Mike Thorn’s 100 Favorite Horror Books, October 2023 Edition

I’m inaugurating a new tradition. I’ve organized my choices chronologically, with externally and/or posthumously edited collections/anthologies at the end.

Vathek, an Arabian Tale; or, the History of the Caliph Vatek, by William Beckford (1786)
The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe (1794)
The Monk: A Romance, by Matthew Gregory Lewis (1796)
Zofloya; or, the Moor, by Charlotte Dacre (1806)
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley (1818)
Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Robert Maturin (1820)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg (1824)
The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
Carmilla, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
The Great God Pan, by Arthur Machen (1890)
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (1890)
The Damned, by Joris-Karl Huysmans (1891)
The Beetle, by Richard Marsh (1897)
Dracula, by Bram Stoker (1897)
The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells (1897)
The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson (1908)
The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka (1915)
The Breaking Point, by Daphne Du Maurier (1922)
Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier (1938)
The Subjugated Beast, by R. R. Ryan (1938)
Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber (1943)
The Hounds of Tindalos, by Frank Belknap Long (1946)
The Scarf, by Robert Bloch (1947 / 1966)
Hangsaman, by Shirley Jackson (1951)
The Unnamable, by Samuel Beckett (1953)
The Bird’s Nest, by Shirley Jackson (1954)
I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson (1954)
Cape Fear, by John D. MacDonald (1957)
The Sundial, by Shirley Jackson (1958)
The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (1959)
Shock!, by Richard Matheson (1961)
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury (1962)
The Collector, by John Fowles (1963)
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, by Yukio Mishima (1963)
New Stories from the Twilight Zone, by Rod Serling (1965)
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison (1967)
Rosemary’s Baby, by Ira Levin (1967)
Last Summer, by Evan Hunter (1968)
The Obscene Bird of Night, by José Donoso (1970)
The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty (1971)
The Room, by Hubert Selby Jr. (1971)
The Other, by Thomas Tryon (1971)
The Stepford Wives, by Ira Levin (1972)
Child of God, by Cormac McCarthy (1973)
Starling Street, by Dinah Palmtag (1973)
Carrie, by Stephen King (1974)
‘Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King (1975)
Julia, by Peter Straub (1975)
The Demon, by Hubert Selby Jr. (1976)
Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice (1976)
Long After Midnight, by Ray Bradbury (1976)
The Shining, by Stephen King (1977)
The House Next Door, by Anne Rivers Siddons (1978)
Blood Secrets, by Craig Jones (1978)
Ghost Story, by Peter Straub (1979)
Books of Blood: Volume One, by Clive Barker (1984)
The Ceremonies, by T. E. D. Klein (1984)
Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd (1985)
The Damnation Game, by Clive Barker (1985)
The Juniper Tree, by Barbara Comyns (1985)
Songs of a Dead Dreamer, by Thomas Ligotti (1985)
Toplin, by Michael McDowell, (1985)
The Hungry Moon, by Ramsey Campbell (1986)
It, by Stephen King (1986)
Beloved, by Toni Morrison (1987)
The Nightrunners, by Joe R. Lansdale (1987)
Why Not You and I?, by Karl Edward Wagner (1987)
The Fifth Child, by Doris Lessing (1988)
The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum (1989)
The Pines, by Robert Dunbar (1989)
Boundaries, by T. M. Wright (1990)
American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis (1991)
The Cipher, by Kathe Koja (1991)
Grimscribe: His Lives and Works, by Thomas Ligotti (1991)
Prodigal, by Melanie Tem (1991)
Something Stirs, by Charles L. Grant (1991)
Specters, by J. M. Dillard (1991)
Summer of Night, by Dan Simmons (1991)
Bad Brains, by Kathe Koja (1992)
Lost Futures, by Lisa Tuttle (1992)
Skin, by Kathe Koja (1993)
The Between, by Tananarive Due (1995)
Zombie, by Joyce Carol Oates (1995)
You Can’t Catch Me, by Joyce Carol Oates [as Rosamond Smith] (1995)
Exquisite Corpse, by Poppy Z. Brite (1996)
Traplines, by Eden Robinson (1996)
Lunar Park, by Bret Easton Ellis (2005)
A Dark Matter, by Peter Straub (2010)
Tender is the Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica (2017)
Everything That’s Underneath, by Kristi DeMeester (2017)
And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, by Gwendolyn Kiste (2017)
Strange is the Night, by S. P. Miskowski (2017)
The Seventh Mansion, by Maryse Meijer (2020)
Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe (1956) [edited by Edward H. Davidson]
Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood, by Algernon Blackwood (1973) [edited by E. F. Bleiler]
The Haunted Dolls’ House and Other Ghost Stories, by M. R. James (2006) [edited by S. T. Joshi]
Tales of H. P. Lovecraft, by H. P. Lovecraft (2007) [edited by Joyce Carol Oates]
Ghost Stories of Henry James, by Henry James (2008) [edited by Martin Schofield]
The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, by Clark Ashton Smith (2014) [edited by S. T. Joshi]

