5 – Misery
This book would probably be near the top for some people, and I enjoyed it quite well. I felt like it’s a little bit too indulgent at points with Stephen King almost being the author character in the book. However, the book is creepy, and it does a good job with a classic horror trope of limiting the scope of the story. It’s been a while since I read it, so I don’t remember precisely how well it ends, but from what I remember, it has a more developed ending as compared to some of his other books. Definitely a classic of King’s and one that is referenced a lot. Also one of the few that has had a good movie adaptation done of it.

4 – Firestarter
Probably not one of Stephen King’s most horrific books, but I feel like it has a solid Halloween feel to it. A story about a girl with pyrokinetic powers is very interesting to think about, and then it adds in a government twist, that is done fairly well. But what makes this book fit into the Halloween theme is the one government agent, basically an assassin that creeps out everyone else. But with that, just the psychology of how he tries to get into the little girls head and how he tries to gain her trust, it’s written very well, and just has that nice creepy factor to it. This book is really where a lot of the feel of Stranger Things comes from as well, in my opinion. The movie version of this, while I have enjoyed it, is not amazing.

3 – Dreamcatcher
We’re in the classic Stephen King location of Maine, and things start to go weird on a hunting trip. This is a very odd book with some interesting choices for characters in it, but it’s a story that works well. It definitely has that vibe of not knowing if the characters are quite who they say they are and who is good. If I remember for this one, been a bit since reading it, it ends okay, though not as good as some of them, like Misery. But this is one of those books that you could say is part of a Stephen King-a-verse and ties into a number of his other books or takes place near them. It’s also a large book, so be aware of that while getting into it, but overall, it’s one that I really enjoyed.

2 – Under the Dome
This is not one of Stephen King’s older books, but one that people might know more because it had a TV show. What works extremely well in this book is that the good characters are morally grey, and the bad characters are very evil. Stephen King is generally very good at writing bad characters and sometimes struggles with his heroes when he tries to make them too good, thankfully, most of them are not great people, and in Under the Dome, that is certainly the case. The premise is also interesting with a dome that cuts a town off from the rest of the world physically. I like the villain of the piece, and I like how they wrap up that part of the story. I think that a fair amount of the rest of the ending is just a little bit too weird to really work well, and that’s saying something for King, but he doesn’t quite land it to match the tone of the story, but it makes sense in the Stephen King-a-verse.

1 – It
Probably no surprise that It is my number one Stephen King book. I have read It multiple times, and it holds up to each reading. Yes, the ending is a bit weird, but overall, it makes sense for a story that is a bit weird. The creepy factor is high in the book, and Pennywise is such an iconic monster. If someone wants to read horror, there isn’t a better spot to start than It in my opinion. How King winds the modern and the past together is interesting and works well. I’m excited when there is that super cut of the new It movies to see how they can intertwine the story together. Overall, this is just a classic bit of horror that I couldn’t not have at the top of my Stephen King list.

There is more Stephen King that I definitely need to read sometime. I haven’t read The Mist which is a classic of his as well, and things like The Dead Zone, which had a fairly long running TV show, that I should reread. And then there are some that I would consider duds like 11/22/63 which does some interesting things, but in the end feels like a book that doesn’t do much. Or something like From a Buick 8 which is just weird.

What is your favorite Stephen King story? Is there a book or a movie that you really love?

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Now, this is obviously going to be somewhat subjective because it’s my thoughts on horror, and your thoughts on what you prefer might vary greatly, but I think that there’s going to be a number of takeaways that most people will probably agree with.

Let’s start by thinking about why people read or watch horror. There are probably several reasons for it, but the biggest one that I know of is that energy that you get from feeling scared. It triggers some of the fight or flight adrenaline in people who love horror. There’s a sense of high emotion that you’re getting even though you’re feeling scared. It’s an energy that is going to stick with you for a while, even if it does haunt your dreams later.

With that in mind, how do you best go about creating those feelings and moments?

There are a number of things, but one of the biggest is also basic for any sort of story generation. Keep your characters interesting and sympathetic. You want your readers or watchers to be able to relate to the main characters, because then they are going to feel more when those characters are scared. It’s really being able to insert yourself into the shoes of the character so that you can imagine it happening to you. The more you can do this, the more of a true reaction you’re going to get out of people.

