Horror Aficionados discussion

I would have to say The House by Edward Lee. Now I am a huge gorehound. I love my horror movies and novels and almost nothing disgusts me. i say almost because Edward Lee is the only author that has actually made me cringe and feel disgusted. God bless his twisted mind! The House is not that easy to find, but if you ever come across it pick it up. I warn you, it is not for those with weak stomachs.

Id would have to say the most disturbing for some reason is The Cellar - R.Laymon its pretty disgusting

Ketchum's Off Season has some nice bits, but the most disturbing description I ever read was in a scifi book by K.W. Jeter called Noir. A character had a plastic window over her sternum so you could see something she had etched there.

The Long Last Call was pretty gory.

Snuff by Eric Enck and Adam Huber

J. F. Gonzalez' Survivor was disturbing, sick and twisted stuff.

I didn't find it particularly well written, but some of the more gruesome scenes stayed with me.

The way the main character responded to the situation she was in was quite disturbing too.

Sensitive souls should definitely stay away.

Dinö: I liked Kate Koja's Skin. How does The Cypher compare?

Acknud: I keep looking at Snuff, but don't know if I'm ready for it after reading Survivor.

I second "Survivor" by Gonzalez... the baby thing was brutal.

Off Season by Ketchum was pretty nasty

and of course "Devil in Gray" by Masterton had one specific scene that made my stomach churn

I don't go in for gory and disgusting much, but The House That Jack Built was probably the most g&d one that I've read. Also, badly written. So it sent "bad prose, flat characters, boring, boring, GRATUITOUS GROSS-OUT GORE SCENE, boring, flat characters, stupid "rational" explanation, GROSS GORE SCENE, bad dialogue, boring, GORE ..." Needless to say, I have not become a Masterton fan.

Endless Night by Richard Laymon--or whatever hack is writing for him now that he's dead.

A group of men break into homes at night while families are sleeping and slaughter them for fun. A young boy is terrorized and cut in half with a chainsaw. A woman coming home for lunch is scalped alive. Real pleasant. Nothing but excessive gore. I've stopped reading anything new with his name attached.

Off Season, too, of course.

There's no way I'm reading a book called Snuff or reading Survivor. Maybe in my younger days, but not now.

Skin is not horror in the conventional sense. Koja shows the dark side of body modification and the goth/industrial art scene. It is very disturbing, but not gory or disgusting.

Some readers feel Koja's prose is dense. I think it is gorgeous, poetic and very evocative. Throughout the book I could feel Tess' emotional pain and Bibi's gradual descent into madness. Though it's been a while since I've read this, I can still feel the heat of the metal.

Here's an excerpt:

"...Landscape of iron and rusty teeth pointing at the sun, she climbed carefully, doubting each step; tetanus shots were expensive. Once she had tumbled through an unstable pile, incongruous whoop of surprise as something grabbed, ripped, tore; she still had the marks on her right arm, long spiderweb scarring thin as machine lace. Here a flotsam of something black, very much like the nibbler but webbed in sagging cable and the blistered strips of some heavy plastic casing; it was nothing she recognized but she took it anyway, its heft was good in her hand. Beyond that the false glitter of chrome, a fan crippled bladeless, she left it for a sullen slick of unwarped plastic that looked good from a distance but turned out to be nothing. Step and bend, step and bend, the red dirt of rust on her fraying work gloves, sun on her head and the back of her neck, burning, burning. Step and bend..."

I really like Koja's The Cipher and Skin (Koja's one of my favorite writers), and actually don't feel that either are excessively gross or disgusting. Skin - definitely not. The Cipher - there's some weird situations, for sure, but there's no gratuitous beheadings or torture, for example. I've read worse (in short stories - I can't think of a full-blown novel at the moment).

Actually, I just began reading the book with the most disgusting scene in it I've ever read. It's called Haunted by Chuck Palahnuik. The first story was so disgusting that I thought I'd vomit while listening to it in my car. I finally turned the volume down until that particular story ended. It was about a character named "St. Gutless."

