Classic Horror Lovers discussion
Introductions/Group Housekeeping
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Introducing...
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I'm excited that October is coming so that TCM will start showing the classic horror movies!
Hi All!My name is Monique and I am thrilled to be a part of this group! I love classic horror though I must admit I haven't read that much of it! I love Poe, Lovecraft, du Maurier, Jackson, and the spattering of Victorian ghost stories that I have read over the years. And, though his horror novels don't meet the before 1960 requirement, Ira Levin. Why do I like classic horror? I can't even explain the attraction. It just brings up this feeling of excitment that I just love. It's sort of the same with old Hammer films. Despite not having read many of the classics, I have them sitting around on my book shelves patiently waiting for me to get around to them. This list has inspired me to begin reading Uncle Silas by Le Fanu. Today will be the perfect day as we are expecting thunderstorms (very unusual for the SF Bay Area) to pop up this afternoon!
Oh and those Hitchcock compilations. I loved those as a kid!
Hello, my name is Matt Cowan. I've had a few short stories published in the horror genre. I write a blog for a website that looks at the work of several vintage horror authors at www.vintagehorror.com. My favorite writers are Ramsey Campbell, M.R. James, J. Sheridan LeFanu, William Hope Hodgson,Ralph Adams Cram, E.F. Benson, and L.P. Hartley to name a few. I'm excited to join a group like this one! :)
I forgot to add Algernon Blackwood to my list but he should be there as well.
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Welcome to all the new people! Honnha, I love old black and whites and Vincent Price too! Which reminds me, I haven't had a good Price fix in a while....
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This is my favorite time of year for those reasons, Lady D!
1. Name or Screen Name
Hi, I'm Alexandra Lanc -- book lover, contemporary YA author, and chocolate fanatic.
2. Who are your favorite classic horror writers?
I'm not really sure. Most classic horror novels I have read have all bee3n by different authors. I've never read more than one by a specific author. I definitely like Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, though. They wrote my two favorite horror classics.
3. Why do you like classic horror?
I love the horror genre, but I hate all the intense gore that some contemporary authors put into their stories. There's something about the ability to chill someone to the bone without going overboard on blood/violence. Plus, the stories are usually better.
4. Anything else you'd like us to know about you?
Not really...I also like the science fiction and fantasy genres, though I like sci-fi better. And a bit of romance is nice.
Hi, I'm Alexandra Lanc -- book lover, contemporary YA author, and chocolate fanatic.
2. Who are your favorite classic horror writers?
I'm not really sure. Most classic horror novels I have read have all bee3n by different authors. I've never read more than one by a specific author. I definitely like Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, though. They wrote my two favorite horror classics.
3. Why do you like classic horror?
I love the horror genre, but I hate all the intense gore that some contemporary authors put into their stories. There's something about the ability to chill someone to the bone without going overboard on blood/violence. Plus, the stories are usually better.
4. Anything else you'd like us to know about you?
Not really...I also like the science fiction and fantasy genres, though I like sci-fi better. And a bit of romance is nice.
You can also watch a lot of them online if you google horror movies public domain
Hi - I'm new here. I'm published in romance and romantic suspense - and by the way, to a lot of us, even as romance, Twilight is pretty darned awful. Anyway, what I seriously love is speculative fiction/science fiction/classic horror. I so wish I could write that stuff, but I can't. I'm also a big fan of magical realism, which I guess is a more upbeat form of speculative fiction - sort of the happier, more well-adjusted cousin of horror.
I'm a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan. I also love Shirley Jackson and think she's terribly under-appreciated. My son just had to read her story "The Summer People" - it was actually one I'd never read, so I took his book and read it myself. Love her ability to build a quiet sense of dread and hopelessness.
With Lovecraft, I love that whole fever-dream feeling his stories carry - that sense of seeing something horrible out of the corner of your eye but never quite being able to confront it. If that makes sense.
Looking forward to finding new reading ideas here.
