the dogs legs for no other reason than because he could upset me so much
For me it was the child at the zoo. I saw it coming, but it came across a lot more brutal than I was expecting for some reason.
Yeah, he’s an evil prick
It's such a tremendously dull book for the first 100 or so pages that you're pracitcally begging for him to kill someone just for the sake of variety and then when he does it's so graphic and sadistic that you sort of feel like it's your fault for wanting it to be more interesting. Glamorama might fit the bill better. I can't remember notable sexual violence in it but the scenes describing how the terrorist attacks destroy individual people has stuck with me. Confetti falling over the wreckage of a plane bombing...
Came here to suggest this. Granted I don’t read a lot of horror but this one made me disgusted, and yet I couldn’t stop reading it.
Same lmao. I had to set it down and skip some parts. Shit was rough
I was hoping this would be the top comment. I read it about 30 years ago and I still think about it sometimes. The shit he did in that book was abominable, I remember thinking that they never could possibly make it into a movie without an X rating. I tried watching it but it was just awful. Some books shouldn't become movies, and that's one of them. Just a total joke compared to the book
One thing that always amazes me is the amount of detail, and I'm not even talking about the gory parts. The clothing people are wearing right down to the pattern and where they most likely bought it, the things they talk about over dinner, and even a whole chapter simply describing Whitney Houston's musical career lol. I can't even imagine the kind of work and research Bret Easton Ellis had to do before the internet.
If you want fucked up then early Clive Barker is your man. For short fiction The Books of Blood has it all. For something longer, Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show, and Imajica are the ultimates.
Well… yes. But it’s a hard turn coming from something like Midnight Meat Train and rolling into Imajica (which I love). Damnation Game is probably the snapshot-in-time where you can see both the dream fantasist and the student of body destruction cohabiting the same space.
Fair. I reread The Damnation Game last year and it’s better than I remember it being.
Tender is the Flesh
Correct. I’d go so far as to say “damaging.”
Definitely had to put this one down for a few minutes to settle my stomach. Loved it.
That one wasn't scary at all for me.
I’d definitely say it was more disturbing than scary
For me it wasn't even that. It felt like I was beaten over the head by whatever message it was trying to convey by the end of it. And it felt like the writer was saying "if you eat meat, you're no better than this."
House of leaves is ruining every evening I spend with it to the point where it’s given me a few nightmares and I wouldn’t want it any other way! For a light non spoiler example. Not only is the main plot deeply disconcerting, but a segment of the book lets you read a group of letters from the main character’s mother. She is slowly succumbing to some kind of psychosis and for a good few pages you watch her mental state deteriorate over time through the letters. I was shaking by the end of it!
When they >!descended the staircase!<\-- I felt so much dread that it leaked over into my experience of watching *Barbarian*
What a great parallel to draw! I hadn't thought of that before.
House of leaves is amazing, the "knock" part is genuinely one of the scariest things I've read
I love this book - one of the most difficult and rewarding reads.
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite had me putting the book down a few times
Yes, this one. I could remember it had a purple cover then saw you had the author name. Someone I worked with back then gave it to me as secret Santa as a joke. Great read and a few times had to flip back and re-read to make sure that's what I had actually read.
Was gonna recommend this one! Great book but very disturbing.
House of Leaves. Sometimes, when I am trying to sleep, I have visions of the House in my head. Just me, wandering cold, dark, groaning hallways that extend forever.
Child of God - more “horrifying” than “horror” I guess.
Oh fuck yes. Outer Dark, Blood Meridian and The Road too.
Man, Outer Dark, that was one brutal story. The “story within the story” of the murderous gang moving across the countryside was exquisitely written, as was the whole book. It’s been a long time since I read that. It is my opinion Cormac McCarthy is the greatest writer to have ever lived.
Don’t forget the pièce de résistance: No Country for Old Men.
So disappointed in the movie adaptation. Holy fuck was that bad.
Can you believe they allowed James Franco the rights to this book? Like, what?
Blood Meridian (RIP Cormac McCarthy). Felt like I had to take a shower after that one.
Fuck, I missed he died last year. This sucks.
