"Pig Blood Blues"
By Clive Barker

Sometimes, a story stays with you. When you read the kind of stuff that I often do, this is not necessarily a good thing. One story in particular creeped me out so badly that I can't seem to make myself re-read it: "Pig Blood Blues" by Clive Barker. Barker's grim take on Lord of the Flies disturbed me beyond all reason, leaving me haunted by the image of a grotesque malevolent creature resting hugely in its pen awaiting its next meal of human flesh, eyes a-glitter with malice and a cunning intelligence. -- Peggy Hailey

The Zombie Survival Guide
By Max Brooks

I don't know if this is scary or simply darkly amusing. Much like the zombie flicks that inspired this book, it is filled with chilling thoughts. (Would you think to live in a prison to avoid the walking dead?) and absurdly sensible ideas that make you almost laugh when you read them (such as bicycling across the zombie infested landscape of your local city). Formatted like an army field manual, The Zombie Survival Guide feels just realistic and dry enough to make you wonder just how well you would do if the Final Trump is blown, God takes his own up to heaven and, well, you ain't one of 'em! -- Todd Shearer

Mermaid Saga
By Rumiko Takahashi

Rumiko Takahashi, the creator of the romantic comedies Ranma 1/2 and Inu-Yasha, got her start with manga a little more . . . horrific. She apprenticed with Kazuo Koike, the creator of the violent Crying Freeman and Lone Wolf and Cub, and right in the middle of her biggest success as a sex comedy author she created this.

According to ancient legend, anyone who eats the flesh of a mermaid (which are monstrous creatures more like the Fiji Mermaid than Ariel) has a chance at becoming immortal. Of course, only a rare few are that lucky. Most who dare to devour mermaid meat die in horrible agony or are transformed into immortal mindless monsters.

Set in the modern day, Mermaid Saga tells the story of Yuta, who became immortal as a young man when he and his fellow fisherman caught and ate a mermaid 500 years ago, and the naive young immortal girl Mana, who was raised for food by witches seeking the power of the mermaid flesh to grant them eternal youth. Together, they face a variety of horrific creatures, from soulless beings to demented dolls to the criminal element.

There's plenty of gore (Yuta often gets hacked up and has to regenerate), and the monster designs are creepily imaginative, and manga master Takahashi doesn't skimp on the plot or character development. If you're a manga fan looking to get into the horror genre a bit, this is the best introduction you're going to get. -- Kevin Pezzano

The American Way of Death Revisited
By Jessica Mitford (non-fiction)

Originally written in 1963 and recently updated, this book gives an unflinching glimpse into the American death industry, laying out all the tricks employed and traps laid by your friendly local mortician. From using pink tinted lights to make the dead look less dead to propping up the far shoulder of your Uncle Bob in his coffin to make sure he does not look like he is lying flat in a box, to getting you to pay for refreshed flowers on your loved one's grave that neither you nor the deceased will never see, Mitford makes your local cemetery look like a mine field. Definitely an eye-opener for those of you who want to know what actually happens once you pass into that great beyond. And you thought the idea of an autopsy was bad enough. -- Todd Shearer

"In The Vault"
By H. P. Lovecraft

"For the long-neglected latch was obviously broken, leaving the careless undertaker trapped in the vault, a victim of his own oversight."

A great little tale by the master, this was the first EC Comics-style morality tale, written long before the Crypt Keeper was ever interred. Like most Lovecraft stories it's a tasty tale with an unnamed narrator, this time the doctor of one George Birch. Birch used to be an undertaker, and not a good one. He made shoddy coffins and was a drinker, lazy, and a cheapskate. A winter freeze prevented burials until spring, leaving seven coffins piled up in a storage vault. Come spring, on Good Friday no less, Birch starts the work on laying his clients to rest and winds up locked inside the vault. His only means of escape is to build a tower with the coffins to reach a high transom that he has to break open wider to fit through. What happens when he makes his escape attempt, and why, is chillingly fantastic. -- Gary Mitchel

The Blair Witch Project
Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez

I'm not afraid to admit it. The Blair Witch Project scared me. Call me a female body part if you will, but it scared me like no other horror flick I have ever seen. I mean, sweat dripping down my back scared. It's not the kind of movie I want to own on DVD or, in fact, ever see again. Seeing it a second time would ruin it. But that first time, right when it came out in 1999, was a harrowing experience. Perhaps I connected to it personally because I grew up in a rural area, near the woods, and heard freaky noises out there all the time. I drove home from work at the time late every night through unoccupied stretches of dark, overgrown back roads. There were no pop songs on the soundtrack, no steadily building music, not any special effects. I wasn't even sure what happened at the end of the thing. It was all in my imagination. And I can imagine a lot. The best thing about the movie for me is that the young lady who, against her better judgment, is now my wife saw it with me, and she insisted that I stay over at her house after we saw the movie. Oh yeah. That's why horror movies were invented. -- Joe Crowe

The Wicker Man (1973)
Directed by Robin Hardy

In light of the recent remake, I pulled the original out from hiding in my DVD rack and popped it in to compare. If you have a chance, catch the original. Though a bit dated, it is a far better movie.