Now, that isn’t for every horror movie, in movies like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Cabin in the Woods, I doubt we feel like we’re any of those characters. In those cases you’re playing off of the expectations of people as to what is going to happen in a story. They will be looking for the jump scares to happen to those characters, but if the jump scare is done well enough, the people taking in your story are still going to jump as well. The stories that use this methodology aren’t going to stick around as long with people because you already have some idea as to what is going to happen.

Then how do you continue to build from there?

I’m going to break this part into two different sections, the more realistic first than the more trope driven methods of horror.

In a more realistic approach you’re trying hard to keep everything based somewhat in reality. A movie that I haven’t seen yet, but that has some reasonable feel to it while being completely out there is A Quiet Place. Being quiet so that no one knows where you are, that seems very reasonable to the human brain, which makes that movie scary. You’re going to feel for the people every time they make a noise because you can imagine it happening to yourself and how scared you would be when you hear a noise. Cloverfield is another example that seems a bit odd, because there’s a giant monster attacking New York City, how realistic is that? But with the handheld camera and found footage feel they are going for it feels more realistic and more relatable. Now, it’s less effective than some because it is a monster, but another thing that Cloverfield does well is the not knowing all the information about what is going on. This is also shown in 10 Cloverfield Lane. The main characters do not have all the information and because we’re basically just seeing it from their perspective, we’re also lacking in information which makes it more tense.

The danger to the characters also matters a lot, you don’t want it to feel like any characters are particularly safe. Cloverfield does this by having a character you met very early on who seemed fairly likely to survive dying in the monster attack, then another character dying from a monster attack part way through the movie. In fact, in that movie no one is safe. If you’re worried that the character you might light will die, that adds more to the stress and fear that you’re going for in this sort of horror.

Also, keep away from the buckets of blood. A grisly death can be effective in this sort of horror, but it isn’t needed by any stretch of the imagination, and really in any horror, the over the top plethora of violence doesn’t really make it scarier. A lot of gore isn’t generally scary, it tends to be gross. You’re going to get a reaction of revulsion versus being scared and that’s going really horror. It might be horrifying and traumatizing, but  if we go back to what my original definition for good horror was, it’s not going to kick up the fight or flight adrenaline. Especially in something that you’re targeting to be more realistic, it only works if you are doing something disturbing to a character that you care about, and something makes sense within the story. 10 Cloverfield Lane does this with the character being killed in a vat of acid, and even with that, they don’t focus in on the gore of it, it’s just something horrifying that happens primarily off screen. The concept of what is happening is where the horror comes from, not actually seeing the event, and how far the character is going to go is scarier than the actual event.

So what about the trope filled horror, how do you make that scary?

You still do want to feel for the characters some. So try and keep them somewhat sympathetic. They just aren’t going to be as realistic as the other type of horror. You’re going to have them fit into the various tropes as to what sort of characters are in a horror film. If you want to see a good way that the different tropes of characters are used in a horror film, Cabin in the Woods does it nicely with the characters starting out one way, and because it’s a horror film being shaped into a certain expected horror film trope.

Next you are going to rely on a lot on jump scares. It’s less about the psychological because you probably have a killer or horror instigator like Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger. They are not highly realistic, though they can do interesting things, like Krueger attacking through dreams, but even in that case, it’s more about how and when they pop up. I would say with a good jump scare it’s about misdirection. A viewer or reader versed in horror is going to know when to expect it to happen, but you want them looking for it in a certain spot and have it come in from a different direction.

You’re also trying to subvert expectations once in a while. The heavier trope focused horror should generally follow the expected story progression. You want it to feel familiar because people will start to get into the story and what is happening and start looking for things, and while jumps should fairly often come from a misdirection of where they are coming from, not so much when, you should try and have some sort of twist in the main plot that is at least a little surprising. It’s mainly done through the backstory of the villain in movies like Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, but you could hit other areas as well, such as having a character turn on the rest of the characters at an time they don’t suspect.

And how do you deal with gore in this sort of film? I still don’t think you need to lean heavily into disgusting violence. But this is the spot that you can use a bucket of blood. Black Sheep, a movie about zombie sheep in New Zealand, has a ton of gore to it with buckets of blood and people getting torn apart, but it isn’t done in a twisted sort of way, it’s just straight forward over the top gore. It doesn’t add much to the scariness of the movie, but as compared to some movies, it also doesn’t detract from the movie.

I think either of these methods creates an interesting horror story. It really depends on the person which one they prefer or if they prefer either of them. Which type of horror do you prefer and what are some of your favorite books, shows, or movies in the genre?

