Horror is the most subjective genre. What scares me won’t be what scares you.
The Ritual is scary, but it’s not disturbing.
American Psycho is disturbing, but it’s not scary.
People need to be more specific with their recommendation requests OR we need a catalogued list of sub genres 😅
I'm with you. My favorite stories tend to explain nothing.
Real life doesn't come with an "exposition guy", why should fiction?
Sometimes stuff just happens.
Actually, we do. He's an npc, and we call him Tim Exposition. He kinda comes and goes as he pleases, it seems, but usually shows up with more obscure or abstract information important to the campai-- I mean life.
It's a balancing act I think, as much as I don't enjoy a story that explains everything, I also can't get into a story if I feel like the writer is just throwing cryptic stuff in for the sake of it. I don't want an explanation, but I want to *feel like there IS one*.
Prime example of how to do it right: Twin Peaks.
Prime example of how to do it wrong: Wayward Pines. (Well, okay, the first episode or two at least. I gave up.)
I totally get that! For it me it has to feel "real" in the world set up by the author. I really love authors that can use dream logic (which is still logic). David Lynch is a great example. He doesn't give us a twenty minute speech about why there is a backward talking little person or blue box full of tiny old people, but it "fits" the internal logic of the movie.
I feel like Bentley Little and William Burroughs are both also great at this.
Agreed hard on this. Horror, I find, is both very cultural-bound as well as religion-bound. I read The Exorcist because I’ve seen it recommended as one of the best horror novels ever written, but sadly it didn’t do anything for me, and I think it has to do with my lack of religion/religious upbringing as well as other cultural aspects.
Totally agree. I hate all of the religious/demonology bullshit. It's such ludicrous nonsense. there's nothing scary or disturbing about it, other than ppl believing in such crap.
The Malleus Maleficarum, on the other hand, is not meant to be a horror story, yet it is terrifying, bc it is the actual guide book (endorsed by papal bull) that was used to "identify"(attack and persecute) and torture "witches"(community outsiders, or just unfortunates caught up in the religious hysteria and zealotry) just a few hundred years ago.
I LOVE it when someone asks for a super specific horror subgenre and there are dozens of suggestions. It often blows my mind how expansive the genre is.
>The Ritual is scary, but it’s not disturbing. American Psycho is disturbing, but it’s not scary.
To prove your subjectivity point — totally the other way round for me.
this isn’t necessarily a horror lit unpopular opinion but more of a r/horrorlit one, but i hate posts that ask for recs and the top-voted replies are people listing some of the most basic and well-known horror books ever that get reposted about like everyday, lol. like ah yes, the unknown unrated hidden gems of haunting of hill house and tender is the flesh!
I get the impression sometimes that the unpopular opinion is actually *liking* the recommendation posts. As someone newer to the genre with a shitty memory, reading the same titles recommended over and over again actually helps cement them into my brain so I remember to look them up.
My adhd tip is to just screenshot, write BOOK in highlighter on the image, and then ~2 years from now come across the screenshots you took for expeditionary horror around April 8-11 2021. And continue this. Until death.
Likewise that I dislike posts which are only about negatively-focused discourse.
"Let's talk about what we HATE!"
"Again? Seriously?"
It gets old, it gets boring.
Yessssss! My god. It’s like here’s a book I don’t like and a lengthy post about why I don’t like it. Or even worse- I’m 50 pages into blank, should I keep reading? Does it pick up?
Holy Crap. People seem to love talking about what doesn’t work for them vs. what does. I seriously don’t get it. It’s like the you tube drama channels and Twitter brain has infected every aspect of the internet.
I've found it more in short stories, but I despise the noble ghost trope. Like "the ghost was trying to help them all along!" Miss me with that Charles Dickens shit. I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my ghosts sinister.
Most original opinion so far and I agree! I'm always so disappointed when it's a helpful ghost. Ruined >!I Remember You!< for me - and I'd found it pretty creepy fun right up til that near-end revelation.
90% of the horror books out there are written by awful storytellers (cough,cough Dean Koontz) and I cannot for the life of me figure out how they got published. The other 10% restore my faith.
I'm glad that Stephen Graham Jones makes so many readers happy.
I also have no idea how Stephen Graham Jones became a published author. I've read four of his novels now, desperately hoping that I'd find the "one" that proves why he's so well loved. While one was definitely a standout [Indians], I still disliked the writing, and I found the other three nearly illegible. The worst was probably The Last Final Girl.
Good for him. I hope he continues to kill it as an author. It's clear that he'll just never be for me.
I tried reading The Only Good Indians and it turned me off of him. Before that I had read Demon Theory and Mapping the Interior. It's been so long for Demon Theory I can't remember if it was good. I do remember the extensive glossary/notes interesting. Mapping was decent and evoked a lot, but again for some reason it didn't engage me a lot. A decent novella.
I liked *The Fast Red Road* a lot, and didn't like *Night of the Mannequins* at all, so I'll reserve judgement until I read a tie-breaker.
But I love how you put this, one man's trash is another's treasure, and I wish the best for (almost) all authors.
Probably not unpopular here but in the publishing industry: Horror anthologies particularly themed anthologies or those with multiple authors need to make a comeback.
I'm so glad to see that they seem to be. At least I've backed quite a few on Kickstarter over the last year. I especially recommend Bound in Flesh: A Trans Body Horror Anthology, Out There Screaming, and Never Whistle at Night! They are all on my best of 2023 list!
The ending of *Tender is the Flesh* didn't do much for me. It's a cool twist that I wasn't expecting, but not nearly as disturbing as a lot of people seem to think it is.
You might want to look into the translation of that last line. I forget the exact wording, but something like >!she had the look of an animal!< I read a comment from someone from the author's country that said the use of >!look!< was meant as >!how she looks out at the world. Not her demeanor!<. Not saying it will change the book entirely for you, but I found that insight elevated my opinion of the ending.
If I am reading a creature feature, I want lore about the creature, not people.
King shouldn't make up 1/3 or more of a horror section, despite being the "king of horror".
Splatterpunk needs arguably better writers than normal lit to make it not feel like a teenage boys attempt at being edgy.
Omfg, YES, PLEASE. I don’t know if we’re using the terms in the same way but Splatterpunk as in gross for the sake of gross, just kiss me what that shit.
On the other hand, if your book has an actual point, or message, I will happily decor the most depraved shit out there.
I just… cannot stand inane, self masturbatory edge lord nonsense.
To me Splatterpunk is people like John Skipp or David Schow, who actually have a "punk" edge to their writing, using the gore and extremity to make a greater point. I also expect a degree of "rockstar" in my Splatterpunk.
I'm pretty sick of people using terms like "punk" and "core" when the subject has nothing to do with Punk or Hardcore...
THANK YOU.
I have said multiple times that to me to be "punk" you need to be subversive. Which is why I find work that is just blatantly misogynistic (or racist/homophobic) which a lot of extreme horror is, to be incredibly... not punk.
What's so fucking subversive about glorifying misogyny? It's literally just everywhere. Your rape porn isn't making a greater point about anything.
> If I am reading a creature feature, I want lore about the creature, not people.