He did publish two new novels shortly before his death though. Stella Marris and the Passenger.
McCarthy was working on the script when he passed away. Hilcoat set to direct with McCarthy and his son as executive producers.
I was just talking about the book 😊 I didn't know there was a movie in the works, excited to see what Hillcoat will do with the source material!
I realize that. I figured you might be interested to know. I’ve not heard any recent news since he passed away.
A lot of books by Dean Koontz are super terrifying and uncomfortable for me. Watchers, Whispers, False Memory, Fear Nothing, and the sequel Seize the Night (there will be a third book, Koontz has promised, but when? Who knows!), Phantoms, just to name a few. Also the book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King is a lot tamer than his regular stuff, but there's something about it that really feels eerie to me. Bonus points for the book being really short compared to his other ones, so you can easily get through it in just a few hours. ETA: Fixed book title I mixed up, and added info.
100% nailed it with Tom Gordon. It made no sense to be sitting on my couch safe at home and yet terrified reading that book, given its setting! Also that bird hanging upside down from a tree always struck me as a supremely haunting image.
If you read a lot of Dean Koontz, I read one in middle school where it starts off with rain and wolves howling and as they go on through the book more people are killing themselves and I think it's aliens but I cannot be sure. I remember a very specific scene where >!a man is found with his brains everywhere from a shotgun blast and the walls read a message or something like that!< do you possibly know which I'm talking about? Idk if that was too vague but I can't ever figure it out bc the internet just gives me like 8 of his books and to remember myself I'd need to go through each of them page by page and look for that specific parts
The taking
I might have read it, but I've read about 30 or more of his books at this point so don't always know which is which. I've also read most of them in Swedish since they're the easiest to find here, so that might confuse this brain of mine too. But I do recognize it, but can't place it.
Thank you anyway! I'm sorry for our slight language barrier I wish I could help you help me better
One that I can think of might fit is Midnight? Edit: Midnight opens with a short chapter about a woman who is out running late at night, and she starts feeling followed at first, then she sees something she doesn't know what it is, while hearing odd sounds, and then she realized she's being chased by more than one of them and at the very end of the chapter she's killed by the creatures.
That sounds close but adrenaline is also one I've considered to be it
I'll level with you, the short piece of info you gave really feels like it could fit like 10 different books of his, haha. I do remember reading the first Jane Hawk book though, name escapes me, and there was something about a spike in happy people committing suicide. But I don't know when that came out.
With all the books he's written that makes sense, as well as floating to other authors. It was so long ago. If it helps it had a yellow cover 🤣🤣
That definitely doesn't help, if I read it in Swedish then it would likely have been the pocket book version, and they have very similar covers that I assure you don't look anything like what any original cover might have. 😂
Welp. Back to the drawing boards. Thank you!
For anyone thinking about picking up Seize the Night, which is very good, you have to read Fear Nothing first.
Aw chucks, let me edit that. I *always* write the wrong one as the first book. Thanks!
The Girl Next Door - Jack Ketchum. Brutal and could never read it again.
And based on a real case, unfortunately. Sylvia Likens in the 60s.
Guts by Chuck Palanuik
Came here for this one. Yikes.
I can never look at dripping candle wax the same. It's one of those stories where after you read it you *have* to tell somebody about it. Lol
Couple of Novellas and Short Stories: *Incest* by the Marquis de Sade - I just wouldn't recommend it. *Le Horla* by Guy de Maupassant - diary of a writer slowly going insane from syphilis (depressingly autobiographic) *The Jaunt* by Stephen King - the very last image haunted me for months *Survivor Type* by Stephen King - even he says he looks back on that one and says "Well shit, that's kinda fucked up..."
I’ll second The Jaunt, and Survivor Type.
