Four Books and One Film that Actually Scared Me
Before we go into today’s post, just a reminder that I am running an online workshop on writing great opening chapters.
Four Books and One Film that Actually Scared Me
It’s that time of year again. The house is full of pumpkins, and somewhere Jamie Lee Curtis is either shivering with fear or counting her royalties.
I’ve been a horror fan since watching An Inspector Calls on TV one afternoon when I was off sick from primary school. This JB Priestley play isn’t a horror at all, but that final shot of the empty rocking chair rocking backwards and forwards, where the titular inspector played by Alastair Sim had been sitting only moments before, sent a delightful shiver of fear through me that I have never forgotten.
It’s hard to get a scare out of me these days, but recently Backrooms managed to creep me out a little with all those endless rooms, and Obsession both unsettled me and made me jump (and yes I might have screamed a little too).
So I thought we should celebrate Halloween with a list of four novels and one movie that truly, absolutely, 100% terrified me.
The Shining
It’s mirrors, and what might be in the mirror behind you that isn’t in the room, not that you can see it when you turn around anyway. I don’t even know if this scene featured in The Shining, but in my head Danny Torrance looks in a mirror and sees the rotting occupant of Room 217 in the bath, opening her eyes and staring at him.
I couldn’t look in a mirror properly for months after reading The Shining.
But it turns out my memory of that is all screwed up, because Danny sees the word REDRUM in the mirror, not the rotting, living corpse. This moment belongs to Jack Nicholson in Kubrick’s film, which I wasn’t to see for decades, and yet somehow I still managed to get them all mixed up.
Of course I was far too young to be reading The Shining.
Pet Sematary
I know, it’s Stephen King again, but damn it when he was at the top of his game there was no one better.
It’s the final line that gets me in this one, the very last sentence of the whole novel, and of course I won’t reveal it here and spoil it for you. But if you’ve read Pet Sematary you most likely know the line I’m talking about. It’s only three words long, but it kind of sums up the entire book in a way.
And it lands. Oh boy, does it land.
I couldn’t put this book down. Maybe part of the reason was the incident with the little boy. I was a relatively new father at the time, and so I think a lot of the father/son relationship struck me and helped draw me in.
My wife says I get too invested in the characters in a book, and she might be right. I burst out crying when I finished Eight Million Ways to Die, by Lawrence Block, not because I was scared but because I had invested so much in the lead character that his admission that he’s an alcoholic just hit me hard.
This is partly what was happening to me with Pet Sematary, and Stephen King is a master at creating living, breathing characters.
But damn, that final line is just plain creepy and scary.
The Gypsy’s Curse
I read The Gypsy’s Curse about thirty years ago, and I remember how infuriated I was with the main character. Why the hell did he let his girlfriend treat him that way? And she made his life a misery. On more than one occasion I wanted to throw the book across the room and be done with it.
I had a similar reaction to Crews’s novel Car the first time I tried reading it. Crews was a brilliant writer and managed to get under my skin in ways other authors never could, but his books were never a pleasant or easy read.
Despite this, I persevered with The Gypsy’s Curse.
I finished the story on a crowded train travelling home from work. I’d managed to get a seat, but there were people standing around me, up close and personal, and so I buried myself in my book. And then I read the ending, and I remember I looked up, and my face had gone cold, and I might even have gasped a little. What I had read had shocked me so much it had produced a physical reaction in me.
The Night of the Crabs
Oh yes, this one had me sobbing my heart out. Black Beauty did that to me too, but that was because I was sad. This time I was simply terrified.
Another book I read when I was far too young. We were on holiday by the sea (which might have added an extra layer of terror to my reading experience) and I had been reading on my own in my room. My cousin found me sitting on the bed sobbing away, and said he would take me downstairs to my mum and dad.
Obviously I said no! If they had found out I was so terrified by this book that I was crying they would have taken it off me. That was out of the question, because I needed to read the rest of it.
Many years later I had the pleasure of chatting with Guy N Smith’s daughter, and I told her the story of how her father had traumatised me. Her dad had died a couple of years previously, and I will never forget her saying, ‘Oh, Dad would have loved that.’
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Every time I watch this movie I feel like I have been yelled at in the face, shaken and slapped around, and just generally traumatised for eighty minutes. There is very little onscreen gore, which was probably down to budget limitations, but the atmosphere builds from the first moments and keeps festering and growing until you want to look away, but you can’t, you’re glued to the screen.
My youngest lad, Jack, pestered me for years to let him watch it, but he was too young and I kept telling him no, not yet. Finally, one Halloween, I said, okay, let’s watch it together.
My first viewing of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was on V2000 videotape, just before the Video Recordings Act of 1984 took it off the shelves and kept it banned until 1999 when the British Board of Film Classification gave it an 18 certificate, uncut. Watching a restored version with Jack I couldn’t believe how beautiful it looked, which is kind of ironic considering how nasty and horrible it is.
Anyway, the film finished and the credits rolled, and I turned to Jack and said, ‘What did you think?’
His reply?
‘I never want to watch that film again.’
Brilliant!
Four novels, one movie. Take your pick, surround yourself with carved pumpkins and turn the lights down low, but don’t forget to keep telling yourself: It’s only a story.
What book or movie managed to get a scare out of you?
That's enough of that for the moment!
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