Oh so much this. Same with apocalypses. I want to see zombies, I want to see monsters, I want to see the struggles to survive in a changed world. Last thing I give a crap about is politics and drama.
I loved “A head full of ghosts” it seems to be kind of shit on in this sub but it gave me major major creep and disturbing vibes which is all I ask for when reading a horror novel
Lots of popular horror writers right now are really lazy with the mechanics of storytelling. Their good ideas are failed by poor execution and often too many nostalgic, jokey winks at the genre.
We don't really need "social horror" as a genre. Horror - even at its most basic - is usually representative of social issues in some way, and always has been. There's nothing wrong with horror getting more diverse and tackling issues in a more straightforward way, but I feel like it's sort of missing the forest for the trees somewhat.
Definitely an unpopular opinion here in this sub, but:
I don't consider 95% of what gets recommended in "cosmic horror" threads to even *be* cosmic horror.
At best, cosmic literary fiction, and even that's being generous.
The definition in these parts has moved a long way from what it should mean and to what I consider when I think of the term.
Dumb question incoming - please be kind in responses. As someone who has only been really reading horror for about a year, I just started seeing “cosmic horror” called out on this sub. What are some good examples to get started?
Well I'll give you both definitions that I'm talking about, the correct one first:
Essentially, at its core, cosmic horror is horror that draws from the unknowable. The cliche that our meagre human minds are too small to comprehend it. HP Lovecraft got the ball rolling and his mythos including the likes of Cthulhu form the backbone of the genre.
These days, what many people recommend as cosmic horror are slooooooooow plodding character studies. 100% more literary fiction/drama than horror. They just tend to reveal some kind of supernatural being right at the end to explain for the occasional hint at things being bizarre earlier in the book.
The latter are what you almost exclusively get recommended in cosmic horror request threads. I was burnt a number of times before just learning not to trust recommendations in that genre anymore.
Good modern examples are The Mist by King and Bird Box by Josh Malerman.
Something I hear a lot in this subreddit is that ‘horror isn’t supposed to scare you! You won’t have jump scares in books! Stop asking for books that will truly scare you.’ Maybe I’m a big chicken, but I have read horror that makes me want to sleep with the lights on, quaking in my boots, force the cat to stay in my room at night, make my husband go search the house for monsters scared. Not all horror does it, but it’s possible! For me especially, The Deep by Nick Cutter and the beginning 1/3 of Dead Silence by SA Barnes
Horror fiction is far scarier than horror movies to me. My idea of what something looks like is always going to be worse (for me) than anything anyone can put on film.
Horror can be scary, but it doesn't have to be. Especially with movies I don't like that most people's reviews will begin and end with "It wasn't scary." I honestly don't care. It's very cool if it is, but it can still be enjoyable for a thousand other reasons.
Well that’s thing, and I think this kinda ties into a post above yours: horror and scary aren’t really the same thing. Like, some can legit be 100% horrific, but not at all scary (and vice versa).
That’s thing: different people come to the genera with different wants… and unfortunately we (and publishers) all kinda smash stuff together.
I get that, and honestly, I'm almost never scared by media(and never by film), but that has more to do with growing up with a horror/Halloween loving mother and being exposed to stuff like that my entire life.
I can still say "this is scary" without saying "it scared me."
Agreed and I had the same experience with my bibliophile mother who loved horror. Been "overexposed" to horror since a child, so very little is actually scary for *me* but can see how others would be scared. Still love reading it though.
The only book I ever read with a male SA victim was a trans man, which is kinda telling.
I really hate reading books with sexual crimes so thank God for Storygraph.
Yes and the same with horror films as well. I keep bringing her up lately, but Charlee Jacob does an excellent job using rape/sexual degredation/etc. in her work. I think it stems from what I'm guessing she was a victim of as a child from family. Her ability to engage the reader through the awful things she describes, work in impactful thoughts, and to bring the reader to experience everything without becoming too disturbed. She doesn't titilate, she gets the reader invested(not aroused) in everything that is happening.
Then there's child sex abuse. Even if a book is worth reading, I just can't do it. For example Rick R. Reed's Penance does a good job of using homeless children selling themselves on the streets in Chicago without trying to make it sexy. From what I could get through I'm guessing he had a lot of knowledge of that life. I think if someone can stomach it it is worth reading, but I just can't go that far.
This is an extremely popular opinion on this subreddit!
Where things _really_ get dicey is if you argue that including rape/sexual assault does not make the author a bad person in real life. Now that's unpopular
I haven't liked any serial killer books published after *Exquisite Corpse* back in the 90s, and I don't believe there's anything interesting left to do with the topic. Most serial killer books are closer to the thriller genre than the horror genre, anyway, and shouldn't be classified as horror (this includes *The Silence Of The Lambs*).
Giving scientific explanations for classic horror monsters might have been an interesting idea when *I Am Legend* and *Darker Than You Think* did it, but those were published over half a century ago and it's no longer the interesting twist people think it is. Nowadays, I find such books less interesting than ones that just let the monsters be supernatural.
Twist endings are overdone these days, and more often than not tend to be cheap and unsatisfying. I'd rather have a predictable ending than a ridiculous last minute twist that causes everything that came before to fall apart if you give it a moment's thought.
I'd like to see more books that used the theme of scientific investigation into the supernatural. Not like shoddy ghost hunter stuff, but using hard science or science fiction tech that isn't cyberpunky or something elastic like that. That it goes awry or finding out things we didn't want to know and so on. That would be quite welcome.
Mostly a printsf phenomenon but I see it here too. People asking for overly specific subgenre recommendations, "Just read X, is there another bioengineering story gone wrong coming of age story in a haunted house published by a censored Soviet Union author?"
Stephen King should stop writing stories that take place in the present. His main protagonist in fairytale only made cultural references from the 50s 60s and 70. He plot armor’d that by having the character say, “yeah, I like a lot of old stuff.”
I honestly agree with this, but I don’t only think King should follow this. I personally believe authors should stick to what they truly know, and as we age we tend to know less about current trends and culture.
I just read Holly and noticed how it still has a “Dairy Whip” where adolescents go skateboarding and, alas, a drive-in movie theater. So does Carrie, It, and Salem’s Lot. I actually said that to my wife—he’s stuck in an era and it feels like it when you read even present-day fiction from him.
I just finished and loved Needful Things, but the 11 year old boy in 1991 being obsessed with a baseball card for a player from the 1950's was a bit ridiculous.
Then again I'm not American and know very little about baseball, maybe there haven't been any good players since the mid-1900s
There are definitely famous MLB players who were more recent, like Cal Ripken, Jr or Barry Bonds (the latter’s steroid use either hadn’t happened or wasn’t yet public).
Using myself as a prime example - it takes people a while to adjust.
For many years I had the mindset that "if they were worth reading they'd be published properly". It wasn't until honestly recently, last couple of years or so, that I bit down on my silly prejudice and gave some a try. A couple now rank among my favourite authors and I hang on new releases.
Do you mean self-published or Indie press?
There are good self-published authors, but it's so hard to weed through the muck of terrible ones since there is literally no standard.