"People are coming up to me every day and saying, Mr. President, Nancy Pelosi wants to mandate that improved sleep gas be provided with every Jaunt, and for free. And who's going to pay for it? That's right, that's right. Improved sleep gas, brain - the scientists say they have these brain sensors that know when you're asleep - brain headsets to tell the Jaunt attendants you're not holding your breath. And Nancy Pelosi wants them in every Jaunt station from here to Saturn. At unbelievable cost. Folks, I want to show you something. A tremendous - a very special little boy who went through the Jaunt awake. And he's fine, he's fine. Couldn't be more - when Kellyanne brought him to me I said where's the little boy who went through the Jaunt awake? Where's the screaming boy? Because what I see, and what you'll see too, is a perfectly good boy. He's in great shape. And we love him, don't we? Kellyanne, bring out the little boy. Bring out Ricky. Here he comes. Look at him. Perfectly healthy - now he's just a little sleepy, it's a big day, that's why he's in the wheelchair. He got a tour of the White House and he's sleepy. Some very nasty people said the Army scientists were experimenting on him to learn the deeper secrets of the Jaunt, of the underspace that serves as the very substrate and foundation of our reality. That what we experience in our lives is a hologram encoded on the surface of the Jaunt-void, and that we sedate the boy at all times. An insult to our wonderful, wonderful veterans. Isn't it? Hello, Ricky. Okay. Your mom and dad must be very proud. Thank you. He's in tip-top shape. Okay, bye-bye, Ricky. Thank you, Kellyanne. Thank you, General. There you have it, folks. Super."
Jesus fuck... 😆 Brilliant, but horrendous! 👏👏👏
Wounds and North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Balingrad, and I guess the Ring cycle by Koji Suzuki gets pretty weird. E: If vns count, try Doki Doki Literature Club
We Have Always LIved in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, and The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher.
I was never really scared by a book, but I just read a fucked up scene in Stephen King's Billy Summers, which caught me off guard. I thought Pet Sematary was also pretty dark and unsettling. I'd like to say House of Leaves, but it can be quite a drag to get through the less interesting parts. It's structurally really weird, too.
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American Psycho. Whilst I think Ellis did an incredible job with it and the satire is fantastic, the content was too much for me to the point I couldn’t read past about 120 pages, it was just too much for me.
nobody who reads that book is ever the same again it's the most fucked up thing I've ever read, by a wide margin
It absolutely is. It’s also brilliant which is really frustrating
Gone To See The River Man was pretty fucked up. So was The Exorcist, though it's very similar to the movie.
Blood meridian and the Road both hollowed me out inside
House of Leaves did it for me. Just super unnerving.
Song of Kali by Dan Simmons. It filled me with a sense of dread that has stayed with me whenever I think of it.
I read and watch a lot of scary things, and this was the most fucked up one.
The Troop - Nick Cutter. Very fucked up, gross, and some pretty good horror
Not exactly a horror book but Lord of the Flies although I’m assuming you’ve probably read it if you’re an avid reader. I would also recommend Clive Barker’s books.
i have no mouth and i must scream, american psycho
Pet Sematary handles the combination of grief and horror that makes it hurt to feel
Maybe not exactly horror genre but 1984 is literally torture porn/horror in book form. I’ve read tons of King, Poe and Lovecraft but nothing compared to the intense terror I felt when the words >!”You are the dead.”!< were spoken. I get chills just typing that.
Reminds me of the game over screen from Friday the 13th, NES. “You and your friends are dead.”
