10 cool Russian horror books

Not everyone knows that the “Horror” genre is generally represented in rich Russian literature. And those who know are often skeptical about it. But the site checked and reports: scary, very scary, and there are horrors for every taste. Recommended.

Kirill Alekseev "Fly Eater"

The novel is good for its special cinematography. The mind of the reader, especially one already prepared by watching horror films, will immediately build a scene, arrange heroes, monsters and start disturbing music in the background. In addition, the plot is classic: a group of people is haunted by a nightmare from childhood. Slasher, based on Russian realities, turns out to be eerily close. Alekseev has another nice feature. When we read an ordinary horror movie, we often think: “Fools, don’t go to the cemetery, don’t go down to the basement – ​​and nothing will happen!” Our author, on the only night allotted to the heroes, simply does not give them any choice. Complete hopelessness.

What was once eaten must itself be eaten.

Alexey Ateev "The Mystery of the Old Cemetery"

This book, written in the 90s, is both creepy and funny, like the nineties themselves. The ancient evil spirits do not want to surrender to the Soviet system. Policemen, local historians, an old school librarian are fighting evil spirits as best they can. Against the backdrop of modern horror with all their special effects and an 18+ rating, the book may resemble horror stories in a pioneer camp. But do you remember what it's like to go into the darkness from this fire?

- What is twice two? she asked softly.
The goat looked at her silently for a while. Valentina Sergeevna had already decided that she would not wait for an answer. Suddenly the goat said:
- What are you, doo-hurrah? Oh, damn it, think!

Belobrov-Popov "Red Tambourine"

Village shooter with vampires, anti-Semites and the Soviet army takes on the role of our native "From Dusk Till Dawn". There is a lot of unmotivated cruelty and sickening details here, and all this is best read with a healthy sense of humor or with a love of postmodernity. The book is bright and catchy, and the plot in it rushes at full speed, forcing the reader to either discard the thick volume altogether, or hoot and ahh at unexpected bumps and turns.

So he imagined the Apocalypse and imagined - everything is scorched, and who the hell knows who rides on the scorched.

Nail Izmailov "Ubyr"

Every child at least once in childhood has to endure a terrible suspicion: what if your parents are not yours? Or not people at all? It’s scary, but you won’t complain to your mother ... After the introduction, plunging into deep childhood fears, a luxurious action begins with an exotic Tatar flavor. Although, what is exotic in it: American maniacs will not get to us, they will not be given a visa, and Izmailov's nightmares will take the night train, and they will come.

We stayed at night on an empty platform in the middle of fields, forests and dogs, in an almost winter cold and hunger.
Not alone.
Together.

Sergey Kuznetsov "Butterfly Skin"

In the horror genre, you can’t do without diving into the sick brain of a maniac. Well, at the same time in the no less unhealthy consciousness of madness in love with a maniac. And it is not yet known who wins. From the spectrum of negative emotions, Kuznetsov chooses "disgusting and a little ashamed." It is especially shameful, watching the deadly dance of heroes, to suddenly feel a response to their forbidden feelings. And then, in the subway, feeling that someone is looking into the book over your shoulder, you will automatically want to cover this text with your hand, as if you were hiding your own thoughts.

Remember, I once asked how you would like to die. And you answered: “Open my chest and take my heart.” And I, having written this letter, feel: it is my chest that has been opened, and it is my heart that flutters on your lips.

Igor Lesev "23"

A Tuvan witch and her henchmen are chasing a simple boy Vitenka. Well, how to say simple. Vitek is a terribly nasty, arrogant, dumb, cowardly sissy, obsessed with numerology and possessing an incredible thirst for life. That is, he runs fast, but he doesn’t think very much. Of course, the reader absolutely does not want to associate himself with the young assistant to the deputy, but he believes in his crazy adventures on the fly. And at some point, you realize that you have been sucked into this ridiculous farce of horrors.

The dog howled again upon seeing the body of its master.
- Hell, calm down. He was old anyway, - finally, stepping over the corpse, I found myself on the threshold of a half-open door. - All the dog, do not be bored ...