An upstanding, churchgoing policeman, Edward Woodward is called to a remote Scottish island to find a missing child. He and his beliefs are confronted by a pagan society he simply cannot or will not understand. He is shocked and harassed by inhabitants of Summerisle as he investigates the disappearance of a young girl, before being drawn unwittingly to be part of the island's harvest festival to solve the mystery.

While a little light on the spooks and obvious tricks common to most horror movies, The Wicker Man gives an interesting glimpse into pagan beliefs and retains some of the mystery that made us love Grimm's fairy tales as a child. -- Todd Shearer

"1408" from Everything's Eventual
By Stephen King

Any horror-loving thrill-seeker treasures the (exceedingly) rare read that actually, really, freaks you the hell out. "1408" is, according to King, his entry in the Ghostly Room At The Inn genre, but you'll find no fogged mirror messages or "but that room's been kept unoccupied since 1955!" moments here. Instead, King grinds the main character's fevered perceptions into a pulp, and funnels that dizzying hallucinogenic madness directly into your skull. In that room, the presence of some dark thing is a supernatural intoxicant, a musk that hangs in the air, clouding judgment, twisting time, bleeding you, bleeding you, always bleeding you . The prose in this story seeped through my irises and momentarily altered my brain chemistry such that, looking up from the page, my familiar mundane bedroom suddenly seemed vaguely alien and slightly . . . wrong. -- Jason Myers

The Walking Dead
By Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore

Waking up in hospital to find the world changed is not an original idea. John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids famously did it with carnivorous plants. 28 Days Later did it with zombies. And so does The Walking Dead. What all three have in common is that they do not dwell on the disaster itself, but instead explore what happens next. In the America-set comic book series (available in several inexpensive collected volumes), a small-town sheriff wakes up in a hospital to find everyone gone. Initially a search for his family in a world gone mad, the story begins to focus on the daily battle for survival and the pressure-cooker situation this creates for the small band of survivors. Starkly drawn in black and white, the horror of The Walking Dead is not in the short, sharp scare, but in the long, slow grind. -- Matthew Pook

Angel Heart
Directed by Alan Parker

This movie makes fans scary. Fans! (By which I mean the things that keep us cool during the summer. For the other kind, see Misery.) But what freaked me out about this movie most, and has kept it in my mind ever since, is the descent in the elevator (to Hell?) that takes place while the end credits roll. Harry Angel has just found out the truth about himself, and now he has to face the results of a bargain that he never made. In ways kin to the new Japanese-style horror, Harry is guilty for something that he never did -- since the Harry we follow through the movie is a good guy. The elevator gives him, and us, time to ponder this question: Is it his fault his new life is the result of an old sin, by another, darker him? Yes. Everybody out. -- Andrew Kozma

Silence of the Lambs audiobook
Read by Kathy Bates

I read Silence of the Lambs, and it was scary. I watched Silence of the Lambs, and it was even scarier. But for my money, the best way to experience Silence of the Lambs is to get hold of the audio version, put on some headphones, and put yourself in the hands of the amazing Kathy Bates. A good performer can supercharge your imagination, making everything more real. Clarice is more vulnerable and more heroic, and Lecter is even more disturbing. Listen to this and you will forget about Anthony Hopkins, I kid you not. -- Peggy Hailey

"The Statement of Randolph Carter"
By H. P. Lovecraft

"But I do not fear him now, for I suspect that he has known horrors beyond my ken. Now I fear for him."

Lovecraft was writing survival horror long before it was cool. His best tales are those that are regaled to us by the lone witness remaining from some horrific events, like "At the Mountains of Madness" or "The Call of Cthulhu." This one is no different, the transcript of what researcher Randolph Carter told the police investigating the disappearance of Harley Warren, his partner. They were last seen heading into an ancient cemetery, following up on notes from a strange book Warren had received from India. They break open an old tomb, Warren venturing down into the depths, while Carter stays at the door keeping in communication with him by wire telephone. Lovecraft's a master of moody, evocative descriptions, and in this story he's at the top of his game. The tension builds, getting creepier and scarier until the final line that is a perfect capstone to the tale. It still makes me shudder. -- Gary Mitchel

"Night They Missed The Horror Show"
By Joe R. Lansdale

"If they'd gone to the drive-in like they'd planned, none of this would have happened" starts the scariest horror short story ever written. Joe R. Lansdale's "Night They Missed the Horror Show" tantalizes the senses with what on the surface appears to be a simple story. Two East Texas teenage football players decide to skip the latest zombie movie at local drive-in because it has a black man kissing a white woman (that's the sanitized p.c. version). Along the way, the teens rescue the team's black quarterback, find a dead dog, and encounter some ornery good ole boys.

From this mundane backdrop, Lansdale creates a powerful, creepy tale with no supernatural elements. This realistic tale sends such shivers up your spine that you'll believe it's all true (which Lansdale sometimes claims, but he's been known to stretch the truth a time or two to tell a good yarn). Legend has it that back in 1989, when Ellen Datlow was putting together her annual collection of best horror stories, she passed on "Night They Missed the Horror Show" because it "creeped her out." It was eventually included after Gardner Dozois reminded her that's what a great horror story is supposed to do. -- Rick Klaw