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The Dresden Files

These are also good Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and 4th of July books. Okay, maybe not, but I just really like this series, and the supernatural aspect with the fae creatures, demons, vampires, zombies, werewolves, and more showing up throughout the series, every book in the series is a good Halloween book. I’m currently reading through the series again, and it’s one that I suspect I’ll do that quite often. Harry Dresden is a Wizard PI in Chicago, and Chicago is a hot bed of trouble for the supernatural. How will he almost fail at and then eventually solve the problem that he’s being faced with? The Dresden Files aren’t a scary series, but they do have that monster feel that you generally associate with Halloween.

IT

Definitely my favorite Stephen King book, and I like most of his books, in fact another will be showing up on the list. One of my knocks from just putting Stephen King completely down as the list as any of his books is that some of them suffer at the end, they just don’t wrap up as well as you would hope that they would. It, however, wraps up the best, in my opinion and makes a very well told story. The interlacing of the two timelines also works so well in the book. Most people probably have some idea of what this story is, but in Maine there is a town, Derry, that has a monster in it, and while people don’t really think about it between when it strikes, it’s always there ready to come back. They were kids when It happened to them the first time, and now as adults they are going to put an end to it.

Firestarter

Probably not the Stephen King book people would expect to see on the list, but it’s one that I enjoy a lot. It’s an interesting balance where it isn’t just normal Stephen King horror, but has a good amount of suspense and craziness. Anything by Stephen King, at least that I’ve read, has some horror feel to it. A girl who is born with powers, because of some crazy experiments done on her parents is on the run with her dad as the government tries to chase them down. It’s an interesting concept and I feel like Stephen King was channeling Robert Ludlum for some of the writing as it has some more of the intrigue feel that you get from Ludlum. Probably not a story for everyone just because it isn’t as much horror, but I’ve enjoyed it.

Under the Dome

Last Stephen King work on the list, and I know there could be a ton of other options as well for Stephen King, like I said, it could be a whole list. In Under the Dome, a city is completely surrounded by a dome, and no one knows why, where it came from, or how to get rid of it. The horror shines through in this one a whole lot more then Firestarter because it really looks at the horror of what people might do in that situation. One thing that I really like about this book is how King manages to make his bad characters really bad, but the good characters definitely are more shades of grey than they are the knight in shining armor. That makes the characters much more compelling to me, and definitely has my most hated bad guys in King’s writing.

Coraline

So a major departure from the things I’ve written about before as Coraline is definitely leaning towards a children’s or young adult book, but Neil Gaiman’s story, definitely has that Halloween feel to it. From the talking cat which feels very Halloween like, to the other mother in the story, there are great nods to horror in the book without being too scary and without having the feel of blood and gore. I would say that this is a book that a parent should probably skim or read (it’s a short book) before giving it to a child because it might be much for some children while others might be able to handle it. If it is too much, you can always start with Gaiman’s Wolves in the Walls.

Neverwhere

Another Neil Gaiman book, and you can probably now tell some authors I like quite well, Neverwhere was originally a mini-series (which is okay), but was then turned into a book. This is definitely less horror and closer to the Dresden Files where it is more urban fantasy than anything too scary. However, the story, like The Dresden Files, does have some of that feel where there’s enough unsettling or fantastical things going on that it just matches the Halloween spirit. It’s been a while since I’ve read or watched this one, I should probably do that again sometime.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Again, an urban fantasy series, but there is so much going on in this story, it has more of a gothic feel than it does horror, but that still fits well in Halloween for me. What makes this series really interesting is the fact the fantasy isn’t the standard, New  York, Chicago, London story, it’s set in Prague, and the monsters aren’t the standard Vampire, Zombie, and Werewolf. While this does run into the issue of information dumping and going a little off the rails at the end of the series, it’s still really well written and does something that is very unique. Both Kristen and I like this series a lot.

What are some books that I could have mentioned? I know that there are classics out there, which I’ll mention right now such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Portrait of Dorian Gray that also all deserve to be on the list. I don’t want to completely gloss over them, but at least Frankenstein and Dracula should be two of the books that people first think of when it comes to Halloween books and that people might generally know more about.

I’m not sure that there will be any more Halloween lists like this, but I will continue next week doing more Halloween posts, just not sure what they’ll be yet, they might be more in depth reviews of things, like I did with iZombie, or it might be ranking various Halloween things for the fun of it, or maybe even a battle between Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies? If you have any ideas, let me know!

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