Mike Thorn’s 100 Favorite Horror Films, September 2023 edition

The Avenging Conscience (D. W. Griffith, 1914)
The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1921)
Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922)
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927)
The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)
Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931)
Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)
The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932)
Murders in the Rue Morgue (Robert Florey, 1932)
Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)
White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932)
The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932)
Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932)
Supernatural (Victor Halperin, 1933)
The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933)
The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)
The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)
Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935)
The Devil-Doll (Tod Browning, 1936)
Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939)
The Devil Bat (Jean Yarbrough, 1940)
The Wolf Man (George Waggner, 1941)
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943)
Weird Woman (Reginald Le Borg, 1944)
The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945)
House of Wax (André de Toth, 1953)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954)
I Was a Teenage Werewolf (Gene Fowler Jr., 1957)
Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957)
The Revenge of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher, 1958)
How to Make a Monster (Herbert L. Strock, 1958)
Corridors of Blood (Robert Day, 1958)
Monster on the Campus (Jack Arnold, 1958)
The Tingler (William Castle, 1959)
Psycho (Aldred Hitchcock, 1960)
House of Usher (Roger Corman, 1960)
Black Sunday (Mario Bava, 1960)
The City of the Dead (John Llewellyn Moxey, 1960)
The Curse of the Werewolf (Terence Fisher, 1961)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
Matango (Ishirō Honda, 1963)
Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963)
The Haunted Palace (Roger Corman, 1963)
The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964)
Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
Die, Monster, Die! (Daniel Haller, 1965)
Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
The Devil Rides Out (Terence Fisher, 1968)
Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)
The Boston Strangler (Richard Fleischer, 1968)
Blind Beast (Yasuzō Masumura, 1969)
Eugenie (Jesús Franco, 1970)
A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (Lucio Fulci, 1971)
Vampyros Lesbos (Jesús Franco, 1971)
The Brotherhood of Satan (Bernard McEveety, 1971)
A Bay of Blood (Mario Bava, 1971)
All the Colors of the Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972)
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
Madhouse (Jim Clark, 1974)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
God Told Me To (Larry Cohen, 1976)
Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
Eaten Alive (Tobe Hooper, 1976)
Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
Demon Seed (Donald Cammell, 1977)
Exorcist II: The Heretic (John Boorman, 1977)
Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, 1978)
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980)
The Funhouse (Tobe Hooper, 1981)
Cat People (Paul Schrader, 1982)
The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983)
Christine (John Carpenter, 1983)
The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg, 1983)
Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985)
Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter, 1987)
The Serpent and the Rainbow (Wes Craven, 1988)
Pet Sematary (Mary Lambert, 1989)
The Guardian (William Friedkin, 1990)
The People Under the Stairs (Wes Craven, 1991)
Brainscan (John Flynn, 1994)
The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995)
The Mangler (Tobe Hooper, 1995)
Castle Freak (Stuart Gordon, 1995)
The Stendhal Syndrome (Dario Argento, 1996)
Splatter: Naked Blood (Hisayasu Satô, 1996)
Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
Hannibal (Ridley Scott, 2001)
House of 1000 Corpses (Rob Zombie, 2003)
Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005)
Loft (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2005)
Retribution (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2006)
Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009)
Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)
The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie, 2012)
The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016)
The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier, 2018)
Color Out of Space (Richard Stanley, 2019)

María Teresa Morín reviews Un Refugio para los Condenados (Spanish translation of Shelter for the Damned)

“Sheds, nightmares, violence, family, friendship, addictions, sacrifices… A Shelter for the Damned, by Mike Thorn is a book with a frenetic pace that keeps you reading non-stop. That shows us the hells that the most perfect families can hide. That even hides a first love story between its pages. Which brings us three very different teenagers who will be involved in a nightmare from which it seems impossible to escape and which breaks our hearts. If you are looking for a horror reading that shocks you with its rawness, you have to give it a try.”

Read the full review.

Mike Thorn interviewed on the Dead Body Bathtub podcast

The Dead Body Bathtub | Podcast on Spotify

“The inaugural episode of THE BRAIN DRAIN—the ghoulish DBBT aftershow—finds a guest in the tub! Author and critic Mike Thorn joins us to discuss horror, the creative process, the new audiobook edition of his first novel “Shelter for the Damned,” and his tub pick—SICK (2022), John Hyams’ taut and clever COVID-set slasher. We dissect screenwriter Kevin Williamson’s social diagnosis, Hyams’ dynamic camera, and the engagement of pandemic-as-horror.”

Listen here.

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