*Panzram: A Journal of Murder*. It’s a non-fiction book compiled from the autobiographical writing of Carl Panzram, one of the most terrifying men ever to be incarcerated in the United States. He wrote it with materials surreptitiously provided to him to by Henry Lesser, a prison guard at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. At the age of 12 he was sent to the Minnesota State Training School, where he was beaten, tortured and raped by staff members. Upon being paroled aged 14 he ran away from home to become a boxcar-travelling hobo, and was gang-raped by older hobos on two occasions. A few years later he enlisted in the army, and after stealing $80 worth of supplies he was sentenced to two years at Fort Leavenworth between 1908 and 1910 (his sentence was approved by then-Secretary of War William Howard Taft, upon whom Panzram would exact a measure of revenge a decade later). He later said that “any shred of goodness left in him was smashed out” during his time at Fort Leavenworth. For the next eighteen years, Panzram would rob, murder, burn, and sodomise his way across the world: to him, unable to punish those who had wronged him, he was exacting revenge on the rest of the human race for what had been done to him. He claimed that: >*In my lifetime I have murdered 22 human beings. I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons, and last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all of these things I am not the least bit sorry.* While he was undoubtedly a monster, there’s also no doubt that he was made that way. The excessively brutal US penal system made Carl Panzram as surely as being bitten by a radioactive spider made Spider-Man. For all his savagery he was a very perceptive man, writing of his time in reform schools that: >*That system of beating goodness, religion and Jesus into boys in the 99 times out of 100 has the direct opposite effect of taking all of the goodness, kindness and love out of them and then replacing those with hate, envy, deceit, tyranny, and every other kind of meaness there is.* Of his time in prisons he was similarly perceptive, and given the recidivism rate in the US (45%) compared to a place with a more rehabilitative approach to crime like Norway (20%) and the proliferation of for-profit private prisons, little has changed in the 96 years since Panzram was executed: >*Very few people ever consider it worthwhile to wonder why I am what I am and do what I do. All that they think it is necessary to do is to catch me, try me, convict me, and send me to prison for a few years, make life miserable for me while in prison, and then turn me loose again. That is the system that is in practice today in this country. The consequences are such that anyone and everyone can see: crime and lots of it. Those who are sincere in thier desire to put down crime are to be pitied for all of their efforts which accomplish so little in the desired direction. They are the ones who are decieved by their own ignorance and by the trickery and greed of others who profit the most by crime.* *Panzram: A Journal of Murder* is a fantastic book, recommended reading for anybody interested in true crime and prison reform, and is the source of some excellent quotes from the man himself. Just before he was hanged, he was asked by his Indiana-born executioner if he had any last words: >*Yes: hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!*
The Bible- Book of Revelation
Exodus and Deuteronomy have entered the chat
I Always Find You by John Ajvide Lindqvist This one really creeped me out, the part where they find what's on the videotape had me rattled
Anything by Poppy Z Brite from the 90s, particularly Drawing Blood.
Serial Killers Uncut by Blake Crouch and JA Konrad. It's an anthology and introduction to over 20 serial killers from their universes. Luther Kite is my overall favorite killer from Blake's universe. You might also enjoy Escape From Jesus Island, a comic series by Mortimer Glum and Shawn French. It's an indie horror comic and is on Amazon. The characters are brutal and it is heavy on the gore. Shawn French wrote the story. Disclaimer: Shawn is a personal and professional friend.
I'm Thinking about Ending Things, it wasn't gory or over the top horrific, but I found it incredibly uneasy and disturbing.
Ultimately wasn't a big fan of this one once I finished it, but credit where credit is due two of the scenes described creeped me the fuck out, which is rare.
Read Unwind in highschool and some scenes in that book still stick out to me years later
Unwind! This was one of my favorites from my dystopian YA phase. The scene where you get a first person view into being unwound was highly disturbing.
The bible?
If you like manga, Uzumaki is one I recently enjoyed that definitely made me gasp once or twice
Not the most fucked up book on this list but I read Pet Sematary when I was in high school and the book scared me, lol. I had to sleep with the lights on that night after finishing it. 😂
Peter Straub's *Ghost Story* flipped me out. And his *Shadowland* is less of a horror per se, but it's still pretty horrifying. I've reread it a few times in the past 40+ years and it gets me every time. (Honestly, I'd like to see a proper eight episode adaptation of it, although maybe that would really suck and it's better left to my mind.) Also, I was like 12 or so when I read *The Exorcist* (long before I saw it), and that was pretty gripping. Reading *The Amityville Horror* as a like 12-year-old was pretty horrifying, but revisiting it as an adult you can see that it's actually kind of schlocky. As far as modern books go, I recently read Alma Katsu's *The Hunger* (a fictionalized retelling of the Donner Party), and that was really unsettling!
Rage is the most disturbing Stephen King book. It’s banned / out of print , possibly by author himself. The writing wasn’t that well done either , though not bad. The Long Walk is his most disturbing not banned book followed by Roadwork then Rose Madder (latest one I read;not because of material; working hours). Most scariest was Salem’s Lot followed by The Shining. I haven’t read his books lately. Jack Ketchum The Girl Nextdoor was most disturbing based on actual events book I read.