Alexey Mavrin "Psoglavtsy"

Under the pseudonym Mavrin, the famous writer Alexei Ivanov is hiding. So, predictably, the level of "Blood, Guts, Zombies Out" is lowered in this book, and the level of "Dying Nature and the Search for Philosophical Meaning" is raised higher. We also have a good love line here, an interesting topic of splitting and a quality atmosphere of quiet horror. It is difficult to figure out what is actually happening from the surrounding nightmare, and what is just a figment of the main character's imagination, choking on bitter smoke from peat bogs.

The door to hell can open anywhere: in the old grave of a collective farmer, and in one's own soul. In my heart, even more likely.

Maryana Romanova "The Dead from the Upper Log"

Behind the forests, behind the mountains, in the modest Yaroslavl region, there is a village, and whoever comes there with brains will not live for three days. We're joking. Actually, Russian zombies eat something else. And that makes it even scarier. The author moves us in time and space: from the outback to the capital, from Russia to Africa, and weaves all the lines into a strong plot. The main note in this symphony of horror is anxiety. So, if you finish reading in the evening (and you, of course, will), then draw the curtains more tightly, otherwise you never know who wanders there in the dark.

It is easier to lean on darkness, its shoulder seems to be a stronghold, especially when you are so young.

Anna Starobinets "Vault 3/9"

The novel is based on Russian folk tales, and if you have read at least one fairy tale not adapted for primary school age, then you should already feel a little uneasy. A small child ends up in Far Far Away, and a young woman notices that people are looking at her in a strange way. And all this is connected with the end of the world. But the horror is not in Koschei, not in the Kafkaesque transformation of the heroine. The worst thing when reading will be those who are afraid of the indifference of loved ones and dream about lost children or parents.

When the night came - dark, starless, icy - the Boy sat down under a tree and began to think about what usually happens to children who find themselves alone in the forest at night. What happens to them?

Viktor Tochinov "Creature"

If you are a fan of blood, psychopathic maniacs, hellish batch seasoned with Nazis and tentacles, then Torchinov is exactly what you need. This time it takes place in the gloomy suburbs of St. Petersburg, and the author's historical and local lore excursions are very plausible. The hero of the book, even though the writer is a serious man, confidently swings a crowbar. Take an example from him if you start to twitch from suspicious rustles behind your back.

This is him, this is Filya… thought Slavik before falling into an abyss teeming with yellow, green and red balloons. His head also turned into a red ball - and immediately burst with the crimson ringing of a bronze pentagram ...

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If you follow books in the horror genre, you probably know the name Nail Izmailov. It was under this pseudonym that the writer released two horror novels - Ubyr and Ubyr. Nobody dies." We liked both "Ubyrs" so much that we asked Shamil to make a list of books for you, from which it becomes creepy in a good way.

So, we give the floor to Shamil: “I have always liked not the canon, but attempts to hack it or use it for unusual purposes. Therefore, the list turned out to be somewhat specific. I can only assure you that each of the items on this list not only made me tremble in the course of the piece, but also sent me to the easy groggy at the end. This, in my opinion, is one of the main criteria for class reading. I tried to do without well-known positions. Authors are ranked alphabetically.

Bixby is the quintessential burly literary tinkerer who's written tons of fantasy series and magazine stories with flashy covers. One went down in history - this one. A tiny story in a brilliant translation by Arkady Strugatsky (under a pseudonym - S. Berezhkov). "We live well!" Today it looks more like a social pamphlet, and in our conditions it is also a political pamphlet, but it frightens not like a child. Rather, childish, which is even scarier.



Smart Soviet publishers and literary critics adored Bradbury, so they actively positioned him as a singer of humanism and a master of philosophical fiction. The trick was a success: the fans managed not to ignite the dark side of Bradbury's work, who is actually the genius of a cruel parable, despite the fact that pieces from this side came across, for example, in the classic "Martian Chronicles" ("There will be gentle rain"), and according to the terrible "Veld" even the Soviet cinema was filmed. Now, of course, Bradbury has been published more or less completely - but, for example, his exemplary horror novel “Something terrible is coming” plowed me much less than the story “Ferris Wheel” read in childhood in the magazine “Around the World”, from which the novel, in fact, grew.



