Classic works of horror

Why does horror literature attract some readers so much? What is it about dark and spooky things that so captures a reader's mind? That is a question that even a best-selling horror writer will be hard-pressed to answer.
Horror was long seen as a genre that was close to trash or even lower than that. Though a seminal novel of horror like Bram Stoker's Dracula was long regarded as a classic piece of writing, horror never got the respect it deserved till the advent of Stephen King in the mid-1970s. King, almost overnight, changed the rules of the game and made horror fiction a genre to reckon with. Many writers followed in his wake with varying degrees of success.
Let us have a look at some of the best books and stories of the genre. Of course, the list will have to be restricted to the ones I have read so far ... First, the Top 11 (in chronological order), as I can't seem to make up my mind as to which of these to leave out to make the list a Top 10 one!
1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
Any listing of horror fiction will have to start with this classic tale of the vampire count. The narrative is told through diary entries, letters and other innovative methods but even now, many decades after it was first published, the story of the blood-thirsty Count Dracula is a gripping read. This gothic tale inspired a host of vampire stories and Count Dracula has gone on to become one of the most famous characters of fiction.
2. The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson
The mother of all haunted-house novels and a highly influential work. However, I was not all that impressed by this book and for me, the definitive Shirley Jackson horror work remains her macabre short story, The Lottery (1948).
3. Psycho (1959) by Robert Bloch
Bloch is one of the finest writers I have ever read and this short novel was easily his best work. Norman Bates became, like Dracula, an unforgettable fictional character. Alfred Hitchcock added to the story's fame through his memorable movie adaptation in 1960. Sadly, Bloch is an author who is hardly remembered these days.
4. Rosemary's Baby (1967) by Ira Levin
This is a horrifying tale of satanism and the occult set smack in the middle of New York city. The movie adaptation by Roman Polanski added to the reputation of the original book. Rosemary's Baby is so beautifully written that it is one of the books in this list that can be easily described as "unputdownable". Levin's sequel to his best novel, Son of Rosemary was, however, atrocious and proved that lightning never strikes twice!
5. The Stepford Wives (1972) by Ira Levin
Not as well-known as Rosemary's Baby but this novel, in my opinion, comes almost close to the former for its sheer story-telling quality. It's just over a 100 pages long but is far more effective than novels that are hundreds of pages long. Levin hits his creative peak with this superb tale that mixes horror and social satire with devastating effect.
6. 'Salem's Lot (1975) by Stephen King
The "King of Horror" decided to make his second novel a study of vampirism in a small American town. It was his own homage to Dracula . The result was a horror classic, a novel that King himself would never better in his many novels after that.
7. The Shining (1977) by Stephen King
Arguably King's most famous horror novel. It became even more famous when Stanley Kubrick adapted it for the big screen in 1979 with Jack Nicholson in the lead role. In some ways, it is an old-fashioned tale of a haunted building (to be more precise, a hotel). A must-read for fans of the genre.
8. The House Next Door (1978) by Anne Rivers Siddons
Siddons, a writer of romance novels set in the American deep south, tried her hand at the horror genre just once early on in her career and the result was this gem of a book. Here, interestingly, the house is haunted, of course, but the difference from the traditional approach is that the haunted house is not an old one where unspeakable crimes have happened in the past. Rather, this is a house that is newly built but it still harbours an evil, malignant presence that affects all who come in contact with it.
9. The Woman in Black (1983) by Susan Hill
Easily the best ghost story I have read so far. It has every ingredient of a classic spooky tale - great writing, a heavy atmosphere where one can imagine great tragedies happening, all the props of a ghost story (haunted house, a marshy, desolate environment, things that go bump in the night, a local tragedy), and a shattering twist at the very end. The edition I read had just 130+ pages, showing that you don't have to write millions of words to tell a memorable tale.
10. The Ring (1991) by Koji Suzuki
Suzuki is Asia's answer to Stephen King and The Ring was his major contribution to the horror genre. The book's fame was cemented in the West when Hollywood adapted it for the big screen. But the film version did not do justice to the original novel. The writing style is not that great but it is still a distinctive story.
11. A Simple Plan (1993) by Scott Smith
Smith has written just two novels in his comparative short career so far but this debut novel was an immediate attention-catcher. It has a deceptively simple premise but, like Levin's and Bloch's best works, the writing style is precise and calibrated. A chilling and brilliant piece of work.

