Truly Terrifying: 24 Must-Read Nonfiction Books for Horror Fans

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The information whitethorn beryllium alien than fiction, but it’s often scarier arsenic well. Don’t judge me? I’ve compiled a database of must-read nonfiction for fearfulness fans that’s definite to alteration your mind.

We unrecorded successful frightening times. Terror is the fearfulness of what mightiness be; fearfulness is the fearfulness of what is. To punctuation The Body Scout writer Lincoln Michel, “Terror is the sounds of chartless creatures scratching astatine the door; fearfulness is seeing your roommate eaten live by elephantine rats.” In galore ways, then, the nightly quality is simply a fearfulness broadcast.

Horror doesn’t beryllium successful a vacuum. The societal fears that fashionable fearfulness explores alteration implicit clip — zombies are fashionable during economical downturns, for illustration — but the information remains that immoderate is going connected successful the existent satellite volition upwind up mirrored successful fearfulness media. That means that, if you privation to cognize wherever fearfulness comes from, you request to work nonfiction.

The authors of your favourite scary books person spent years ripping communicative ideas from the headlines. The real-life communicative of an exorcism astatine Georgetown University Hospital inspired William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. Alma Katsu’s The Hunger gives the Donner party’s destiny a supernatural cause. The tragic fearfulness of the Sylvia Likens lawsuit inspired Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. I could support going, but you get the picture.

So let’s dive into the nonfiction books fearfulness fans request to read, from explorations of the genre to real-life fearfulness stories.

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Nonfiction About the Horror Genre

Untold Horror by Dave Alexander publication  cover

Untold Horror by Dave Alexander

This publication from Rue Morgue co-owner Dave Alexander compiles his champion interviews with the biggest names successful horror. Behind-the-scenes insights from Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling), Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice), George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead), and much await you here.

the screen  of An Illustrated History Of Horror And Science-fiction Films

An Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films: The Classic Era, 1895-1967 by Carlos Clarens

First published successful 1967, Carlos Clarens’s Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films offers an in-depth look into the inspiration, creation, and bequest of your favourite classical fearfulness movies. Complete with afloat formed and unit lists for much than 300 pictures, this Illustrated History is simply a must-read for immoderate movie buff.

Horror Noire by Robin R. Means Coleman publication  cover

Horror Noire: Blacks successful American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present by Robin R. Means Coleman, PhD

This is the archetypal of 2 books connected this database from movie student Robin R. Means Coleman, PhD. Initially published successful 2011, Horror Noire received a 2nd variation printing successful 2023. The publication traces much than 100 years of Black actors, writers, and directors’ contributions to fearfulness movie history, arsenic good arsenic the evolving ways Blackness is presented connected the large screen.

The Black Guy Dies First cover, showing a Black powerfulness  fist punching retired  from a grave

The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman, PhD and Mark H. Harris

Coleman co-authored this nonfiction publication astir modern Black fearfulness movies with BlackHorrorMovies.com laminitis Mark H. Harris. Here, Dr. Coleman and Harris research practice and inclusivity successful fearfulness cinema since the 1968 Civil Rights Act. You tin work an excerpt here: The Black Character Horror Movie Survival Guide.

 A Rather Haunted Life

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Guggenheim Fellow Ruth Franklin digs heavy into the beingness of famed fearfulness writer Shirley Jackson successful this multi-award-winning biography. Despite her premature decease successful 1965 astatine property 48, Jackson was 1 of the 20th century’s astir prolific fearfulness writers, authoring six novels — including We Have Always Lived successful the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House — 3 memoirs, and dozens of abbreviated stories.

Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix publication  cover

Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix

We’re successful the midst of a fearfulness renaissance, but fearfulness fabrication had its existent heyday successful the 1970s and ’80s. In Paperbacks from Hell, writer Grady Hendrix traces the genre’s 20th period successes, and however publishers sold readers connected each things fearfulness for 2 coagulated decades.

the screen  of Behind the Horror

Behind the Horror: True Stories That Inspired Horror Movies by Dr. Lee Mellor

We’ve already talked astir the real-life events that inspired immoderate of your favourite fearfulness novels, including The Exorcist and The Hunger. In Behind the Horror, writer Dr. Lee Mellor dives into the headlines down 21 celebrated fearfulness movies crossed astir 90 years of cinema history, from M: A City Searches for a Murderer to The Lighthouse.

Unquiet Spirits by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith publication  cover

Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women successful Horror, edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith

American slashers trust connected nigh-unstoppable antheral villains, similar Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface. Asian horror, connected the different hand, tends to absorption connected the spirits of wronged and vengeful women — the onryō, the ohaguro-bettari, the cheonyeogwisin. In Unquiet Spirits, 21 Asian women travel unneurotic to speech astir their unsocial experiences in, and perspectives on, the fearfulness community.

the screen  of Nightmare Fuel

Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films by Nina Nesseth

Fear is simply a antagonistic emotion, truthful wherefore bash we emotion fearfulness movies truthful much? Nina Nesseth’s pop-science exploration of our affinity for scary movies sheds immoderate airy connected however we respond to horror, wherefore we question it out, and the ways successful which it evolves with america arsenic a society.

the screen  of The Lady from the Black Lagoon

The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara

Creature from the Black Lagoon premiered successful 1954, making the titular Creature the astir caller of the Universal Classic Monsters — a enactment of classical movie villains that includes the Bride of Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, and Dracula. You’re undoubtedly acquainted with each of the UCMs, but did you cognize that it was a woman, Milicent Patrick, who designed the Creature? Patrick, who besides created Chernabog for the “Night connected Bald Mountain” conception of Disney’s Fantasia, was astatine hazard of fading into obscurity erstwhile Mallory O’Meara brought her into the spotlight erstwhile more, successful The Lady from the Black Lagoon.

the screen  of Women Make Horror

Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre, edited by Alison Peirse

You lone request to scroll done this database to spot that women’s contributions to fearfulness cinema are routinely overlooked and undervalued. Women Make Horror contains 18 essays connected pistillate fearfulness filmmakers, their work, and the myriad representations of women — for amended oregon worse — successful scary movies.

the screen  of Recreational Terror

Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing by Isabel Cristina Pinedo

In this slim 1997 text, Hunter College’s Isabel Cristina Pinedo examines the roles that contention and sex play successful fearfulness cinema. At a clip erstwhile galore writers lambasted fearfulness for its predominant juxtaposition of enactment and violence, Recreational Terror offered a antithetic perspective: that women could find empowerment successful the genre.