1. Maria Galina, Malaya Wilderness



Maria Galina is a typical “friend among strangers”: she is rightfully one of the top authors of the so-called Bollitra (great literature), while weaving plots from masslit material - and it turns out about life, not the best, but ours. The action of the first part of "Little Wilderness" takes place in the most prosperous sleepy Odessa in 1979: a sharashka office called SES-2, whose duties include protecting this section of the Soviet border from the penetration of non-material threats, clicked on the invasion of some kind of horror - and the station employees are responsible for this will have to do not only before the party committee, the court and Moscow. You will have to answer with your life and soul. A very small second part takes place in 1987 in a gloomy countryside, through which two stubborn citizens make their way to the main village - obviously bruised by something and obviously hoping for something. After the first story, sweeping and desperate, the second, restrained and coldish, looks pale - like the quest plot against the backdrop of the multilinear action of SES-2. Galina pulls and pulls this pallor with ruthless precision, and then tears her to the jesters, to the Lesser Wilderness - to a flash in the whole sky and lethargy in her chest.



2. Leonid Kaganov, stories "Khomka" and "Until Dawn" (obscene version)






Kaganov aka lleo is a professional laugher, a Runet guru and a highly technical text writer who can write anything about anything. That's why I don't really like to read it. But I read this couple of stories - and imbued. Very different, hopeless in different ways, equally scary.



3. Stephen King, "It"



The most universal and serious horror from the man who made the low genre highly paid and respectable. There is almost too much of everything in this novel - fear, bright dreams, blood, pages, murdered children, first feelings, violence, love, drunkenness, perversions, flashbacks - in general, everything that normal fans love King for.

I'm crazy, and my favorite is still the novel "Dead Zone", mastered a quarter of a century ago in the journal "Foreign Literature" and has nothing to do with horror. "It" is in second place. The book, which forever inscribed the image of a terrible clown in the gallery of universal evil, was published in 1986. But Soviet children got acquainted with this image two years earlier: in 1984, Vladislav Krapivin’s brilliant story “A Summer Holiday in Starogorsk” was published, in which a clown sent by aliens frightened teenagers a little less.



4. Stephen King, Misery



Among other things, King is interesting for his mercilessly pragmatic attitude towards his own person. He made himself an episodic (and not the most attractive) hero of the epic The Dark Tower - and the dramatic appearances of the writer King a couple of times saved the hellishly long cycle from falling into burdensome meaninglessness. King resorted to less overt exploitation of his own person all the time. It is clear that everyone does this, but not everyone makes the writer the main character over and over again. King did - and won, along the way covering related topics of creative crises, graphomania, neurostimulation and whatnot (The Shining, The Ballad of a Flexible Bullet, The Dark Half, Secret Window, Secret Garden, then almost everywhere). In "Misery" the author closed the topic of responsibility to fans - so much so that most sane fiction writers have since shied away from communicating with single romantic fans with a background in medical institutions and an ax in a closet.



5. Andrey Lazarchuk, stories "Mummy" and "Out of the Darkness"



Lazarchuk is actually a science fiction writer who knows how and loves to scare in a variety of ways, both with episodes (in the spectrum from the psychedelic collapse of reality in Soldiers of Babylon to merciless necromagic and the chthonic holocaust of Caesar's Joy) river” (about voracious Morlocks from the outskirts of the industrial site).

But personally, two early stories frightened me much more - about the trip of children to the eternally living Lenin and about the fact that even adults do not need to be afraid of the dark - they need to be afraid of their victory over fear.



A mortally tired vampire girl and her sick quasi-dad make a stir in the November Stockholm of 1981, in which alcoholics read Dostoevsky with hatred, the stricken hero hides enuresis with the help of a foam rubber ball in his pants, and the Soviet a submarine that ran aground in Swedish waters. A chilly but brilliant book.