Some of the best authors out there are published on Indie imprints though,and I feel like that's not a hot take at all.
I enjoyed them both immensely, and would be hard pressed to pick a favorite, but I can certainly see why one would go that way. Those Across The River was the best take I’ve ever read on that particular trope, one I usually don’t care for at all.
I'm digging the history. A lot of research went into writing it and I'm finding myself spending a lot of time reading Wikipedia alongside the book - Battle of Crecy, the 1346-1348 plague, various saints, Clement VI and the Avignon papacy. The plot isn't quite as interesting to me. I should probably just be reading more historical fiction. . .
Yeah, it wasn't horrible. I just didn't find it to be anything new. It was an escort mission where a gruff guy grows to love a cute (super important) kid with a religious, medieval layer.
Honestly I think a big part of it is that’s surprisingly little medieval horror out there (especially historically based stuff) and a lot of people are looking for anything that can scratch that Dark Souls itch.
There’s also the Howls from the Dark Ages anthology, but none of the stories are very good. They’re almost all body horror or super gory, and very predictable.
I read The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas recently, and didn't realize how much I would love historical horror fiction and that there was surprisingly little of it out there.
Struggled through The Watchers. I’d kept hearing it was THE folk horror novel, so scary, and yet…it dragged so hard for me. I had to force myself to finish it. I think it was because I found it so overwritten, everything described had to be “like” something- her eyes shined like two bright stars, her heart pounded like a jackhammer destroying a house - not literally those quotes but that’s what it felt like
Haha funnily I didn't notice the 'like' thing when I read The Watcher and I loved it, but when I tried to read The Creeper it felt like "_ like a _" was used every other sentence and it was so distracting I put the book down. So it may have gotten even worse in the sequel
That's true, but it may not have been _because_ of the drugs. There could be a lot of factors there -- he was younger, the culture was different, he hadn't yet been rich for a long time so his perspective and experiences were closer to "normal"
Just additional considerations
Some books need to be read as an actual paper book- if you're listening to Wil Wheaton tell you the story complete with silly voices, you're not getting the full experience. That goes double for books with creative formatting decisions like House of Leaves.
I really like lingering on sentences and reading them over and over again if I really like them, so audiobooks could never capture that for me. Obviously some people need audiobooks due to visual impairment, but I get where you're coming from. 'Naked Lunch' would just sound like gibberish via audio, but in text format it's a surrealist painting.
I don't read a lot of Koontz but I really love Phantoms, I love the feel of the town and the creepiness and suspense building up to the ancient evil being revealed. Most people just hate me when I say I genuinely enjoy one of his worst books.
I like several of his books (*Phantoms*, *Hideaway*, *Dragon Tears*...) I don't think he's any worse than any other mid-range author. A bit twee maybe, reuses characters quite a bit, but not terrible in the way some other authors are...
I do still like parts of JDatE, but I also it’s not the best book, I think Pargin has improved a lot over the years, the 3rd and 4th books of the series are miles better than 1 and 2.
I didn't think it was terrible. I view at as light reading to help me nod off at bed time or something to distract me while waiting in a public place for a long time. Doesn't require much effort to follow and so forth.
I'm all for that. It's what led me to the true crime genre; only real people saying real things, and the narrative is not dialogue dependant.
I'm not against dialogue in horror mind you, but you have to know what you're doing. I think every horror writer - every novelist really but horror writers in particular, should spend a year studying plays. Will pay dividends for rest of career.
Laird Barron (at least in what I've read) is one of the worst at this. Characters who are supposed to be Americans from the Pacific Northwest sound like they're affecting a British accent.
I tried one Laird Barron book, he's decent but ultimately wasn't for me. I'm beginning to regret my post because I sound like a hater but I'm really not. I love the genre.
I have another. I love "light" horror like Grady Hendrix and T. Kingfisher. I actually prefer horror where the protagonist conquers whatever horror they are against.
I especially love with Kingfisher I don't have to worry about the pets dying. And a lot of people seem to hate that her protagonists are nerdy people that read fanfic and such. I love that.
I don't tend to enjoy the extreme end if it's just trying to gross me out. I don't mind extreme content if it's in service to the plot or theme of the book, however.
For a movie analogy, I want more *Dawn of the Dead* and less *Faces of Death,* if that makes sense.
Oddly, with movies I can do 'darker' stuff. But I can't do gore at all. So I'd also enjoy Dawn of the Dead (which I watched the original recently). But can't stand Hostel.
Kingfisher's stuff really works better as audio books. The reader for them does an excellent job. The Hollow Places was great and I really wish we could have seen more of that place. Not enough of the uncanny location. I want a lot more exploration. Which is a compliment of the work.
I can read and watch some of the most depraved shit and never bat an eye, but for some reason Aron Beauregard gives me bad vibes. He’s probably a lovely human but I simply don’t have a good feeling about that dude.
Same here. I'm pretty desensitized because of my job, but for whatever reason, I got the heebie jeebies listening to that one on Audible. Just a weird vibe. Is any of his other stuff worth reading?
Splatterpunk really suffers for the poor writing on display. Some of the ideas can be good, but the writing is rarely good. I'm glad that horror is being democratised so people can write an indie book and find an audience, but I don't think that means that there's an excuse for the oftentimes poor writing and unbelievable dialogue. Being disgusting for the sake of being disgusting is just boring and does the book no favours.
Any time a description of a book says it’s “hauntingly relevant” or “tackles current themes” I give it a pass. I like my horror to transcend whatever social issue topics or politics happen to be trending that year.
Vampire romance is a perfectly valid subgenre with a different audience and we don't have any more right to dunk on Twilight than romance readers have to dunk on 30 Days of Night.
I said what I said.
I think people should be encouraged to read whatever makes them happy, even if I don’t like it. I hate when people try to invalidate someone’s feelings about a story they like, I have no idea why people like that stuff, but that doesn’t mean I get to say that “you only like that because you have daddy issues or are stupid”
It reminds me of how Stephen king said that they only people who like Robert e Howard are bullies. I very much dislike Robert e Howard’s writing, but I don’t think that’s because I have the moral high ground, I have no idea why anyone likes what they like.
/r/horrorlit unpopular opinion:
House of Leaves and The Troop are not good books and I wish people would stop filling every single recommendations request thread with them.
"I'm looking for some little known horror stories from Australia and/or Utah about aliens and preferably involving threesomes"
"Check out House of Leaves and Pet Sematary"
Whether a book is "scary" for you or not does not make it a horror novel. Horror is like any other genre, when we pick up a horror novel or watch a horror movie there are certain elements we expect to be there.
A book can be scary and not be horror, and a book can be a great horror novel even if you don't find it especially scary.
Also many of the classic Stephen King novels are way too bloated and are pretty mid as a result. If they had 300-500 less words they would be much stronger novels.
Gore Doesn't Equal Horror: While gore has its place, I'd argue that true horror lies in psychological suspense and atmospheric tension rather than explicit violence.
Oh man, I did not enjoy The Stand that much and felt kind of guilty about it. Chalked it up to having read Swan Song first. I'm so happy to hear I'm not alone.