"Tressa: The Laymon novels being released now are actually reprints of older novels. It DOES kind of seem like he's still alive and kicking though...still churning them out at a furious pace!"

You're kidding! I thought I had read all his earlier novels and the new ones were being churned out by hacks at the behest of greedy publishers, a la V.C. Andrews. Thanks for setting me straight.

One novel that has several very queasy scenes in it is "Slugs" by Shaun Hutson. If you've ever eaten something that didn't quite agree with you...

Scott Sigler's Infected has some pretty gruesome scenes of triangles hatching out of human bodies. And a man who takes matters into his own hands and cuts some of them out.

Rob, I loved Infected. I read it a few months ago and am currently listening to the audio. Part sci-fi, part gory horror, I think it has enough to hold your interest. Read it and let me know what you think.

Fibers from space drift down and worm their way into humans. The fibers turn into blue triangles that eventually hatch. I'll let you read the book to find out what the triangles have planned for mankind.

"The Valley of the Dolls"

No question. Turned my stomach.

LOL @ Robert.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk was probably the grossest, most disturbing novel I've read. Another book that comes to mind is a compilation by Bentley Little called The Collection that had some truly gory, deeply disturbing short stories in it.

For me it's either Alive or The Ruins. I loved The Ruins. :D

The most disturbing, gory, awful book I read was Haunted by Chuck P (sorry forgot how to spell his last name, I just added it to my "read" bookshelf. I had the most difficult time getting through it becuase of the very graphic description of the story of 23 people who were duped into a horrible reality show type nightmare by answering an ad calling for aspiring writers to join a writing class. Instead, they end up kidnapped and made to do horrible things to earn luxeries such as food, heat, a shower, use of a bathroom....it was so frightening to me because I could visualize something like this actually happening. If you like to read novels with graphic and horrifying situations people find themselves in, you will love this book.HauntedHaunted

"Valley of the Dolls" -- LOL!!! Good one!

If that's the way you feel, you should avoid Susann's "Every Night, Josephine" (about her poodle) at all costs!

I'm at my library and just grabbed Haunted. Hope I can stomach it. I have a weaker constitution than I used to.

'The 120 Days of Sodom' by the Marquis De Sade is easily the most distubingly graphic book I've evr read and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Anything else by De Sade is fine, just avoid that one. Outside of that, anyhting by Cullen Bunn is usually pretty gross. :]

Although Haunted is definitely gross, I can't help but laugh at so many of the things that Chuck P. writes! I also didn't feel very sorry for many of the characters since they got themselves into the situation they were in by sabotaging themselves!

Rob, we were probably reading page 3 about the same time. Uh, I have never seen a book start off like Haunted. Can't wait to find out what I'm in for.

Can swimming pool drains really do that to a person's posterior?? *shudder*

Yeah, I know, Tressa! I will never look at high potency multivitamins the same way again after having read Haunted!

Ketchum's Cover has a memorable scene near the end when someone falls sideways into a patch of tall punji spikes. While that may not sound too gross, the description is more than enough to change your mind.

I agree, Haunted is sick. In a good way.

Brian Keene writes some nasty zombie scenes. I recently read Joe Lansdale's The Drive-In (the omnibus that collects the first two). I found the Popcorn King particularly disgusting.

I love horror and gore.I must say that Snuff by Eric Enck and Adam Huber was by far the most disturbing book I've read so far. It is the only book that after reading a few chapters, I seriously thought I wouldn't be able to finish it. But it just seemed to call to me! It was a book that after reading I couldn't say anything but WTF!!! I don't know how a human mind can even think up some of the stuff that was in the book. I've read Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk and the first story is kinda gross but it can't touch Snuff in the gore factor!

Sadly, yes they can. Two summers ago, a young girl in Minnesota accidentally sat on a drain in a wading pool, and she died less than a year later due to internal damage. I think that's why I was so disturbed by this story.