The author of iconic sci-fi sagas and low-profile horror films has risen to the cultural elite by offering the reader a new version of conspiracy theories: Simmons has begun to crush ancient mysteries with wild but carefully substantiated solutions. The most successful was the first experiment, in which the author deceives the cunning reader twice. First, instead of the expected thriller, he slipped a verbose, boring and purely realistic reconstruction of the report on the Arctic campaign of the Erebus and Terror ships, which disappeared in the middle of the 19th century, setting off in search of the Northwest Passage to Canada. According to Simmons, the dogmatism of planning, the swagger of command and theft of suppliers, which traditionally ruined expeditions, was supplemented by the main factor incompatible with life: a monster living in ice that emerges from any clot of the polar night, casually bites a person along with a rhea and loves to lay out puzzles from fragments of human bodies . The first 500 pages of the 900-page volume are devoted to a detailed escalation of the nightmare: the crew sits on frozen ships, weekly carries the next corpses into the holds infested with rats and looks longingly into the future. And the reader is even sadder. And then Simmons deceives the reader once again by putting him, along with the characters, into an ending that was impossible to imagine, and which captures, like in childhood. And scary accordingly.



Not so much frightening as disturbingly puzzling cycle of dry, harsh and very catchy stories, in each of which the hero, then a Komsomol member of twenty-five thousand, then a Red Army soldier with a flying detachment of the NKVD, then a special doctor, or even bombed with a truck, collides with devils and werewolves jumping out from cellars and forests of the Voronezh outback. Much, as Shchepetnev should, is explained by the intrigues of the Soviet government, demolishing churches and blowing up power units, but the author, as, again, he is supposed to, makes it clear to an impartial reader that the Bolsheviks only removed the lid from the infernal incubator that they did not equip. A couple of times Shchepetnev, who has been playing with an alternative course of history for a long time, could not resist rudely sticking a classic plot into real village life. To show, for example, how the story of Gogol's "Viya" would be seen by a left-wing traveler who, along the party line, spends the night in a church while Khoma is being sausageed to the cries of "And you, Brutus!" Or how events would have turned out at the Dead Climber's Hotel if natural scientists and special laboratory workers had gathered there, and zombies with werewolves were naughty instead of aliens. I have to report that nothing good came of it anyway. Some of the main characters remained alive - and that's bread. Black is like that.

What could be more interesting than the worlds that can be entered using the key that is the book! Those horrors that unfold before you are connected not only with the talent of the writer, but also with the imagination of the reader. You build the scenery yourself, choose the appearance of the characters, capturing the atmosphere pumped up by the author. There are no special effects in the book, mediocre acting and inappropriate actors or fake pavilions, it's all up to you. Although many popular works, primary source books are still successfully sold both in paper and in the now popular electronic form.

The book takes longer than the movie; it must open up, you need to feel contact with it, find common ground, and it will generously reward you for the time spent, opening up its secrets to you, page by page. You can “swallow” it in just one night or put it aside for a few days, thinking about what you read. A book is always a relationship, it is like a friendship - yours and yours the key to the fantasy universe. We hope that you will be happy to make friends with the works from our list, compiled in random order, and want to pick them up more than once, because books are like people - they get bored without the attention of their friends.

1) "Pet Cemetery"

Release year: 1983

Pet cemetery. Nice provincial fun, so the site thought at first Louis Creed, who arrived in a new house with his family. Children from all over the area brought dead animals here. Dogs, cats, canaries, rats. They were buried in ancient Indian land. In one that is harder than the human heart. People are not buried in the Pet Cemetery. But Louis will have to do it one day - in deep grief, in a fit of despair. But everything you do, sooner or later comes back to you threefold.

2) "Call" ("Ring")

Release year: 1991

This novel, after its publication, gained such popularity that it has already been filmed twice - in its homeland in Japan and in the USA. The plot of the work was a Japanese urban legend of the late XX century. A video cassette falls into the hands of journalist Asakawa Kazuyuki, which has already brought death to four people. If exactly in a week he does not solve the magic formula of salvation, he and his loved ones will die.

3) "The Ghost of Hill House"

Release year: 1959

An old mansion on a hill brings only grief to its inhabitants. The owners refuse to live in it, an elderly couple looking after the house does not risk staying here for the night. The reputation of the abode of ghosts was firmly entrenched behind the house. And then one day the silence of the house is broken by a noisy company of visitors. Dr. Montagu, a paranormal researcher, rents a mansion for the summer to study the phenomena taking place there. None of the arrivals can even imagine what a nightmare this trip will end. The popularity of the book was consolidated by its two film adaptations - directed by Robert Wise (1963) and Jan De Bont with the participation of Steven Spielberg (1999).

