October Reading List
It’s October, which means we have Michael Hurley’s Werewolf on repeat and we’ve been obsessively scoping out the coolest haunted houses in our areas. But we’ve also spent a lot of time spooking ourselves through literature. Here are some of our favorite Halloweeny reads:
Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House: She was made famous for her short story “The Lottery,” but we think that The Haunting of Hill House is better. And by better, we mean more terrifying. And that’s sort of hard considering “The Lottery” is pretty dang scary anyway.
Edgar Allen Poe – “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”: We couldn’t just choose one Poe story for this list.
Stephen King – It: Clowns running around the U.S.? We see you, and we raise you one Stephen King story.
Mark Z. Danielewski – The House of Leaves: We had never read anything like this, and we’re willing to bed you haven’t either.
Mary Shelley – Frankenstein: It’s not look-under-the-bed scary, but it is pretty creepy.
R.L. Stein – Goosebumps: “Night of the Living Dummy” and “It Came from Beneath the Sink” still freaks us out. But don’t make fun of us, we bet you used to read Goosebumps too. Or if you didn’t, you probably know a few kids who did!
Anna Journey – Vulgar Remedies: This isn’t as scary as it is haunting. If you want some spooky poetry to read after Goosebumps, this one won’t disappoint.
Alin Schwartz – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: Don’t you remember the one about the woman and the bathtub and the dog? Or the one about the girl and the ribbon around her neck? Or the puppy-rat thing? All of these are still pretty frightening.
After you finish reading those, you can check out our favorite scary movies:
Goodnight Mommy (Franz & Fiala, 2015)
The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973)
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (Amirpour, 2014)
Child’s Play (1988, Tom Holland)
IT (1990, Tommy Lee Wallace)
La fin Absolue du Monde (1931, Abel Gance)
So there you have it. We’re not about to tell you what to drink while you watch these (hot apple cider with cinnamon) or what to eat (pretzel sticks covered in chocolate and one half of a gummy to look like a witch’s finger), when you read these, but we think you’re pretty much covered.