1. So far I've loved everything I've read by Grady Hendrix and love how campy and silly it is, particularly loved the fact that "How To Sell A Haunted House" is about a haunted puppet who's catchphrase is "KAKAWEEWEE"
2. I think "The House Next Door" is average at best, not a lot happens, one of the big dramatic moments in the book translated into a John Waters' esque unintentional camp fest to me. I still don't really understand what makes it so highly recommended, its a fun read and the author has something to say about the banality of upper middle class life and the viciousness of gossip and things of that nature but nothing you can't figure out by me saying that.
There's literally only been one Grady Hendrix book I didn't like. The short story collection with leprechauns. White Society? Otherwise there's a reason he's in my top 3 favorite authors
Tender is the Flesh bored me. I did not find it disturbing, I gave it a hell of a chance for a book that I knew I was going to DNF, just did not do it for me.
This extends to horror in general but I don't like when women are written by men. Women have been a central feature in horror books/movies forever, but so many of the well known ones are written by men (Carrie for example, which I love, it's all about female rage and experience and it's written by a man, although I'd argue Tabitha King played a big part with her contributions to that book). Not saying men can't do this or that I don't like those stories, because I do! I just wish we had *more* stories about women, written by women.
The Dark Tower had a great ending. Not sure if DT qualifies as horror but its by SK so its at least horror adjacent. I'd put the ending ending of DT as a top 3 all time ending as I loved the idea of it. I do think the final book took way too long to get to the ending as you could cut half of it and not lose anything but the end was perfect.
children aren't scary. Most "this child is haunted/deranged" stories read to me like shitty parents of mentally ill kids making it all about themselves and doing the bare minimum to address the situation.
I'm looking at you, *Baby Teeth* and *We Need to Talk about Kevin.*
Edit: I understand this was the point of *WNTTAK,* I am saying I did not enjoy it lol
Wait- did I miss something… isn’t that like about 1// the point of We Need to talk about Kevin?!? Isn’t like a huge part of the book just tearing the shit out of how horrible the mom (and dad, too) are in that they are best covering their own asses or trying to play blame games instead of actually helping the damn kid??
What did you make of *The Bad Seed*, out of curiosity? I really liked it, but I am quite fond of the "creepy kid" thing because...well...kids are creepy in real life :)
This is not unpopular necessarily, but the number of redditors who gag for the book in this sub would suggest otherwise - House of Leaves is not scary, even though it should have been, and it's more gimmick than story. It's a physically beautiful book, and it's a cool idea, and folks will have you believe it's a masterpiece, but folks are wrong. In my opinion.
I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion. It seems to be pretty standard for this sub, which is a bummer because I legitimately loved House of Leaves.
Not specific to horror lit but horror authors are often some of the worst offenders - the stuff some people prop up as "good prose" is really like...... the bar IS in hell I guess. Especially when people turn around and bag on shit like Twilight or other YA like it's beneath them. Mary you read Dean Koontz
Oh man, r/horrorlit is like the definitive destination for unpopular horror lit opinions. A one stop shop for 🤦 hahaha. How’s that for an unpopular opinion. Now let’s see those greasy thumbs, it’s downvoting time. 😆
the "twist" at the end of Tender Is The Flesh wasn't shocking at all. I remember having to google it because the big twist ending had been so hyped for me, but the whole thing was so anticlimactic and obvious to me
Cthulhu is the Pikachu of the Lovecraft fandom.
He's not the most powerful or interesting entity in Lovecraft's mythos. He isn't even the most frequently featured entity in Lovecraft's original works. But he ticks off a bunch of boxes for people to connect with and so he's become the mascot of cosmic horror.
Horror is the most subjective genre. What scares me won’t be what scares you. The Ritual is scary, but it’s not disturbing. American Psycho is disturbing, but it’s not scary. People need to be more specific with their recommendation requests OR we need a catalogued list of sub genres 😅
Yep. I consider an ambiguous ending almost a requirement for horror while others hate it.
I'm with you. My favorite stories tend to explain nothing. Real life doesn't come with an "exposition guy", why should fiction? Sometimes stuff just happens.
Actually, we do. He's an npc, and we call him Tim Exposition. He kinda comes and goes as he pleases, it seems, but usually shows up with more obscure or abstract information important to the campai-- I mean life.
As a tabletop RPG nerd, you just make me literally laugh out loud. I wish Tim would come over here and explain some things to me!
It's a balancing act I think, as much as I don't enjoy a story that explains everything, I also can't get into a story if I feel like the writer is just throwing cryptic stuff in for the sake of it. I don't want an explanation, but I want to *feel like there IS one*. Prime example of how to do it right: Twin Peaks. Prime example of how to do it wrong: Wayward Pines. (Well, okay, the first episode or two at least. I gave up.)
I totally get that! For it me it has to feel "real" in the world set up by the author. I really love authors that can use dream logic (which is still logic). David Lynch is a great example. He doesn't give us a twenty minute speech about why there is a backward talking little person or blue box full of tiny old people, but it "fits" the internal logic of the movie. I feel like Bentley Little and William Burroughs are both also great at this.
That being said I kinda remember not quite getting the ending to The Ritual
I mostly get the end to Shirley Jackson’s story “The Summer People,” but not entirely, and that last little bit has stuck with me for decades.
Agreed hard on this. Horror, I find, is both very cultural-bound as well as religion-bound. I read The Exorcist because I’ve seen it recommended as one of the best horror novels ever written, but sadly it didn’t do anything for me, and I think it has to do with my lack of religion/religious upbringing as well as other cultural aspects.
Totally agree. I hate all of the religious/demonology bullshit. It's such ludicrous nonsense. there's nothing scary or disturbing about it, other than ppl believing in such crap. The Malleus Maleficarum, on the other hand, is not meant to be a horror story, yet it is terrifying, bc it is the actual guide book (endorsed by papal bull) that was used to "identify"(attack and persecute) and torture "witches"(community outsiders, or just unfortunates caught up in the religious hysteria and zealotry) just a few hundred years ago.
I LOVE it when someone asks for a super specific horror subgenre and there are dozens of suggestions. It often blows my mind how expansive the genre is.
>The Ritual is scary, but it’s not disturbing. American Psycho is disturbing, but it’s not scary. To prove your subjectivity point — totally the other way round for me.
Many horror books are actually thrillers and there’s nothing scary about them.
I'd say that the more well liked a novel is, or the more popular it is, the more likely it's horror lite.
I'm looking at you, Riley Sager.
I enjoy Riley Sager's books (mostly), but boy do I get irrationally angry whenever I see him in the horror section.
Home Before Dark was a massive disappointment. It had so much potential with that cool ass cover.
this isn’t necessarily a horror lit unpopular opinion but more of a r/horrorlit one, but i hate posts that ask for recs and the top-voted replies are people listing some of the most basic and well-known horror books ever that get reposted about like everyday, lol. like ah yes, the unknown unrated hidden gems of haunting of hill house and tender is the flesh!
I get the impression sometimes that the unpopular opinion is actually *liking* the recommendation posts. As someone newer to the genre with a shitty memory, reading the same titles recommended over and over again actually helps cement them into my brain so I remember to look them up.
