(Part 2) Top products from r/horror

I think both are great, but the audio drama is probably slightly better. The movie falls apart towards the end, mostly because they felt a need to include some onscreen action, while the radioplay's ending has a better conceptual continuity to the plot.

The original book both are based on is hella cool and weird, too, although the movie only adapts the first of several linked narratives from it. As far as I know, though, the field of true literary fiction about zombies at this point comprises just Pontypool Changes Everything and Colson Whitehead's zombie book.

Oh yes, I second Uzumaki like /u/Goober_Pyle said. Junji Ito's Uzumaki and Gyo is good. Also, Black Hole by Charles Burns is awesome :D


For vampires, you may like the American Vampire Series.

For a great read based on this topic, check out Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451667981/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_N4rxybY2FWSRM).

While you can't look at these trends a year at a time, the concept has merit and historical support.

I don't know if you have seen this book but it is amazing and sounds like it is right up your alley: https://www.amazon.com/VHS-Video-Cover-Art-1980s/dp/0764348671

I would love for you to message me when it's out.

As for books you should read, I would start with the three most commonly recomended books for writing. Believe me, these are gold printed on paper.

How To Write a Sentence

The Elements of Style

On Writing

and here's a great reference book: The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. Don't be turned off by the price, just search for a much cheaper older addition, it will have the same information.

Can I suggest to you, and anyone else, that it would be beneficial to read Stephen King's book 'On Writing'. If you click on the 'Look inside' sample pages, and scroll down to pages 285 and 286, it illustrates how to edit text with the notion that less is more.

Taking a piece of text from your line 10, as an example: "Maybe it's time we, became adults!" Due to her saying this to the boy it caused him to blush slightly.

Taking Stephen King's advice I'd imagine it would be more like:


"Maybe it's time we became adults!" she said.
He blushed.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Mask-Horror-Actor-Bradley/dp/1840238070/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381681497&sr=8-2&keywords=doug+bradley - a good read with interviews from most of the men behind the masks. Good interview with Englund in there.

Is your paper more concerned with the character or with the film makers and actors?

• Movie - Creepshow
  
• TV Show - Tales from the Crypt
  
• Book - No real favorite, but the most current one read that I would recommend The Slasher Movie Book

I was looking, too (my search history is forever destroyed!) - looks like the English title is PROMISE ME YOU'LL SHOOT YOURSELF. So far I've only found it on the Australian Amazon site...

ETA Found it on the Canadian site too; it's listed as Not Available on the US site.

Yeah, well actually $11.37 plus shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/157362408X/ref=sr_1_1_any_1_main_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1407776792&sr=8-1&condition=any

I really liked Wytches.

i got a gift card to a book store...which i, in turn, used to some of it to buy the Complete Deluxe edition of Tomie by Junji Ito - this

Locke and Key by Joe Hill: one of the best horror comics in recent years.

The Haunter of the Dark: black and white adaptations of Lovecraft

Uzumaki by Junji Ito

The Courtyard and Neonomicon: Alan Moore's take on the Lovecraft mythos. Neonomicon is tough to recommend due to extreme adult situations.

I've been reading a lot of horror recently, so I can suggest a few off the top of my head.

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The Shining by Steven King

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (You might hate this one.)

Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

Also, I'm not sure if you're into comics, but there's a bunch of great horror there. I recommend Locke and Key, Colder, and Wytches.

Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in Hellraiser, has written a book which is part autobiography, part history of the use of the mask all the way from ancient ritual through to modern horror. I've read it several times and it's very good:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Mask-Horror-Actor-Bradley/dp/1840238070

Amazon. Here are some direct links:

Gyo 2-in-1 Deluxe Edition

Tomie: Complete Deluxe Edition

Uzumaki (3-in-1, Deluxe Edition): Includes vols. 1, 2 & 3

I found a hardcover copy on American Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Horror-Movies-Monsters-Classics/dp/0789329425/ref=sr_1_1

http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Definitive-Companion-Terrifying-Movies/dp/1780973918/ref=sr_1_5

I really liked Hack/Slash. It's kinda like a final girl teaming up with Jason Vorhees to hunt down other serial killers.

Hack/Slash, Witch Doctor vol 1, Alan Moore's Neonomicon and crossed vol 1 to name a few.

Similarly, the region 1 DVD that's been available since forever seems to be going for waaaaaay more than I remember.

Not a documentary, but Art of the Nasty is a book on the subject.

See also VHS Video Cover Art

Wife got me the book Pontypool Changes Everything for Christmas.

Men, Women & Chainsaws, The Dread of Difference, Projected Fears are all really interesting reads!

Shock Value:Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror should be useful.

And Mark Gatiss chats with Carpenter in the "American Scream" segment of A History of Horror; JC reveals a disdain for Val Lewton, and they talk about Halloween.

Here's a link to purchase for anyone interested. At 17 dollars it is a steal.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1556520107

Just read about Uzumaki in a “philosophy” book. Sounds interesting.

Here is the book in case anyone wants to check it out. The central idea comes from, alludes to, and is about the horror genre.

