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Scary Stories
Has anyone, as an adult, ever read a novel or short story they actually found scary? If yes, what was it?
I can’t think of any. Just one short story I read as a kid. I had to finish it sitting in my mother’s tiny sewing room, sitting on the floor under the table as she worked. It’s something of a classic: The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford. Probably wouldn’t scare me now, though.
But is it just me that doesn’t get scared, or is that true for most adults?
Comments
I haven't been scared by a book. I have been squicked out, creeped out, startled, and shocked, but not scared.
I wonder what she found scary about it. I remember finding it annoying (at least the part about the (alien/devil?) running around and hectoring the main character (ransom?) about philosophical ideas.
Why is that not terrifying to you?
I can't remember being scared about a book in a very very long time. However, I do recall many years ago, when I read On the Beach by Nevil Shute, feeling very down for a few days afterwards. Few books made me feel like that.
Something about nuclear war always scared the crap out of me, which is a little odd since I was a little young, and not American, so the cold war and nuclear threats were not really as present as they would have been for someone a bit older.
But when I was a kid I watched a movie called Miracle Mile (not a good film) that absolutely terrified me more than any other movie I can think of.
I’ve found movies and computer games much more effective at making me feel scared because they can immerse you in the action in a way a book can’t. I remember one computer game - I think it was -Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth- which was a first person horror game, where you had to climb a long, tightly enclose staircase in a house up to an attic, and there was a close door at the top that was violently being pounded on from the other side. It gave you that feeling of impending doom and no way out that gave legitimate fear. But it’s hard to be so immediate in a novel.
I can’t think how many people I’ve seen complain that this or that ‘horror novel’ wasn’t scary, and when I tell them I don’t think ‘horror’ is the same as ‘fear’ I get a lot of blowback. For some reason people expect horror novels to be scary, but I’ve yet to have someone tell me they actually found a book to be scary.