A HORRIBLE HOMECOMING! STAY HOME AND READ!
With Halloween coming up, I’ve decided to fill your bag up with treats a little early. This week, I’ll review a movie and give you a list of my five favorite horror novels of all time. In my opinion there is nothing better than sinking your teeth (pardon the pun) [Ed Note: No] into a great scary novel. As an Only Child, books were a good friend to me in my youth. I though I’d share a few of my favorites.
1. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King was published in 2010 winning The Bram Stoker Award for best collection. I picked up this collection of 4 novellas this summer after it had been collecting dust on my shelf for 2 years. I’m so glad I did. I was hooked from the first page. If you are looking to be truly horrified, this is the book for you. There are no vampires, dead pets, or evil murderous clowns. The monsters in these stories are 100% human. [Ed Note: Except for the one that has the Devil in it] These stories are are about the banality of evil. I read “Big Driver” at night alone in my apartment during an electrical outage. Don’t do this unless you are a crazy bitch like me!
2. It – This Stephen King novel was published in 1986. I’m not even sure I needed to put this book on the list because everyone who is a die hard horror fan loves this novel. But since it is one of my favorites, I can’t leave it off. If you haven’t read it — you must! The only problem I had with It was the ending. However, with over 1000 pages of wonderful, I can accept the book’s flaws. It was truly creepy. What if as a child what scared you most could materialize and repeatedly try to murder you [Ed Note: This is the same as living with Morty] ?
3. Horns by Joe Hill was published in 2010. I guess good horror writing runs in the family because Joe is Stephen King’s son. The first time I read the synopsis for this book, I thought the plot sounded ludicrous. I kept seeing the book pop up all over with good reviews so finally decided to take a chance on it. Horns is definitely a bizarre story but it swallows you up until the very end. I thoroughly enjoyed the originality of this horror story and look forward to reading his new book NOS4A2.
4. Summer of Night by Dan Simmons was published in 1991. I love this book. This was the first book I read by this author and won’t be my last. Summer of Night is a coming of age story about a group of five young boys during the summer of 1960. There is something rotten in their town of Elm Haven, Illinois so they set out to get it before it gets them. I actually read this before I read IT and found the stories to be quite similar. The writing is unique and helps story sucks you in. This book inspired me to read IT which I’d picked up in the past and put down due to the length. If you loved IT, read this it will be like hooking up with an old friend.
5. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons was published in 1978. I am still blown away that this book was written by a writer who never wrote another horror novel before or after this book. The main character is an evil house. Everyone who lives there has terrible things happen to them but can never quite get to the bottom of what is going on. I know it sounds very basic, but I hate spoiling the story. This book made my skin crawl. If I had to categorize this it would be Gothic horror.
Happy reading!
For the movie this week I watched Bloody Homecoming. Bloody Homecoming was released September 24, 2013 on DVD and available to stream on Amazon. Bloody Homecoming stars Lexi Giovagnoli as Loren. Loren and her friends are getting ready for their senior homecoming. They are all very excited and being the silly teens they are, they don’t notice someone has started picking them off before the dance has even started. Someone wants revenge as a result of the tragic accident that occurred at the homecoming dance three years prior. I was looking forward to this movie based on the trailer and plot synopsis. I thought it may be a good take on an 80’s teen Slasher. The plot was pretty generic — kind of a cross between My Bloody Valentine and Prom Night. That would have been fine if the blood didn’t look like grape juice (come on guys you can’t even afford Karo syrup and red dye?) and the acting wasn’t scarier than the movie itself. My favorite character was the weird janitor who was an OBVIOUS red herring. And finally the Scooby Doo ending just made me extremely angry! If you agree or disagree with me, let me know in the comments section!
LITTLE MISS HORROR NERD’S RATING: 2/5