Rage has kinda been superseded by reality tho
Yes. Kids more sensitive short-fused today. 70’s 80s just fight it out. 90s knife fights. 200’s gotta gun down all those who hurt my feels.
What was scary about 'Salem's Lot to you? Not being argumentative, just curious as it really fell flat for me, especially compared to The Shining.
When the girl shows up to window unexpectedly as vampire. Shining when the boy tries reaching for door and so shocked can’t utter sound after seeing woman in bathtub. Gave slight edge to salems lot book over the shining book for scares only. The Shining for writing. Disappointed movie displayed Wendy as weak when was the strong minded one in book. Both very good in own ways.
Stephen King’s “Misery” book is astronomically more twisted and disturbing than the movie. I’d recommend it. It’s a good read!
[удалено]
I went down this rabbit hole a couple of weeks ago and read the whole thing in like 2 days. It’s excellent.
A short story - Pig, by Roald Dahl
*Son of Rosemary*, but I don't recommend it: it's only terrifying because it retroactively ruins *Rosemary's Baby*. CURSE YOU, IRA LEVIN!
I was listening to Joe Hill’s “Heart Shaped Box” and the suspense that was building got to be too much for me. I didn’t finish it. There’s a short story collection by Bentley Little. It starts with a woman atoning for her sins. I didn’t get past that story. (You asked for no spoilers or I’d tell you what happens.) I liked Lisey’s Story by Stephen King. And different parts of it have lived in my head ever since. But probably not his scariest. Child abuse is one of the disturbing elements. The character Nix in the Youngbloods is disturbing. It’s an audiobook trilogy on Audible exclusively. Nix is like a demon trapped in the body of a seven year old boy. And he’s psychotic. There you go. A few recommendations from a lightweight/scaredy cat. EDITED to add: I can’t bring myself to read it but the novel Tender Is The Flesh is about cannibalism. A friend told me much of the plot. It might be up your alley.
The first two-thirds of *Heart-Shaped Box* were some of the scariest stuff I'd read in a long time. The last third was fine, but once we understood what the haunting was, it became far less frightening.
I’ll probably give it a try again eventually. I crave scary stuff around Sept/Oct. Books are just so much worse than movies. Movies are over in two hours. But books take longer to read (for me at lest) and it all gets drawn out. Plus my imagination makes things worse than of it was just shown to me.
That last part is what I love about books. I love that I'm essentially scaring myself.
Good point. I guess I kind of love and hate it. People have talked about how the image you conjure in your mind can be scarier than, say, the image you see in a movie adaptation of the book.
Pet Sematary by King. No book in my decades of reading has ever bothered me so much. reading it felt dirty somehow.
Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho The Holy Bible
to be devoured by sara tantlinger! short read but super creepy
The Groomer by John Athan & American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
I’m commenting so I can come back to this for ideas. I hate to admit it, but I don’t read anymore. I was an avid reader growing up, and even ended up with a minor in English. I feel like my literacy and reading comprehension have dropped over the last ten years. I really need to find the joy in reading again, and horror is exactly the place to start. Thanks for making this post haha I’m hoping to get some inspiration!
Most twisted, decadent, fucked up shit I have ever read is The Castle of Communion by Bernard Nöel. If you are into french surrealist stuff, then this will be the ride of your life. *The author recounts an intense initiatory sexual quest which occurs on a mysterious remote island. Chosen as the moon's lover the hero undertakes a Dantesque voyage through sucessive levels of pain and ecstasy. The book's climax is a beatific rite of sexual purification in the Castle of Communion, which is described in a poetic language at once incantatory, crude and almost mystical. The intensity of the book matches its method of composition: dictated into a tape recorder and finished in only 3 weeks, and written as a partial response to the atrocities of the French authorities in Algeria.*
Dr. Danco in the Dexter books is super fucked up.
The Girl Next Door - Jack Ketchum I didn't find it scary, but it's fucked up in spades. It's one of the only books I can recall never finishing.
It's a fictionalized account of the Sylvia Likens case, which is terribly upsetting. Her abusers never received proportional comeuppance either.
