Book picks similar to
Incubus by Ray Russell


horror
paperbacks-from-hell
fiction
gothic

House of Leaves


Mark Z. Danielewski - 2000
    No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

The Beetle


Richard Marsh - 1897
    It is narrated from the perspectives of multiple characters, a technique used to create suspense in many of the "sensation novels" pioneered by Wilkie Collins and others in the 1860s, as well as in many late nineteenth-century novels such as Dracula.Richard Marsh was the pseudonym of the British author, Richard Bernard Heldmann.

The Reaping


Bernard Taylor - 1980
    But from the moment of his arrival at the secluded country mansion strange and inexplicable events begin to transpire. Soon he is drawn into an impenetrable maze of horror, and by the time he discovers the role he is intended to play in a diabolical design, it will already be too late. For the seeds of evil have been sown, and the time to reap their wicked harvest is nigh!

In The Deep Woods


Nicholas Condé - 1989
    Reprint. TV tie-in.

The House Next Door


Anne Rivers Siddons - 1978
    Life is made up of enjoyable work, long, lazy weekends, and the company of good neighbors. Then, to their shock, construction starts on the vacant lot next door, a wooded hillside they'd believed would always remain undeveloped. Soon, though, they come to realize that more is wrong than their diminished privacy. Surely the house can't be "haunted," yet something about it seems to destroy the goodness of every person who comes to live in it, until the entire heart of this friendly neighborhood threatens to be torn apart.

Bethany's Sin


Robert R. McCammon - 1980
    Bethany's Sin was a weird name, but the village was quaint and far from the noise and pollution of the city.But Bethany's Sin was too quiet. There were no sounds at all...almost as if the night had been frightened into silence.Evan began to notice that there were very few men in the village, and that most of them were crippled. And then there was the sound of galloping horses. Women on horses. Riding in the night.Soon he would learn their superhuman secret. And soon he would watch in terror as first his wife, then his daughter, entered their sinister cabal.An ancient evil rejoiced in Bethany's Sin. A horror that happened only at night...and only to men.

Experimental Film


Gemma Files - 2015
    A. Macalla Whitcomb. By deciding to investigate how Mrs. Whitcomb's obsessions might have led to her mysterious disappearance, Lois unwittingly invites the forces which literally haunt Mrs. Whitcomb's films into her life, eventually putting her son, her husband and herself in danger. Experimental Film mixes painful character detail with a creeping aura of dread to produce a fictionalized "memoir" designed to play on its readers' narrative expectations and pack an existentialist punch.

Last Days


Brian Evenson - 2009
    The story follows Kline, a brutally dismembered detective forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside the cult. As Kline becomes more deeply involved with the group, he begins to realize the stakes are higher than he previously thought. Attempting to find his way through a maze of lies, threats, and misinformation, Kline discovers that his survival depends on an act of sheer will. Last Days was first published in 2003 as a limited edition novella titled The Brotherhood of Mutilation. Its success led Evenson to expand the story into a full-length novel. In doing so, he has created a work that’s disturbing, deeply satisfying, and completely original.

Relics


Shaun Hutson - 1986
    Investigations reveal the possibility of an even greater evil. The author's other novels include Shadows and Death Day.

Là-Bas


Joris-Karl Huysmans - 1891
    The book's authentic, extraordinarily detailed descriptions of the Black Mass have never been surpassed.

Fear


Ronald Kelly - 1994
    a hideous, flesh-eating creature - part snake, part earthbound demon - that feasted on the blood of innocent children in the cold black heart of the Tennessee backwoods. But ten-year-old Jeb Sweeny knows the horrible stories are true. His best friend Mandy just up and disappeared. He also knows that no one has ever had the courage to go after the monster and put an end to its raging, bestial hunger. Until now. But Evil is well guarded. And for young Jeb Sweeny, who is about to cross over into the forbidden land of Fear County and the lair of the unknown, passage through the gates of Hell comes with a terrible price. Everlasting...FEAR!

The Haunting of Toby Jugg (Black Magic, #3)


Dennis Wheatley - 1948
    He is also the heir to a considerable fortune - a fortune that is being administered by a board of trustees until he comes of age. At night, he is becoming increasingly disturbed by a strange presence - a mysterious shadow thrown by the moonlight through a gap in the blackout curtains. He is convinced the shadow is cast by a malevolent and unnatural entity trying to get into his room. Toby is unable to convince anyone of the reality of this entity, and slowly comes to believe that there is a ploy against him, a plot to send him mad, or to make it appear that he is already mad in order to usurp his fortune. Is this some form of hallucination? Is this unearthly creature real or a product of his imagination? Are the people caring for him actually plotting his destruction, or are they sincerely concerned for a young man whose grip on sanity is steadily weakening?With themes of love, madness, Communism, Satanism and Freemasonry, Wheatley builds his trademark atmosphere of menace, suspicion and supernatural dread.

The Bad Seed


William March - 1954
    This paperback reissue includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested reading and more.What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller. After its initial publication in 1954, the book went on to become a million–copy bestseller, a wildly successful Broadway show, and a Warner Brothers film. The spine–tingling tale of little Rhoda Penmark had a tremendous impact on the thriller genre and generated a whole perdurable crop of creepy kids. Today, The Bad Seed remains a masterpiece of suspense that's as chilling, intelligent, and timely as ever before.

The Hellbound Heart


Clive Barker - 1986
    Not your ordinary affair. For Frank it began with his own insatiable sexual appetite, a mysterious lacquered box- and then an unhinged voyage through a netherworld of imaginable pleasures and unimaginable horror… Now Frank - or what is left of Frank - waits in an empty room. All he wants is to live as he was before. All Julia can do is bring him her unfulfilled passions… and a little flesh and blood…

Darker Than You Think


Jack Williamson - 1940
    Inexorably drawn into investigating a rash of grisly deaths, he soon finds himself embroiled in something far beyond mortal understanding.Doggedly pursuing his investigations, he meets the mysterious and seductive April Bell and starts having disturbing, tantalizing dreams in which he does terrible things--things that are stranger and wilder than his worst nightmares. then his friends being dying one by one and he slowly realizes that an unspeakable evil has been unleashed.As Barbee's world crumbles around him in a dizzying blizzard of madness, the intoxicating, dangerous April pushes Barbee ever closer to the answer to the question "Who is the Child of Night?"When Barbee finds out, he'll wish he'd never been born.