4) Cycle "Myths of Cthulhu"

Years of release: 1917-1927

During the life of Lovecraft, his works were not very popular, but the site after his death, they had a noticeable impact on the formation of modern popular culture. His work is so unique that the works of Lovecraft stand out in a separate subgenre - the so-called Lovecraftian horror, which most often uses the psychological horror of the unknown. It can also be said that Lovecraft was the first to develop in detail the “cosmic horror” about the intervention of aliens in earthly life, which seriously affected post-war fiction: the author’s influence is noticeable in many works about aliens from outer space.

5) "Omen" ("Omen")

Release year: 1976

Robert Thorne, an American diplomat, upon arrival at the hospital learns that his wife has given birth to a dead child. The wife does not yet know about this, and Thorne is offered to adopt a baby who was born on the same day - the 6th of the 6th month. The nurse convinced him that the newborn's mother had died in childbirth and she had no relatives. Robert agrees without telling his wife. Soon, parents notice strange things about their son: Damien has never been sick, he is afraid of churches, and people are dying around him. In the Book of Revelations it was said that the Antichrist would come in human form, that this birth would take place on the sixth day of the sixth month at six o'clock.

6) "The Exorcist"

Release year: 1971

Ragan, a sweet, well-mannered girl of eleven, transforms before her eyes into a monster with an animal disguise and a rough, raspy voice. Her mother, a famous actress, is desperately looking for a way out of this situation, realizing that she is irretrievably losing her daughter every day. The tender soul of the child groans in pain and horror and tries to resist, but the forces are unequal, and the demon that has taken possession of it is already ready to celebrate the victory. Meanwhile, the priest Karras comes to the aid of the family.

7) "Salim's Destiny" ("The Lot of Jerusalem")

Release year: 1975

Ben Mears, a writer, arrives in the small town of Maine, Salim's Lot, and almost at the same time, a new owner moves into the newly bought old sinister Marsten house. Following this, a little boy tragically disappears, and then people began to disappear all over the town - one by one and whole families. Neither relatives nor even the police could find them. And when hope disappeared, it seemed forever, the lost returned, and the town shuddered with horror. Ben is one of the few who guessed what was the matter, he begins the fight against the ancient evil, whose name is vampires.
This novel has many variants of the title depending on the translation. Here we present two of the most popular.

8) "Dracula"

Release year: 1897

Bram Stoker's novel is a well-known classic of the vampire genre, and his graph site Dracula is a truly immortal creature that has survived many adaptations and has become the embodiment of all the most insidious and mysterious that human fantasy is capable of. The reader is about to hear five voices telling of their nightmarish encounters with Dracula. Beauty Lucy, who received a fatal bite and gradually becomes a vampire; her lover, who cannot find a place for himself from despair; a courageous physician who recognizes ominous symptoms; lawyer Jonathan Harker, who went to distant Transylvania to conclude a fatal deal; his faithful fiancee Mina. Excerpts from their diaries and letters step by step bring the sinister mystery closer to the solution.

9) “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, “Mirgorod”

Years of release: 1831-1832, 1835

The book "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", consisting of eight stories, is divided exactly into two parts. "Mirgorod", published in 1835, which includes the famous "Viy", is a collection of stories by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, the site which is positioned as a continuation of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka". The stories in this collection are based on Ukrainian folklore and have much in common with each other. In this collection, unlike "Dikanka", where Rudy Panko was, there is no single "publisher" who closes the cycle of stories. Despite the fact that the stories are grouped, they can be read separately without losing the meaning of each story. "Mirgorod" was published in two volumes, two stories each.

10) "Ghouls"

Release year: 2000

The novel "Guly" was published in two books, the first is called "Black Dawn", the second "Fight", and the author himself was announced by the publishers as the Russian Stephen King. Based on the mythological concept developed by the author, the ghouls are the children of Ahriman, the dark deity of Zoroastrianism, whom he created in opposition to the human race. Ghouls do not have a soul, they are insidious, unreasonably vicious, bloodthirsty and the site is practically immortal, they can only be destroyed by fire or sea water. These monsters are born from buried human corpses. According to ancient prophecies, Vassakh Gul appears in the world every few centuries - a powerful leader of the dark army, who arranges a local apocalypse in one single town and, having destroyed its entire population, grows an army of ghouls from corpses for a global apocalypse. This is exactly the situation that arises in a small modern Italian city.