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1. Name or Screen Name. Mountain Shelby 2. Who are your favorite classic horror writers? I was originally introduced to that wonderfully delicious feeling of "horror" through Poe and Hawthorne. Classifications aside, Dostoevsky has written some of the most horrifying scenes in all of literature.
3. Why do you like classic horror? I enjoy intelligently-rendered, character-driven psychological suspense. I do not enjoy scenes of gratuitous gore, torture, cruelty, etc. Anyone can hack up bodies and scribble about it.
4. Anything else you'd like us to know about you? My favorite thing about Goodreads is the never-ending list of "newly discovered" books and authors.
Hi Lynn and Shelby. Lyn, I feel exactly the way you do regarding Lovecraft and Jackson!
Lady Danielle "The Book Huntress" - What do you recommend by Mary Roberts Rinehart?
Hello, I am reading The Breaking Point right now. The Yellow Room is a wonderful novella available free online at the Gutenberg Project and Manybooks.net. And of course (for lovers of Vincent Price) The Bat.
Honnha
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Honnha, thanks!
Kenneth DarlandClassic Authors? H P Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert W. Chambers, Algernon Blackwood,
Prefer atmosphere over gore any-day.
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Hi my name is York,Screen name: Yorkg
I love older horror movies, the classical type, e.g. mummy, Dracula, wolf an, etc, or any done before the 70s. I read older horror too, and sort of stopped in the 80s after binge of Stephen King books.
Take care,
York
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Hi all!1. Jami
2. My favorite classic horror is Shirley Jackson. I also like Edith Wharton's ghost stories. I tend to like gothic elements in books like Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca
3. I like all things horror, but find myself especially drawn to "old dark house" stories.
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Jami wrote: "Hi all!1. Jami
2. My favorite classic horror is Shirley Jackson. I also like Edith Wharton's ghost stories. I tend to like gothic elements in books like Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca
3..."
I am a huge fan of haunted house/creepy abode books and films. Especially at this time of year.
Lady Danielle "The Book Huntress" wrote: "Welcome, Alexandra and Lynn, and belated welcome, MountainShelby.Honnha, thanks!"
Thanks, for the welcome, Danielle. Jason - glad to hear of another Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson fan!
Jami and MountainShelby - thanks for mentioning Daphne du Maurier. I love her and forget just how creepy some of her stories were. I especially love "Don't Look Now." It's also one of my favorite movies.
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message 230:
by
Danielle The Book Huntress , Jamesian Enthusiast
(last edited Sep 30, 2011 05:57AM)
(new)
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If you want to discuss a book with other members, feel free to start a thread, and mark it for spoilers. If you need help, let myself or Martha know, or even one of the other members.
Also, feel free to add books to the bookshelf. The goal of this group is to expand knowledge of the older (prior to 1960) horror/gothic books so people in our modern world can enjoy them. So please feel free to share your knowledge with other members.
We also have lists for books we want to read in the classic horror genre. Simon has started two great lists for definitive classic horror and modern writers who are in the classic vein, so give him your favorite suggestions to add; and there is a list of books that we feel that classic horror book buffs should check out. We want your suggestions.
Thanks again!
1. Hi Friends, I am Teric Darken.2. My favorite classic horror writers include: Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Devil and Tom Walker), Stephen Vincent Benet (The Devil and Daniel Webster), Edgar Allan Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart, etc...) and CS Lewis with his book, The Screwtape Letters.
3. I enjoy classic horror because my dad and my grandfather used to tell me creepy/spooky stories when I was young.
4. I am an author; my most recent supernatural horror/thriller book is entitled Wickflicker.
I look forward to participating in this forum, and I am glad to see it on here. In my opinion, "horror" has taken on a different form in recent years; the term now seemingly equivocated with "slasher" material. Personally, I am not a fan of gratuitous slasher/torture scripts.
I do wish that the terms (horror vs. slasher) were differentiated/separated by the masses as, to me, horror is comprised of predominantly supernatural and/or fictitious elements and characters: namely ghosts, ghouls, goblins, monsters and the like.