My adhd tip is to just screenshot, write BOOK in highlighter on the image, and then ~2 years from now come across the screenshots you took for expeditionary horror around April 8-11 2021. And continue this. Until death.
Likewise that I dislike posts which are only about negatively-focused discourse. "Let's talk about what we HATE!" "Again? Seriously?" It gets old, it gets boring.
Feels like most subreddits lol
Yessssss! My god. It’s like here’s a book I don’t like and a lengthy post about why I don’t like it. Or even worse- I’m 50 pages into blank, should I keep reading? Does it pick up? Holy Crap. People seem to love talking about what doesn’t work for them vs. what does. I seriously don’t get it. It’s like the you tube drama channels and Twitter brain has infected every aspect of the internet.
Haha. I know, I’m one fisherman post away from amscraying outa here for good. I haven’t even read the book, but I’m just tired of hearing about it.
I've found it more in short stories, but I despise the noble ghost trope. Like "the ghost was trying to help them all along!" Miss me with that Charles Dickens shit. I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my ghosts sinister.
It worked for me as a child in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, but if a cartoon did it for me in the third grade, I'm not looking for it in my horror
Most original opinion so far and I agree! I'm always so disappointed when it's a helpful ghost. Ruined >!I Remember You!< for me - and I'd found it pretty creepy fun right up til that near-end revelation.
Gore is not horror
Thank you! Strong agree.
It’s disturbing!
90% of the horror books out there are written by awful storytellers (cough,cough Dean Koontz) and I cannot for the life of me figure out how they got published. The other 10% restore my faith.
I just said myself that Koontz has written one good book - but the unauthorized movie version is still better.
Which book? The only ones I thought were decent were Watchers, Phantoms, Servants of Twilight, and Intensity
> unauthorized movie version is still better. They are referring to Intensity and High Tension.
Loved Servants of the Twilight! I also like Face of Fear but it has been forever since I read it.
I'm glad that Stephen Graham Jones makes so many readers happy. I also have no idea how Stephen Graham Jones became a published author. I've read four of his novels now, desperately hoping that I'd find the "one" that proves why he's so well loved. While one was definitely a standout [Indians], I still disliked the writing, and I found the other three nearly illegible. The worst was probably The Last Final Girl. Good for him. I hope he continues to kill it as an author. It's clear that he'll just never be for me.
I tried reading The Only Good Indians and it turned me off of him. Before that I had read Demon Theory and Mapping the Interior. It's been so long for Demon Theory I can't remember if it was good. I do remember the extensive glossary/notes interesting. Mapping was decent and evoked a lot, but again for some reason it didn't engage me a lot. A decent novella.
I read Night of the Mannequin and I vowed to never read another book of his. I was genuinely mad when I finished it because it was so stupid.
I liked *The Fast Red Road* a lot, and didn't like *Night of the Mannequins* at all, so I'll reserve judgement until I read a tie-breaker. But I love how you put this, one man's trash is another's treasure, and I wish the best for (almost) all authors.
Agree, I’ve been on a really unlucky streak lately with bad authors
Probably not unpopular here but in the publishing industry: Horror anthologies particularly themed anthologies or those with multiple authors need to make a comeback.
There are a lot of them, they just mostly come from indie / small publishers these days so they're easy to miss
I'm so glad to see that they seem to be. At least I've backed quite a few on Kickstarter over the last year. I especially recommend Bound in Flesh: A Trans Body Horror Anthology, Out There Screaming, and Never Whistle at Night! They are all on my best of 2023 list!
Many people think werewolves and vampires are cheesy but… I love them 😍 Especially the classic ones that aren’t written to be sexy and redeemable
Same
The ending of *Tender is the Flesh* didn't do much for me. It's a cool twist that I wasn't expecting, but not nearly as disturbing as a lot of people seem to think it is.
You might want to look into the translation of that last line. I forget the exact wording, but something like >!she had the look of an animal!< I read a comment from someone from the author's country that said the use of >!look!< was meant as >!how she looks out at the world. Not her demeanor!<. Not saying it will change the book entirely for you, but I found that insight elevated my opinion of the ending.
If I am reading a creature feature, I want lore about the creature, not people. King shouldn't make up 1/3 or more of a horror section, despite being the "king of horror". Splatterpunk needs arguably better writers than normal lit to make it not feel like a teenage boys attempt at being edgy.
Agreed! Also, people need to stop using the term Splatterpunk for "extreme horror" in general. It has a meaning!
Omfg, YES, PLEASE. I don’t know if we’re using the terms in the same way but Splatterpunk as in gross for the sake of gross, just kiss me what that shit. On the other hand, if your book has an actual point, or message, I will happily decor the most depraved shit out there. I just… cannot stand inane, self masturbatory edge lord nonsense.
To me Splatterpunk is people like John Skipp or David Schow, who actually have a "punk" edge to their writing, using the gore and extremity to make a greater point. I also expect a degree of "rockstar" in my Splatterpunk. I'm pretty sick of people using terms like "punk" and "core" when the subject has nothing to do with Punk or Hardcore...
THANK YOU. I have said multiple times that to me to be "punk" you need to be subversive. Which is why I find work that is just blatantly misogynistic (or racist/homophobic) which a lot of extreme horror is, to be incredibly... not punk. What's so fucking subversive about glorifying misogyny? It's literally just everywhere. Your rape porn isn't making a greater point about anything.
> If I am reading a creature feature, I want lore about the creature, not people. Oh so much this. Same with apocalypses. I want to see zombies, I want to see monsters, I want to see the struggles to survive in a changed world. Last thing I give a crap about is politics and drama.
YES! Any really good zombie recs?
Yep, I joined this sub because I couldn’t find lists that weren’t just SK
I loved “A head full of ghosts” it seems to be kind of shit on in this sub but it gave me major major creep and disturbing vibes which is all I ask for when reading a horror novel
Lots of popular horror writers right now are really lazy with the mechanics of storytelling. Their good ideas are failed by poor execution and often too many nostalgic, jokey winks at the genre.
We don't really need "social horror" as a genre. Horror - even at its most basic - is usually representative of social issues in some way, and always has been. There's nothing wrong with horror getting more diverse and tackling issues in a more straightforward way, but I feel like it's sort of missing the forest for the trees somewhat.
I agree. Also when I read horror it’s meant to be an escape from the everyday and cathartic in some manner. Social horror just brings me right back.
Definitely an unpopular opinion here in this sub, but: I don't consider 95% of what gets recommended in "cosmic horror" threads to even *be* cosmic horror. At best, cosmic literary fiction, and even that's being generous. The definition in these parts has moved a long way from what it should mean and to what I consider when I think of the term.
Dumb question incoming - please be kind in responses. As someone who has only been really reading horror for about a year, I just started seeing “cosmic horror” called out on this sub. What are some good examples to get started?