11) "Stories"

Release year: 1834-1847

Edgar Alan Poe is a legend in American literature. It seems that all its genres and directions have grown out of his work. It is his gloomy mysterious figure that runs through all the masterpieces born in the New World. His own works are full of darkness and mysticism. Mysterious dead, mysterious beasts, the Sphinx, King Plague and the Devil himself - these are his favorite characters.

12) Hellraiser

Release year: 1986

The box, once created by the toy craftsman Lemarchand, opens the way to other dimensions. A mysterious order of senobites who have tasted the highest pleasure that is inaccessible to an ordinary person. And the gates of hell itself, flung open to our world. Hellraiser has become a world horror classic, and cult films based on this novel were shot, in the creation of which Clive Barker himself took part.

13) "Caught by Ghosts"

Release year: 1987

Where is the line between dream and reality? What happens in real life, and what is just a figment of the imagination? Is contact with the other world possible if there is nothing beyond death? Trying to answer all these questions cost David Ash too much. He never believed in ghosts, did not trust the supernatural, laughed at them, considering the site to be their Photoshop. But it couldn't go on like this for long. Sooner or later, he had to fight with otherworldly forces. What awaits him at the end of this terrible, chilling story?

14) "They appear at midnight"

Release year: 1968

In all sinister literature about the other world, there is no other such creature that would cause more horror, disgust and unhealthy interest than a vampire. No other monster has attracted such close attention from the recognized masters of this genre, and no other creature from the power of darkness has managed to inspire writers and become the hero of such numerous and outstanding nightmare stories.

15) "We live in a castle"

Release year: 1962

This book is an American Gothic novel, a true psychological thriller. It was selected by the magazine "Times" among the 10 best novels of the site of the year, withstood 13 editions. In one American family living in their own house near the village, a tragedy occurred: almost all of its members were poisoned with arsenic. Two sisters and an elderly uncle - that's all that's left of the once great clan. Life on the estate flowed quietly and measuredly, but one evening there was a knock on the door, announcing the arrival of a cousin who wanted to visit the sisters.

16) "Florence and Giles"

Release year: 2010

1891 New England. Twelve-year-old orphan Florence lives with her younger brother Giles in a secluded and almost abandoned mansion. Their uncle cares little about raising children, and for his niece, he completely forbade hiring a teacher. He is sure that the girl cannot read or write. But Florence, left to herself, secretly swallows book after book, disappearing for hours into the site of the cold silence of a huge library alone with Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe. She invents her own language with which she tells her story. After the mysterious death of the first governess, the guardian did not burden himself with an overly picky choice of a new mentor. Soon Miss Taylor arrives at the estate. She smells of misfortune and the scent of lilies. Florence senses that an evil and vengeful spirit has entered the house and threatens Giles. Unable to turn to adults for help, she uses all her wits and ingenuity to resist him.

17) "Haunted Story"

Release year: 1979

The writer Don Wonderly comes to the small town of Milburn, where his uncle used to live, at the invitation of four old men who call themselves the Nonsense Club; they are busy telling scary stories to each other at club meetings. The fifth member of the club was Uncle Don, who died at a reception given in honor of the enigmatic actress Ann Veronica Moore. This trip is perfect for Don. After all, not everything is going smoothly in his life either: his brother recently died, and Don blames a strange woman for his death, who turned his whole life upside down. In addition, Don hopes to finally write a new novel. But things are not all right in Milbourne either. An out-of-town farmer discovers his cows have been killed and bled to death; a strange woman appears in town, and her appearance shocks the members of the Nonsense Club, one of whom commits suicide. But that's not all: people are starting to disappear in Milbourne.

18) "Madame Mandilip's Devil Dolls" ("Burn, witch, burn!")

Release year: 1932

An unusual patient, henchman of the famous gangster Ricori, is brought to Dr. Lowell's clinic. The patient dies, but the cause of death is unknown, the site and the death itself was so strange and terrible that Ricori, in collaboration with Lowell, begin an investigation. It soon turns out that Lowell's patient was far from the first victim who died in this way, and the only thing that unites all the victims of the epidemic is dolls from Madame Mandilip's shop, a witch who creates reduced copies of living people and relocates the souls of the originals into them.