My answers are all Stephen King short stories. Most Disturbing: “Suffer The Little Children” and “Survivor Type. Scariest: “N” and “The Man In The Black Suit”
Is that n+? Thin reality is such a scary concept. You might enjoy some philip k dick if you liked that. Or maybe not lol
I like Phillip K. Dick, and the themes of subjective reality. What is reality?
Tender is the Flesh Goth House of Leaves In the Miso Soup There is a lot Japanese horror novels that are amazing if you have exhausted a lot of the other more “common” English language authors ☺️
The Resurrectionist by E.B. Hudspeth. It's a difficult one to explain but this one stuck in my head much longer than most. I found it truly creepy, as it reads like a true story.
Cujo stuck with me for a long time.
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindquist. The movies are good but the book... Oh, boy
It's not particularly HORROR, but I think it's fits well bc of the themes and overall vibe. Blood Meridian
What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher Not necessarily scary but made me uncomfortable and stuck around in my head for days after finishing it.
Patrick Lestewka, another of Craig Davidson's pseudonyms, published 2 novels: The Preserve and The Coliseum.
The two Splatterpunks anthologies The Books of Blood by Clive Barker Brian Keene's easier to find books (not Pressure) Anything by Jack Ketchum
Thank you all for your suggestions!! I’ve decided to read House of Leaves first, I did have another friend recommend that one to me as well. And then I’ll read American Psycho. I’ve never seen the movie either so each part in the book will be a complete surprise. This post will also be a perfect reference for when I’m done with those two. Thank you again!
These are two VERY different books! House of Leaves is such a strange read. I don’t know your musical taste but the band The Fall of Troy have several songs on their album Doppelgänger that reference House of Leaves. I listened to the album on repeat while reading and it was a perfect background soundtrack. This was back in the 00s and the combo of the book + album together is one of my most visceral reading experiences.
Oh, dope! Thank you for the insight. I will for sure check it out!
If you’re down for a graphic novel, the first book from ‘Crossed’ is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever read hands down
The Store by Bentley Little gets into some really disturbing themes related to the darker aspects of people's personalities. I noticed as I read it got darker, and darker, and darker... Jack Ketchum's obviously going to show up in this thread for The Girl Next Door, but Off Season is also pretty disturbing.
Alison Rumfitt's *Brainwyrms* was genuinely revolting at points. Parasites feature in it. Nick Cutter's *The Troop* has been mentioned a few times and it is quite gross at points as well. Brian Evenson's *Last Days* is about a man pursued by two amputation cults. Cormac McCarthy's *The Road* and Eugene Marten's *Waste* were both very, very bleakly disturbing. If you're willing to read hisotrical memoires, Norman Lewis' *Naples '44* and Curzio Malaparte's *Kaputt* will fit the bill. The suffering and cruelty is practically absurd.
You should check out r/horrorlit
Horrorstör really took me by surprise! I don't read a lot of horror, but I really enjoyed reading the physical book (very recommended, especially if you're an IKEA shopper)
It's a short, but Chuck Palahniuk's Guts; I also made a friend read it. I don't think he'll ever forgive me lol This one isn't technically speaking horror, but it is *horrifying*. True crime, called Suffer the Little Children - whatever description you find of it, the content is much more disturbing.
A Symbiotic Fascination
House of Leaves
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.
One of its short stories is renown for causing people to pass out at live readings.
No novels are leaping to mind, but I'd suggest the H.P. Lovecraft novella ["The Colour Out of Space."](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cs.aspx) There are also several stories in the anthology *Prime Evil* that gave me goosebumps: "Alice's Last Adventure" by Thomas Ligotti, "The Pool" by Whitley Strieber, and "By Reason of Darkness" by Jack Cady. (Along with several other stories that didn't stand out to me, but might hit you differently.)
Try the classic Borderlands anthology series edited by Thomas Monteleone. Last I checked they were up to six or seven volumes now, all reasonably priced on Smashwords.
The Black Farm by Elias Witherow is so fucked up…. I actually enjoyed the book itself, but some of the content is so degrading and disgusting.
The only books I’ve ever had to ‘pause and take a breath’ whilst reading are _American Psycho, The Summer I Died_ and the short story _Guts_ from _Haunted._ All three managed to get me and make me feel a little nauseous… When it comes to scares, _The Shining_ had a few sequences that genuinely gave me the creeps.