Here's a link:
http://wcco.com/local/abigail.taylor....

Kim, wow I had no idea that could happen to people. I'm going to keep my keister covered and away from suction.

Rob, I thought I'd be devouring Haunted, but I'm able to put it down to read other books. It's sort of disjointed and I sometimes can't keep an interest in a novel broken into short stories. I'm going to finish it but it's not blowing me away like I thought it would. I hope it picks up steam for me soon cause I've got lots of other books to dive into.

Rob...You are right. I read all of Haunted but the first is definitely the best. The rest of the book was sort of a letdown to me.

It probably won't be quite the goriest or most disgusting thing you've read, but I just put a short story of mine called 'Bloody Divorce' up on my profile.
When it was published on the Literary Magic website it received a lot of comments for excessive violence.
I personally thought it was an 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' type story with exaggerated violence - but I might be wrong.

If you get chance let me know what you think.

I would have to say that Jack Ketchum is one of the most dangerous writers out there, which is why I love his stuff. The Girl Next Door is the only book I almost gave up on because it disturbed me. He takes a normal everyday situation and shoves unspeakable violence in the middle of it then sits back and watches our reation. Brilliant writer.

The Ruins by Scott Smith. It's gory, bloody, and all together icky. And, much like that B-movie Cabin Fever that makes you never want to drink water again, The Ruins makes you a) never want to go on vacation again b) never get lost in the jungles of Mexico. The closer to the end of the book the more bloodtastic it gets.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill does have increasingly gory/ bloody/ icky parts but isn't as ick-trific as The Ruins. (BTW I get that ick-trific is a made up word but it satisfies).

Survivor by J. F. Gonzalez gets my vote, too.

I'm currently half-way thru reading "Like Death". It's been pretty gory so far...

I too will vote for Survivor by J.F. Gonzalez. Pretty messed up stuff!

I don't know about gory, but Jack Ketchum's Girl Next Door was pretty disturbing.

Hello to all.This is my first post.

"Grimm Memorials" by R. Patrick Gates.
"Off Season" and the sequel "Offspring" by Jack Ketchum.

I am listening to Haunted on audio right now. THe pearl Diving Story really disgusted me

Not a novel - but the poem Decomposition in Hallowed Malice by Camille Augustine. You would think by the title it would say it all, but it goes beyond...

I'd have to agree with those that said Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. As someone mentioned earlier, its about a psychotic writers retreat that goes crazy. Whats interesting is that each writer has a story of theirs included in the book so its almost like a book of short stories with one longer narrative tying them all together. I didnt care for the writers retreat story, but the short stories were great; immensely disgusting.

Looks like I'm another vote for Survivor by Gonzalez. I'll never get those images out of my head :(

Has anyone read Cows by Matthew Stokoe? A co-worker did and said it was absolutely disgusting.

Rather surprised no one's mentioned anything by Wrath James White. Tetrologist stands out as one I've heard is quite disturbing and gross.

As far as Ketchum, his work is fictionalized true crime. The novel, The Girl Next Door, is based on a true story that happened. I can't remember the girl's name at the moment, but he didn't fictionalize a whole lot of it; most of what happens in the story, really happened.

Gary . . .

Gary, the real victim's name is Sylvia Likens. I read the nonfiction book on her murder years ago and it made me sick. Ketchum's book just made me that much sicker. I could barely get through it.

The interesting thing about Wrath is that the stories I've read of his in magazines tend to be sexually graphic, gory and not his best work. His stories in anthologies are much better written, less on the gore, and much more interesting.

Tressa: I've looked for Cows ever since Rue Morgue magazine did a write-up about it in their 100 Essential Horror Books article...but to no avail.

That's where I saw Cows listed. You might want to check your library's Inter Library Loan dept. to see if they can borrow it for you. I certainly don't want to buy it; I just want to read it. Or maybe not if it's too disgusting.