19) Hell House

Release year: 1971

For nearly twenty years, the house of Emeric Belasco, known throughout the city as an ominous abode of ghosts, has been empty. All attempts to cleanse the Hell House fail, and those who take part in them either die or lose their minds. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the city do not lose hope. Physicist Barret and his wife Edith, medium Florence Tanver and psychic Benjamin Fisher are ready to make another attempt at cleansing. Will the site be able to get rid of the power of dark forces this time?

20) “Vampires. The fantastic novel of Baron Olshevry from the family chronicle of Counts Dracula-Cardy"

Release year: 1912

A young, rich and energetic American heir to an old family, Harry Cardy, arrives in an abandoned Carpathian castle of the ancient Dracula family, accompanied by inseparable friends: the brave Captain Wright, the inquisitive young man James, nicknamed by his friends Sherlock Holmes, and the calm, sensible Dr. Weiss. This novel, written as a parody in response to the emerging vampiric vogue, is now a classic of the genre.

And which mystical book from our list seemed the most terrible to you?

November 8 would have been the 166th birthday of Bram Stoker, the man who has brought vampires into popular culture for more than a century and a half. the site remembered the authors whose writings in the horror genre still deprive numerous readers of sleep.

Bram Stoker was a theater critic and impresario for the famous British actor Henry Irving. He led a stormy bohemian life, was friends with Conan Doyle, was interested in the occult and Eastern European folklore. The last hobby, which took Stoker eight years, eventually turned into the novel Dracula (1897), which had a fantastic success. The book was so popular that it was even released in a paperback edition. Of course, Bram Stoker did not invent any vampires, but it was in his version that these characters received "recognition", becoming part of world culture. The prototype of Dracula, the Romanian medieval prince Vlad Chepes, who bore the nickname Dracula (son of the Dragon), literally did not drink blood, but figuratively - quite: his antics were distinguished by extreme cruelty.

Frankenstein came to his creator in a dream: Mary Shelley dreamed of a "pale scientist" who was assembling a living being on the operating table. Accepting the challenge of Lord Byron, then a friend of her sister, who offered to promptly compose a story, Shelley wrote down her own dream, slightly developing it. After some time, this story was completed, turning into a full-fledged novel. The author was not even twenty that year; no wonder Frankenstein was originally published under a pseudonym. As for the prototype of Victor Frankenstein, one version says that Shelley, writing a novel, kept in mind the image of Johann Konrad Dippel, a German alchemist who tried to create an artificial person by digesting individual parts of the body in a vat.

Stevenson did not go through the department of horror and was not fond of mysticism - he was occupied with travel, romance in any form and real life. Nevertheless, the writer remained in history thanks not only to Treasure Island, but also to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a book that is completely different from its author. The protagonist, suffering from a split personality, each side of which pulls him towards itself, became the first in a large number of schizophrenic characters in world culture, from Norman Bates ("Psycho") to Beavis and Gollum. This theme of duality has been especially fond of by comic book creators: a lot of superheroes these days suffer from a loss of identity, whether it's the Hulk or the Green Goblin.

In his most famous photograph, taken in the year of his death, Poe looks like an unpleasantly swollen type, whose face is touched by a grimace of bile. The poet had enough reasons for dissatisfaction: a difficult personal life, lack of proper recognition, problems with alcohol, poverty. Despite all this (or, conversely, thanks), Edgar Allan Poe managed a lot in his forty years. The fall of the House of Usher, Annabel Lee, the Raven, the murder on the Rue Morgue, the Cask of Amontillado - these names and titles have become firmly established in literary use. The person of this American classic and founder of the detective genre has long been a real cult, with its own traditions, myths and the famous secret Admirer - a man with a closed face, who has been visiting Poe's grave on his birthday for many years.

Lovecraft's flagship book, The Call of Cthulhu, about a fearsome deity, has become a genre staple. The texts of the writer, little known during his lifetime, have become canonical and innovative. It was Lovecraft who laid the foundations of the horror associated with the invasion of extraterrestrial forces, and created his own Universe filled with myths. The tradition of playing with fictitious primary sources also belongs to this author: the dangerous Necronomicon mentioned by him in many books drove dozens of conspiracy theorists crazy, confident that such a manuscript really exists.