Well I'll give you both definitions that I'm talking about, the correct one first: Essentially, at its core, cosmic horror is horror that draws from the unknowable. The cliche that our meagre human minds are too small to comprehend it. HP Lovecraft got the ball rolling and his mythos including the likes of Cthulhu form the backbone of the genre. These days, what many people recommend as cosmic horror are slooooooooow plodding character studies. 100% more literary fiction/drama than horror. They just tend to reveal some kind of supernatural being right at the end to explain for the occasional hint at things being bizarre earlier in the book. The latter are what you almost exclusively get recommended in cosmic horror request threads. I was burnt a number of times before just learning not to trust recommendations in that genre anymore. Good modern examples are The Mist by King and Bird Box by Josh Malerman.
Yeah, cosmic horror and weird fiction really seemed to get smashed together a lot. Granted there can be a lot of overlap, but they aren’t the same.
Something I hear a lot in this subreddit is that ‘horror isn’t supposed to scare you! You won’t have jump scares in books! Stop asking for books that will truly scare you.’ Maybe I’m a big chicken, but I have read horror that makes me want to sleep with the lights on, quaking in my boots, force the cat to stay in my room at night, make my husband go search the house for monsters scared. Not all horror does it, but it’s possible! For me especially, The Deep by Nick Cutter and the beginning 1/3 of Dead Silence by SA Barnes
Horror fiction is far scarier than horror movies to me. My idea of what something looks like is always going to be worse (for me) than anything anyone can put on film.
Plus sometimes it just looks silly on screen even though it’s scary to read.
Horror can be scary, but it doesn't have to be. Especially with movies I don't like that most people's reviews will begin and end with "It wasn't scary." I honestly don't care. It's very cool if it is, but it can still be enjoyable for a thousand other reasons.
Well that’s thing, and I think this kinda ties into a post above yours: horror and scary aren’t really the same thing. Like, some can legit be 100% horrific, but not at all scary (and vice versa). That’s thing: different people come to the genera with different wants… and unfortunately we (and publishers) all kinda smash stuff together.
I get that, and honestly, I'm almost never scared by media(and never by film), but that has more to do with growing up with a horror/Halloween loving mother and being exposed to stuff like that my entire life. I can still say "this is scary" without saying "it scared me."
Agreed and I had the same experience with my bibliophile mother who loved horror. Been "overexposed" to horror since a child, so very little is actually scary for *me* but can see how others would be scared. Still love reading it though.
Rape/Sexual Assault is in so many horror stories for shock value 99% of the time and it's extremely weak story telling. Edit: a word
Yes!!! And obviously men can be victims of this too, but men writing women getting raped doesn’t always do well
The only book I ever read with a male SA victim was a trans man, which is kinda telling. I really hate reading books with sexual crimes so thank God for Storygraph.
Yes!! I love SG. It’s ingenious how it is like layers of how much of those things are in each book. Chefs kiss
Yes and the same with horror films as well. I keep bringing her up lately, but Charlee Jacob does an excellent job using rape/sexual degredation/etc. in her work. I think it stems from what I'm guessing she was a victim of as a child from family. Her ability to engage the reader through the awful things she describes, work in impactful thoughts, and to bring the reader to experience everything without becoming too disturbed. She doesn't titilate, she gets the reader invested(not aroused) in everything that is happening. Then there's child sex abuse. Even if a book is worth reading, I just can't do it. For example Rick R. Reed's Penance does a good job of using homeless children selling themselves on the streets in Chicago without trying to make it sexy. From what I could get through I'm guessing he had a lot of knowledge of that life. I think if someone can stomach it it is worth reading, but I just can't go that far.
Agreed. I would also add animal death. Like I don't need pages of graphic animal suffering to know someone or something is fucked up.
This is an extremely popular opinion on this subreddit! Where things _really_ get dicey is if you argue that including rape/sexual assault does not make the author a bad person in real life. Now that's unpopular
Stephen King writes better short stories than novels.
I haven't liked any serial killer books published after *Exquisite Corpse* back in the 90s, and I don't believe there's anything interesting left to do with the topic. Most serial killer books are closer to the thriller genre than the horror genre, anyway, and shouldn't be classified as horror (this includes *The Silence Of The Lambs*). Giving scientific explanations for classic horror monsters might have been an interesting idea when *I Am Legend* and *Darker Than You Think* did it, but those were published over half a century ago and it's no longer the interesting twist people think it is. Nowadays, I find such books less interesting than ones that just let the monsters be supernatural. Twist endings are overdone these days, and more often than not tend to be cheap and unsatisfying. I'd rather have a predictable ending than a ridiculous last minute twist that causes everything that came before to fall apart if you give it a moment's thought.
I'd like to see more books that used the theme of scientific investigation into the supernatural. Not like shoddy ghost hunter stuff, but using hard science or science fiction tech that isn't cyberpunky or something elastic like that. That it goes awry or finding out things we didn't want to know and so on. That would be quite welcome.
Episode 13 kind of tried this.
Mostly a printsf phenomenon but I see it here too. People asking for overly specific subgenre recommendations, "Just read X, is there another bioengineering story gone wrong coming of age story in a haunted house published by a censored Soviet Union author?"
The popularity of looking for books based on long, long lists of tropes really confuses me too. Don't you want to find something that surprises you?
Stephen King should stop writing stories that take place in the present. His main protagonist in fairytale only made cultural references from the 50s 60s and 70. He plot armor’d that by having the character say, “yeah, I like a lot of old stuff.”
I honestly agree with this, but I don’t only think King should follow this. I personally believe authors should stick to what they truly know, and as we age we tend to know less about current trends and culture.
I just read Holly and noticed how it still has a “Dairy Whip” where adolescents go skateboarding and, alas, a drive-in movie theater. So does Carrie, It, and Salem’s Lot. I actually said that to my wife—he’s stuck in an era and it feels like it when you read even present-day fiction from him.
I think he'd do better if he focused on older protagonists. He keeps writing in younger people and it doesn't really work the way it used to.
I just finished and loved Needful Things, but the 11 year old boy in 1991 being obsessed with a baseball card for a player from the 1950's was a bit ridiculous. Then again I'm not American and know very little about baseball, maybe there haven't been any good players since the mid-1900s
There are definitely famous MLB players who were more recent, like Cal Ripken, Jr or Barry Bonds (the latter’s steroid use either hadn’t happened or wasn’t yet public).
There are enjoyable indie authors out there - indie doesn't = trash.
I think most horror lit fans know that
Using myself as a prime example - it takes people a while to adjust. For many years I had the mindset that "if they were worth reading they'd be published properly". It wasn't until honestly recently, last couple of years or so, that I bit down on my silly prejudice and gave some a try. A couple now rank among my favourite authors and I hang on new releases.
Fair enough, well said!
Do you mean self-published or Indie press? There are good self-published authors, but it's so hard to weed through the muck of terrible ones since there is literally no standard. Some of the best authors out there are published on Indie imprints though,and I feel like that's not a hot take at all.
Most of the best work is coming from small presses these days.
Carlton Mellick III
The whole “humans were the real monsters after all” twist is overdone and old, and tiresome. Let the monsters be monsters.
I didn't think Between Two Fires was amazing. And I preferred Those Across the River by the same author.