Horror by Xavier Aldana Reyes publication  cover

Horror: A Literary History, edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes

Horror: A Literary History is simply a 250 twelvemonth chronology of developments successful fearfulness fiction. Here, scholars research the breadth of this spooky history, from The Castle of Otranto to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Weird Tales, Stephen King, and beyond. This slim but almighty measurement belongs connected each fearfulness aficionado’s bookshelf.

the screen  of It Came from the Closet

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections connected Horror by Joe Vallese

Queerness isn’t unsocial to horror, but fearfulness does stock a alternatively unsocial narration with queerness. Horror is astir otherness, and fewer things person been othered much successful caller past than queerness. It Came from the Closet collects 25 essays that absorption connected some queerness successful fearfulness films and those movies’ interaction connected idiosyncratic queer identities.

Horror Nonfiction

Redhanded cover

RedHanded: An Exploration of Criminals, Cannibals, Cults, and What Makes a Killer Tick by Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire

RedHanded podcast co-hosts Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire spell heavy wrong our fascination with humanity’s worst specimens here. Why bash we attraction truthful overmuch astir serial killers? Cannibalism? Religious abuse? And, possibly much importantly, wherefore bash immoderate of america take to harm others for fun? Find out, successful RedHanded.

the screen  of House of Evil

House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying by John Dean

Nearly 60 years aft 16-year-old Sylvia Likens died arsenic the effect of 3 months of maltreatment astatine the hands of her foster mother, the lawsuit continues to fascinate, mostly owed to its abject cruelty. The details of Likens’s maltreatment and decease are not for the faint of heart. Jack Ketchum drew inspiration from Likens’s communicative for his 1989 novel, The Girl Next Door, which was adapted for the surface successful 2007.

Book Cover for Tell My Horse

Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life successful Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston

Voodoo shows up a lot successful American fearfulness media. Unfortunately, the depictions audiences whitethorn beryllium astir acquainted with aren’t precisely benignant oregon true-to-life. Based connected the author’s experiences arsenic a Voodoo practitioner successful 1930s Haiti and Jamaica, Tell My Horse whitethorn assistance to abstracted information from fabrication successful the minds of fearfulness fans and occultists alike.

 The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II by Iris Chang; photograph  of a worker  successful  beforehand   of a Japanese flag

The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II by Iris Chang

Iris Chang’s microhistory of the Nanjing Massacre is not for the faint of heart. The Japanese Army’s wartime atrocities successful the wintertime of 1937 and ’38 rival — oregon possibly adjacent eclipse — those astatine the Battle of Berlin and Mỹ Lai. A hard and eye-opening read, this is not a publication you’ll soon forget.

A graphic of the screen  of In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Fans cognize conscionable however inventive an writer Carmen Maria Machado is. Her 2019 book, In the Dream House, blends fearfulness with memoir arsenic it unravels the lingering questions regarding her narration with an abusive, unnamed woman during her clip astatine the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

the screen  of Survival successful  the Killing Fields

Survival successful the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor and Roger Warner

Haing Ngor won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran successful The Killing Fields. Unlike different actors who worked connected the 1984 film, however, Ngor had firsthand acquisition with Pol Pot’s regime, having survived 3 imprisonments nether the Khmer Rouge. He tells his heartbreaking communicative successful Survival successful the Killing Fields.

Ghostland by Edward Parnell publication  cover

Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country by Edward Parnell

Researching the UK’s haunted places — the landscapes that served arsenic backdrop to classics similar The Blood connected Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man — didn’t conscionable assistance Edward Parnell parse done the recurring nightmare that plagued his young adulthood. It besides led to the instauration of Ghostland, which examines the UK’s past forests, spooky moors, and different earthy features that inspired our favourite English shade stories.

the screen  of The Hot Zone

The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston

When it comes to genuinely terrifying nonfiction, it’s hard to bushed The Hot Zone. The filoviruses — a household that includes the Ebola and Marburg viruses — airs a unsocial menace to humanity. They person precocious contagion and mortality rates. We person fewer vaccines oregon cures readily available. If you’re already a hypochondriac similar yours truly, see skipping this one.

Dark Archives Book Cover

Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound successful Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom

Few things proceed to captivate and horrify publication lovers rather similar anthropodermic bibliopegy. Many libraries crossed the satellite assertion to clasp books bound successful quality skin, but however galore of those are the existent article? Librarian Megan Rosenbloom is portion of a multidisciplinary squad that authenticates these volumes. Read each astir the origins of the signifier successful Dark Archives.

the screen  of Rabid

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Disease by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy

Did you cognize that rabies tin unrecorded successful a quality assemblage for up to 7 years earlier the bearer becomes symptomatic? If that tidbit unsocial doesn’t permission you wanting to slumber with the lights connected tonight, prime up a transcript of Rabies: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Disease, for much nightmarish facts.


In the temper for much horrific nonfiction? Check retired this list of nonfiction fearfulness books and The 50 Scariest Books Of All Time, including fabrication and nonfiction.

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