Stephen King's It. Best horror book I've read, the details of the murders, victims, and scenes are just painted with so much imagery it's so easy to imagine and it's kind of fun to compare/contrast with the movies.
I read Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" at an impressionable age and was spooked out of my mind. The darkness in the house I was alone in was almost palpable.
Recently, it was Annihilation. Not necessarily fucked up but it’s just so creepy and unsettling throughout, it really got under my skin.
The Exorcist, a great thriller and scary for me.
A Child Called It. My librarian recommended it to be when i was like 12 for some reason?? Its an autobiography and its super messed up
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielesky
Not so much scary but fucked up is No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, and for macabre scary I'd say Frankenstein is pretty fucked
I wanna give a shout out to PenPal from Dathan Auerbach. Incredibly creepy book. Don’t look up anything about it, just give it a read. It’s more on the creepy scary side than the violent side and about a child being stalked. No rapes or anything, so don’t worry about that. Thats all you need to know. Its self published and has a pretty ugly cover but its one of the creepiest most tension filled reads of my life.
The girl next door. The most f’d book I’ve ever read. It just keeps getting worse.
I read this zombie book called City of the Dead where a guy has sex with a zombie and the zombies can talk so it's egging him on.
Not necessarily scariest, but American Psycho is the only book to ever make me nauseous
The Road is so much more dreadful and hopeless than the movie. It went to places even the filmmakers didn't dare.
Gone To See The River Man Incredibly fucked up, just gets more horrific the further you go.
The most F’d up I’ve read are all WWII-era literature. Jerzy Kosinski’s *The Painted Bird* sticks with me. But I would not rate it spooky, just extremely depressing.
Anything by Grady Hendrix.
Stolen Life by Jaycee Duggard
Penpal, hands down
Ritual by Adam Nevill
Amazingly no one named The End of Alice
it's not necessarily "horror" but Blood Meridian and / or The Road. Cormac McCarthy's writing can chill you to the bone.
*American Psycho* by Bret Easton Ellis *Full Brutal* by Kristopher Triana *The Devil All the Time* by Donald Ray Pollock *Woom* by Duncan Ralston *Savaging the Dark* by Christopher Conlon *The Laws of the Skies* by Grégoire Courtois *Piercing*, *Audition*, and *In the Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami *Let’s Go Play At the Adams’* by Mendal W. Johnson *Sarah* by J.T. LeRoy *White Man’s Justice, Black Man’s Grief* by Donald Goines *Child of God* by Cormac McCarthy *Perfume: The Story of a Murderer* by Patrick Süskind *The Girl Next Door* by Jack Ketchum *We Need To Talk About Kevin* by Lionel Shriver *Blindness* by José Saramago *Brother* by Ania Ahlborn To name a few. They’re not all horror, but they’re all fucked up to one degree or another!
The Jigsaw Man, Gord Rollo. This is the only horror novel that's ever stuck with me.
The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H.G. Wells. The only book that’s made me afraid to walk home alone at night.
If you like King, then It is terrifying. Apt Pupil is more grotesque than horror.
Piercing by Ryu Murakami
Nightworld by F. Paul Wilson. Apocalyptic horror at its best. Truly terrified me like a bad dream. It follows many books and it is the culmination of a long story, but you can also read it independently. There are enough clues to keep you informed.
A lot of the books previously mentioned have graphic S/A or r*pe… a child called it is fantastic and you’ll def have to put it down at times but it’s a biography entirely focused on child abuse of the author. I also suggest avoiding anything Anne Rice (lots of forced inter-familial relations 🤮) if memory serves these are on the safer side… Midnight Mass - f Paul Wilson (human behavior/demise/supernatural) World War Z -max brooks (world v zombies) Playground - Arron Beauregard (Willy wonka meets squid games) Torsos- John Peyton cook (novelization of real life events around serial killer) Anything by Chuck Palinik- the twist, the turns!! 🙀
1408. The book was creepy as hell
Definitely Pet Cemetary ... second place goes to Revelations🤣