If it's not taboo to copy/paste something I wrote in /r/booksuggestions, here are a few recommendations:

On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears by Stephen T. Asma -- If you want a comprehensive history of monsters, this is an excellent book to start with. Asma discusses everything from mythological beasts to cyborgs, and the discussion is very well written and easy to follow.

Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters by Judith Halberstam -- In the opening chapter, Halberstam offers a very interesting reading of The Silence of the Lambs, which she identifies as a sort of re-telling of Frankenstein. Generally, though, Halberstam tends to focus on Gothic lit. (Shelley, Stoker, and Wilde are prominent in her discussion), but she also brings up horror film and newer horror phenomena.

Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters by Matt Kaplan -- Conceptually, this book is very similar to Asma's but there's a key distinction. Whereas Asma is a philosophy professor, Kaplan is a science journalist, so his take on the subject is quite different. Kaplan tends to explore "why do monsters exist?" but Asma seems to prefer to ask "what do monsters mean?"

I'd also recommend W. Scott Poole's Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting. It's rather similar to Asma's text, but it has a decidedly American and typically contemporary bent to it.

Edit: I should perhaps mention that I am using these books as sources for my dissertation on the Gothic monster, so I apologize if these texts don't exactly fit what you're looking for. I'm obviously taking an academic approach here. Either way, I hope you benefit from these suggestions!

I haven't read too many horror novels honestly. I think I was most scared by Heart-Shaped Box. Kind of an average story--guy buys a box with a suit in it that's haunted by this guy's grandfather's ghost.

I have no idea.

Sure I liked stuff since I was little, but it always felt like an innate curiosity. I always feel like that is more of an answer of 'when' and not an answer of 'why'.

There is definitely no aspect of being scared that really draws me to it. Sure I like it when a movie scares me, but it happens so rarely that I've never looked at that alone as anything necessary for my enjoyment.

I think there might be some obsession of mine with the macabre. I'm pretty obsessed with death and suffering. It just seems weird that people are able to function while things are so non-permanent. I'm not saying I love death and suffering, but there is something about how horror compartmentalizes really terrible things in an accessible way that I think has sparked an initial fascination that has pulled me to the genre.

I recommend you check out Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror. IMHO he is one of the best horror writers alive and he does a pretty good job of dissecting horror, what works, and its appeal.

You might enjoy some of these:
Shock Value How A Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman
A History of Horror by Wheeler Winston Dixon
The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart by Noel Carroll
On Monsters An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears by Stephen T Asma
Dark Dreamers Facing the Masters of Fear by Stanley Wiater
J-Horror The Definitive Guide to The Ring, The Grudge and Beyond by David Kalat
Hollywood Horror From Gothic to Cosmic by Mark A Vieira
Why Should I Cut Your Throat Excursions Into the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror by Jeff VanderMeer
And I haven't read this one yet, as I'm still on the waiting list at the local library, but it looks quite interesting:
The Gothic Imagination Coversations on Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction in the Media by John C Tibbetts
Edit: fix link

Horror is actually a great subject to dip into a little feminist theory. You've got Men, Women, & Chainsaws, The Dread of Difference, and The Monstrous Feminine as film studies texts. If you're already interested in horror, they're all worth a read and it's better to get a little academic/theoretical rather than letting reddit/the internet/etc. inform your understanding of feminism.

Some of the best horror fiction was written by women - Frankenstein, The Haunting of Hill House, Interview with the Vampire, Rebecca, etc.

You could argue whether a lot of movies are "feminist" because they have female protagonists, discuss gender, critique patriarchy, etc. but it's all open to debate. Like you can read Rosemary's Baby or Carrie or others as feminist films or not. As Gorgobutt said, a female protagonist does not necessarily make a movie "feminist" and conversely you can make the case that movies with female antagonists are feminist for showing women are people with an equal potential for evil as men (Antichrist, Eyes Of My Mother, etc.).

I'd throw Jennifer's Body, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Season of the Witch, May, Ginger Snaps, The Company of Wolves, and The Descent on the pile.

It's not exactly a short story, but "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror" by Thomas Ligotti kept me up for weeks after I read it, and I still get scared sometimes thinking about it. Maybe I'm just a big baby, I dunno.


Edit: Amazon


My summary: This book is horror writer Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book, but don't let that fool you. Ligotti attempts to tackle where horror comes from in the first place, and he does a remarkable job of kindling the imagination.

• Crossed - psycho zombies from the creator of Preacher
  
  
• Hell House - adaptation of Richard Mattheson's incredibly novel
  
  
• Ferals - Werewolf horror
  
  
• Extinction Parade - Vampires vs. Zombies from the creator of World War Z
  
  
• Uzumaki - From Junji Ito, a true master
  
  
• Gantz - Action sci-fi horror
  
  
• Black Gas - Zombie horror
  
  
• Nameless - Grant Morrison Lovecraftian Space Horror
  
  
• Black Summer and No Hero - Honorable Mention Warren Ellis Superhero horror