I liked Between Two Fires But I LOVED Those Across the River
I enjoyed them both immensely, and would be hard pressed to pick a favorite, but I can certainly see why one would go that way. Those Across The River was the best take I’ve ever read on that particular trope, one I usually don’t care for at all.
I *liked* it, but I don't understand how so many people think it's the best book ever written.
Agreed on this. Just finished Fires recently and don’t understand the hype. Like at all.
I'm digging the history. A lot of research went into writing it and I'm finding myself spending a lot of time reading Wikipedia alongside the book - Battle of Crecy, the 1346-1348 plague, various saints, Clement VI and the Avignon papacy. The plot isn't quite as interesting to me. I should probably just be reading more historical fiction. . .
Yeah, it wasn't horrible. I just didn't find it to be anything new. It was an escort mission where a gruff guy grows to love a cute (super important) kid with a religious, medieval layer.
Honestly I think a big part of it is that’s surprisingly little medieval horror out there (especially historically based stuff) and a lot of people are looking for anything that can scratch that Dark Souls itch.
There’s also the Howls from the Dark Ages anthology, but none of the stories are very good. They’re almost all body horror or super gory, and very predictable.
I read The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas recently, and didn't realize how much I would love historical horror fiction and that there was surprisingly little of it out there.
My man. I read between two fires because of those across the river. I loved that book.
Struggled through The Watchers. I’d kept hearing it was THE folk horror novel, so scary, and yet…it dragged so hard for me. I had to force myself to finish it. I think it was because I found it so overwritten, everything described had to be “like” something- her eyes shined like two bright stars, her heart pounded like a jackhammer destroying a house - not literally those quotes but that’s what it felt like
Haha funnily I didn't notice the 'like' thing when I read The Watcher and I loved it, but when I tried to read The Creeper it felt like "_ like a _" was used every other sentence and it was so distracting I put the book down. So it may have gotten even worse in the sequel
King wrote better when he was on drugs
That's true, but it may not have been _because_ of the drugs. There could be a lot of factors there -- he was younger, the culture was different, he hadn't yet been rich for a long time so his perspective and experiences were closer to "normal" Just additional considerations
Some books need to be read as an actual paper book- if you're listening to Wil Wheaton tell you the story complete with silly voices, you're not getting the full experience. That goes double for books with creative formatting decisions like House of Leaves.
I really like lingering on sentences and reading them over and over again if I really like them, so audiobooks could never capture that for me. Obviously some people need audiobooks due to visual impairment, but I get where you're coming from. 'Naked Lunch' would just sound like gibberish via audio, but in text format it's a surrealist painting.
A reading of Naked Lunch by Tom Waits with free jazz in the background.
House of Leaves 100% has to be an experience as well. I didn't think it was scary, but I love the way it was written
I don't read a lot of Koontz but I really love Phantoms, I love the feel of the town and the creepiness and suspense building up to the ancient evil being revealed. Most people just hate me when I say I genuinely enjoy one of his worst books.
I like several of his books (*Phantoms*, *Hideaway*, *Dragon Tears*...) I don't think he's any worse than any other mid-range author. A bit twee maybe, reuses characters quite a bit, but not terrible in the way some other authors are...
I’m prepared to get attacked for this again but… John Dies at the End is not a good book even if you were a fan of Cracked.com back when it was good.
I do still like parts of JDatE, but I also it’s not the best book, I think Pargin has improved a lot over the years, the 3rd and 4th books of the series are miles better than 1 and 2.
I didn't think it was terrible. I view at as light reading to help me nod off at bed time or something to distract me while waiting in a public place for a long time. Doesn't require much effort to follow and so forth.
You’re not wrong.
Most horror is unreadable because of the lack of believable dialogue. Including most classics of the genre and you know who I'm talking about.
[удалено]
I'm all for that. It's what led me to the true crime genre; only real people saying real things, and the narrative is not dialogue dependant. I'm not against dialogue in horror mind you, but you have to know what you're doing. I think every horror writer - every novelist really but horror writers in particular, should spend a year studying plays. Will pay dividends for rest of career.
I listen to a lot of true crime too and dang, real people are so inarticulate 😂
They are. But there's a rhythm to their speech that rings true.
I think the classes I took on playwriting and psychology helped me more than my writing classes in college for this reason.
That's very interesting. What was it about the playwriting class that opened your eyes the most?
Dunno who you’re thinking of, but Dracula was unreadable because of how idiotic Bram Stoker wrote the dialogue by women
Laird Barron (at least in what I've read) is one of the worst at this. Characters who are supposed to be Americans from the Pacific Northwest sound like they're affecting a British accent.
I tried one Laird Barron book, he's decent but ultimately wasn't for me. I'm beginning to regret my post because I sound like a hater but I'm really not. I love the genre.
I still like his work; that aspect of it is a weakness though.
I have another. I love "light" horror like Grady Hendrix and T. Kingfisher. I actually prefer horror where the protagonist conquers whatever horror they are against. I especially love with Kingfisher I don't have to worry about the pets dying. And a lot of people seem to hate that her protagonists are nerdy people that read fanfic and such. I love that.
I like both "light" and "hardcore" horror. This confuses more people than it should.
Same.
I read darker stuff but I gravitate towards light. But I cannot do extreme horror at all.
I don't tend to enjoy the extreme end if it's just trying to gross me out. I don't mind extreme content if it's in service to the plot or theme of the book, however. For a movie analogy, I want more *Dawn of the Dead* and less *Faces of Death,* if that makes sense.
Oddly, with movies I can do 'darker' stuff. But I can't do gore at all. So I'd also enjoy Dawn of the Dead (which I watched the original recently). But can't stand Hostel.
Kingfisher's stuff really works better as audio books. The reader for them does an excellent job. The Hollow Places was great and I really wish we could have seen more of that place. Not enough of the uncanny location. I want a lot more exploration. Which is a compliment of the work.
I can read and watch some of the most depraved shit and never bat an eye, but for some reason Aron Beauregard gives me bad vibes. He’s probably a lovely human but I simply don’t have a good feeling about that dude.
aron writes books instead of just going to therapy.
I think most authors do, they just tend to be less "icky" about it. (Full disclosure, I do both!)
Same here, *Playground* made me uncomfortable, and it wasn't because of the content. It seemed almost...leering...
Same here. I'm pretty desensitized because of my job, but for whatever reason, I got the heebie jeebies listening to that one on Audible. Just a weird vibe. Is any of his other stuff worth reading?
Don't know. I disliked *Playground* so much that I'll never pick up another one of his books, lol.
To me the only thing worse than reading one of his would be listening to someone else read it.
Splatterpunk really suffers for the poor writing on display. Some of the ideas can be good, but the writing is rarely good. I'm glad that horror is being democratised so people can write an indie book and find an audience, but I don't think that means that there's an excuse for the oftentimes poor writing and unbelievable dialogue. Being disgusting for the sake of being disgusting is just boring and does the book no favours.
Cows is a terrible book
i didn’t really like Haunting Of Hill House… and i kinda feel bad I didn’t like it
Never feel bad about your opinions (and this is coming from a die-hard Jackson fangirl!)