It has always been the "creep factor," not the blood and guts, that has given me those wondrous chills: the "something" lurking just around the corner, that shape-shifting shadow, or that monster that you can't quite escape from, as opposed to a blood bath at the expense of human suffering.
Sometimes it is the things that aren't shown - those things that are left up to the reader's imagination - that best allows the reader to get their spook on, and that's why I am a fan of classic horror, among other reasons.
Thanks for allowing me to join.
As iron sharpens iron...
Teric Darken
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Thank you both for the welcome, Martha and Lady Danielle!<><+><>
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Hello, my name is Omar.i am from Egypt. i love classic horror to much especially English tales but i face some problems in reading english since it is not my Native language,i wish you give me some help in my choices.
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I should perhaps be ashamed to admit that I acquired my taste for horror stories as a child, with horror comics in the 1970s - but they were the pulp fiction of their day. I also read Poe while very ill when I was 13 (horror and high fever together definitely spur the imagination) and never forgot the powerful impact of those stories. Growing up in a 250-year old farm house that I was convinced was haunted may also have something to do with it ;)My favorite classic horror authors include M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Lovecraft, William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, A. Merritt, Le Fanu, E.F. Benson, Guy de Maupassant - and the many pulp horror fiction writers of the 1920s-50s.
is one of the creepiest book's I've ever read. I also enjoy quasi-supernatural classic fiction like the novels of Sax Rohmer.Why do I enjoy classic horror? Put simply, it spurs my imagination and has a visceral impact that other fiction rarely achieves. I'm looking to expand my repertoire into other, lesser-known classic horror fiction.
Edward wrote: "I should perhaps be ashamed to admit that I acquired my taste for horror stories as a child, with horror comics in the 1970s - but they were the pulp fiction of their day. I also read Poe while ver..."
Oh, I sure agree...high fever does spur the imagination!
Oh, I sure agree...high fever does spur the imagination!
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If you don't mind reading on the computer, I highly recommend participating in our Tales to Chill Your Blood short story reads. Great way to get exposure to different stories and writers in this genre.
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My name is Dave-I find Lovecraft my favorite, but I like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelly to name a few. I also like some writers of today who follow the grand horror tradition. I think the Lovecraft EZINE is a great read for classic horror lovers.
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Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to new horizons to explore, and I might get motivated to write the horror story I have been considering about Chaco Canyon.
1. Hi, My name is Malcolm2. I like Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Robert Louis Stevenson.
3. I prefer period horror to modern pulp.
Welcome--i discovered Le Fanu through Goodreads and enjoy his fiction, too.
MountainShelby wrote: "Welcome--i discovered Le Fanu through Goodreads and enjoy his fiction, too."Welcome to you, too, thanks. Cool. Any of his works in particular do you like?
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David, you should!
Classic Horror Lovers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Demon Hunters (other topics)The Night Side (other topics)
Sleep No More: Twenty Masterpieces of Horror for the Connoisseur (other topics)
Who Knocks? Twenty Masterpieces of the Spectral for the Connoisseur (other topics)
The Keep (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
August Derleth (other topics)H.P. Lovecraft (other topics)
August Derleth (other topics)
Algernon Blackwood (other topics)
Rudyard Kipling (other topics)
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I have been in love with books since childhood (lucky for me) and I will read just about anything that comes through my hands. However, as I have grown older, I find my taste firmly entrenched in older fiction, most especially horror and suspense.
Some of my favorites are Algernon Blackwood, Wilkie Collins,Ambrose Brice, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Lovecraft and a slew of others.
I am also thoroughly addicted to old horror movies. I love the old black and white scare fests and live for Halloween specials on AMC and TMC all month long. (Long live Vincent Price!)
I have no idea what I am doing here or how this site functions, but I am willing to learn. I would love to find others that I can share this genre and period with. I live in the midwest and I am starting to wonder if most of the people around me read nothing beyond text messages.