An American writer who churned out pulp fiction - "cheap" stories in which horror was intertwined with science fiction. In history, however, entered the novel "Psycho". The story of the maniac Norman Bates, obsessed with his own mother, is based on the case of Ed Gein - one of the most terrible serial killers the world has ever known. Arrested in 1957, Gein spent years killing and dismembering women, keeping their body parts in prominent places in his house. Two years later, Psycho appeared on the shelves of bookstores and was a great success. This book cannot be called an investigative novel, just like one hundred percent fiction: Bloch, who knew the Gein case only in general terms, turned a real story into an occasion for his author's fantasies. "Psycho" impressed director Alfred Hitchcock so much that he not only acquired the film rights, but also tried to buy up the entire print run in order to keep the plot a secret from future viewers.

The classic of American literature, who died this summer, is known throughout the world thanks to his active friendship with Hollywood. The relatively recent 2007 film adaptation of Matheson's main novel, I Am Legend, added new fans to the author, who may not have known that the blockbuster with Will Smith is the fourth film version of the book. Matheson is credited as the founding father of the zombie apocalypse theme; those writers who write about pandemics, the coming of the living dead, and so on. (from Stephen King to Max Brooks with his "World War Z"), one way or another develop his ideas.

The commonplace "king of horrors" with all the banality corresponds to the essence. King is truly the number one writer in the horror genre; thanks to him, phobias, violence, vampires, otherworldly, have become part of a large culture. He himself is also a great writer, whose efficiency and phenomenal love for literature cannot but delight. It seems that there is no topic that King would not speak on, there is no genre in which he did not try himself.

The author of dozens of bestsellers, formally number two in the genre after Stephen King. Kuntz is a classic example of a craftsman who knows his business and doesn't pretend to do anything except for large circulations (and they go off scale - more than 100 million) (which, of course, is also quite a lot). The story of how Dean Koontz's wife gave him five years to write a bestseller and get rich is revealing and explains a lot. Koontz is fine - books are being sold and written, Hollywood is filming (the latest film adaptation is the thriller "Weird Thomas" with Anton Yelchin), but when The New York Times writes that "Kuntz reads King and is afraid, King reads Koontz and is afraid", a respected publication recklessly puts an equal sign between these authors.

Also

Clive Barker. British multi-talent, known as a screenwriter and director ("Hellraiser", "Candyman") almost more than as a writer. Barker also writes plays, stages them in theaters, writes essays, and produces films.

Koji Suzuki. The smiling Japanese who hates horror and prefers to deal with "normal" literature is nonetheless known for his "The Ring" trilogy.

The desire to tickle your nerves and immerse yourself in a gloomy atmosphere has been inherent in people since ancient times. Horror books were written and published as early as the 13th century, having the appearance of knightly Gothic novels, gradually transforming into stories about the exorcism of the devil and about ghosts, later short stories appeared, imbued with deep psychologism. Having accumulated an impressive cultural history, today horror books are represented by a wide variety of genres that border on science fiction, fantasy and detective. Therefore, everyone can find what is closer to him. But what the best horror books have in common is that they provoke feelings of dread and tension.

A collision with the inevitable, the unknown, that which is higher than human understanding - this topic will always be relevant for any era and any country. Gloomy medieval castles predetermined the appearance of books in the horror genre, as the mysterious corners of family estates, forgotten rooms and family secrets made you think about otherworldly forces. The technical progress of the mid-19th century, a sincere belief in reason, the development of the natural sciences made people think about the clash of nature and science, so horror books appeared about monsters created by man, who subsequently loses control over his offspring. At the turn of the century, the man himself, the study of his inner world, the comprehension of secrets hidden from the eyes, became a popular topic, so the main characters became mentally ill, maniacs and murderers. Modern literature and writers work with a variety of genres, combining the experience of past generations.

Find your horror book

The KnigoPoisk site allows you to find a suitable work for you. If you are interested in horror, the books listed on the site will help you plunge into the tense and chilling atmosphere. But if you have not yet decided on your favorite authors and trends, then it does not matter. The Horror Book Ranking will allow you to find the best examples of literature to start with. Read with mind and pleasure!