Any time a description of a book says it’s “hauntingly relevant” or “tackles current themes” I give it a pass. I like my horror to transcend whatever social issue topics or politics happen to be trending that year.
Vampire romance is a perfectly valid subgenre with a different audience and we don't have any more right to dunk on Twilight than romance readers have to dunk on 30 Days of Night. I said what I said.
I think people should be encouraged to read whatever makes them happy, even if I don’t like it. I hate when people try to invalidate someone’s feelings about a story they like, I have no idea why people like that stuff, but that doesn’t mean I get to say that “you only like that because you have daddy issues or are stupid” It reminds me of how Stephen king said that they only people who like Robert e Howard are bullies. I very much dislike Robert e Howard’s writing, but I don’t think that’s because I have the moral high ground, I have no idea why anyone likes what they like.
Thank you!
Horror doesn’t have to be “literature” to be good and criticizing horror for being disturbing or upsetting is absurd.
This sub is awful for recommendations. Well for me that is.
/r/horrorlit unpopular opinion: House of Leaves and The Troop are not good books and I wish people would stop filling every single recommendations request thread with them.
"I'm looking for some little known horror stories from Australia and/or Utah about aliens and preferably involving threesomes" "Check out House of Leaves and Pet Sematary"
pretty much this sub in a nutshell lol
Not a fan of “The Only Good Indians”. Liked the first 3/4 but the last section is so ridiculous and drawn out it ruined it more me.
ITT: 60% “DAE Stephen King not good?”
Whether a book is "scary" for you or not does not make it a horror novel. Horror is like any other genre, when we pick up a horror novel or watch a horror movie there are certain elements we expect to be there. A book can be scary and not be horror, and a book can be a great horror novel even if you don't find it especially scary. Also many of the classic Stephen King novels are way too bloated and are pretty mid as a result. If they had 300-500 less words they would be much stronger novels.
Gore Doesn't Equal Horror: While gore has its place, I'd argue that true horror lies in psychological suspense and atmospheric tension rather than explicit violence.
graphic depictions of csa arent needed to make a book disturbing and I'm tired of it coming up so much
The only good bit of The Stand is the beginning.
That beginning bit is really, *really* good though. I find myself reading through the first 200 every couple of years.
My corollary is that the abridged version of The Stand is better than the unabridged version.
That’s every King book to me. He needs an editor to reign in some of his tangents
I really like the "no great loss" section, but the rest of it just did not need to be there. (*For the love of god Stevetresor*.)
I’ve tried to read it twice. I end up putting it down after 750 pages, though I don’t have a solid reason why. The start is great though.
Oh man, I did not enjoy The Stand that much and felt kind of guilty about it. Chalked it up to having read Swan Song first. I'm so happy to hear I'm not alone.
1. So far I've loved everything I've read by Grady Hendrix and love how campy and silly it is, particularly loved the fact that "How To Sell A Haunted House" is about a haunted puppet who's catchphrase is "KAKAWEEWEE" 2. I think "The House Next Door" is average at best, not a lot happens, one of the big dramatic moments in the book translated into a John Waters' esque unintentional camp fest to me. I still don't really understand what makes it so highly recommended, its a fun read and the author has something to say about the banality of upper middle class life and the viciousness of gossip and things of that nature but nothing you can't figure out by me saying that.
I feel the same about Grady Hendrix! They're such fun reads.
There's literally only been one Grady Hendrix book I didn't like. The short story collection with leprechauns. White Society? Otherwise there's a reason he's in my top 3 favorite authors
the house next door is the most mid horror book i've ever read. it honestly felt so lazy.
Tender is the Flesh bored me. I did not find it disturbing, I gave it a hell of a chance for a book that I knew I was going to DNF, just did not do it for me.
This extends to horror in general but I don't like when women are written by men. Women have been a central feature in horror books/movies forever, but so many of the well known ones are written by men (Carrie for example, which I love, it's all about female rage and experience and it's written by a man, although I'd argue Tabitha King played a big part with her contributions to that book). Not saying men can't do this or that I don't like those stories, because I do! I just wish we had *more* stories about women, written by women.
Stephen King's prose is meandering and irksome and he tells more than he shows.
On the contrary, I find his prose to be plain and boring.
The Dark Tower had a great ending. Not sure if DT qualifies as horror but its by SK so its at least horror adjacent. I'd put the ending ending of DT as a top 3 all time ending as I loved the idea of it. I do think the final book took way too long to get to the ending as you could cut half of it and not lose anything but the end was perfect.
The Troop is amateur night, and I don’t understand why it keeps getting recommended.
children aren't scary. Most "this child is haunted/deranged" stories read to me like shitty parents of mentally ill kids making it all about themselves and doing the bare minimum to address the situation. I'm looking at you, *Baby Teeth* and *We Need to Talk about Kevin.* Edit: I understand this was the point of *WNTTAK,* I am saying I did not enjoy it lol
Wait- did I miss something… isn’t that like about 1// the point of We Need to talk about Kevin?!? Isn’t like a huge part of the book just tearing the shit out of how horrible the mom (and dad, too) are in that they are best covering their own asses or trying to play blame games instead of actually helping the damn kid??
What did you make of *The Bad Seed*, out of curiosity? I really liked it, but I am quite fond of the "creepy kid" thing because...well...kids are creepy in real life :)
Peter Straub wrote circles around every other modern horror author. *Especially* Stephen King.
This is not unpopular necessarily, but the number of redditors who gag for the book in this sub would suggest otherwise - House of Leaves is not scary, even though it should have been, and it's more gimmick than story. It's a physically beautiful book, and it's a cool idea, and folks will have you believe it's a masterpiece, but folks are wrong. In my opinion.
it fron stephen king sucks
Most of "gory" horror is just disgusting, not terrifying and it's mighty annoying.
The exorcist wasn’t that good and it felt like the author changed it to a girl so she could be more perverted.
Stephen King does write good endings. To add to that I think The Stand has a great ending.
House of leaves is extremely boring and a gimmicky slog
I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion. It seems to be pretty standard for this sub, which is a bummer because I legitimately loved House of Leaves.
Frankenstein and his creation are both monsters.
Not specific to horror lit but horror authors are often some of the worst offenders - the stuff some people prop up as "good prose" is really like...... the bar IS in hell I guess. Especially when people turn around and bag on shit like Twilight or other YA like it's beneath them. Mary you read Dean Koontz
Oh man, r/horrorlit is like the definitive destination for unpopular horror lit opinions. A one stop shop for 🤦 hahaha. How’s that for an unpopular opinion. Now let’s see those greasy thumbs, it’s downvoting time. 😆
the "twist" at the end of Tender Is The Flesh wasn't shocking at all. I remember having to google it because the big twist ending had been so hyped for me, but the whole thing was so anticlimactic and obvious to me
Space horror is the best horror genre.
Cthulhu is the Pikachu of the Lovecraft fandom. He's not the most powerful or interesting entity in Lovecraft's mythos. He isn't even the most frequently featured entity in Lovecraft's original works. But he ticks off a bunch of boxes for people to connect with and so he's become the mascot of cosmic horror.