Honourable mentions (in no particular order):

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
The Rats by James Herbert
A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Misery by Stephen King
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
The Ruins by Scott Smith

The importance of Stephen King

I would have never imagined till a few years back that I would become a Stephen King fan. I was never that keen on horror fiction or horror movies initially and it was only after I landed in Singapore that I got access to many of the great writers who have dabbled in horror. But I do remember seeing a copy of Cujo in a friend's house in the early 1980s - it must have been just released at that time. That was my first look at a Stephen King book. I think it was the 1990s movies based on King's stories (especially The Green Mile) which really made me curious about this particular writer.
And, boy, once I started reading King, it was the start of a real love affair. I finished the major King works in a couple of years' time and I was amazed at his sheer imagination and the multiple worlds he had created. Of course, King never struck me as the finest writer I had ever read (even his fellow horror writers like Robert Bloch or Ira Levin arguably write far better than King) but, as a storyteller, King is beyond compare. This guy was born to write - prolific, prodigious, versatile ... all these adjectives fit King perfectly. One can never fail to be impressed by the sheer love he has for the craft of writing and that, to me, is the main reason why King is a great author.
I have no hesitation in saying that King's earliest works are by far his best ones - while many readers regard The Stand or IT as his all-time best creations, I would put Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, Pet Sematary and his early short stories as being equally great. These were all books written in the mid- to late-1970s when King was churning out one great story after another effortlessly. Even the books that were written in the mid-1980s when King was addicted to drugs and alcohol - like Cujo and even the much-maligned The Tommyknockers - had memorable passages and great characters.
It is when we come to the early 1990s that we feel that King is no longer the force he once was. Of course, there is no question of writer's block with him but the quality of his fiction starts to decline at this stage of his career - books like Insomnia and Rose Madder are just plain weird and, in most cases, unreadable except for the most loyal of his "Constant Readers". There were a few saving graces during this period - like the haunting Dolores Claiborne, the serial novel The Green Mile and the non-fiction memoir On Writing - but, for the most part, King had evolved into a journeyman writer. (Dreamcatcher and Cell were just plain atrocious, in my opinion). But did any of this affect the sales of his books? No way! By this time, King was a publishing phenomenon and, as someone put it, even if he had published his shopping list, there would be eager buyers for it ... after all, King is one of the few authors whose names are printed bigger than the book titles on the book covers!
But King's influence on literature remains enormous. He almost singlehandedly made horror fiction a respectable and lucrative genre. And yet, to pigeonhole King as a straightforward horror writer is quite unfair. Though he made his name initially with horror fiction, many of King's best writings have nothing to do with horror - read the first three novellas in the collection Different Seasons (all made into notable movies); none of them have anything to do with horror and yet, they are all compelling masterpieces. King has shown he can write all sorts of fiction and also that he can move between genres (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, crime, drama and even social commentary, to mention just a few) seamlessly. Now and then he writes non-fiction also and while these can't be compared with the best of his stories, they still are enough to prove that he can write on any topic he wants to. King himself has never described himself as a "horror writer"; instead he has always gone on record saying that he is an "American writer". And that is exactly what he is: a writer par excellence who happens to be an American ... It was a sad moment when some of America's high-brow "literary authors" objected to King being awarded a National Book Award in 2003. They felt he didn't deserve that honour.
The other main criticism against King is that many of his books are overwritten and way too long. After all, this was the guy who added 500 pages to the early edition of The Stand which was already a hefty 800 pages long! King's stories are notorious for being longwinded and unnecessarily lengthy. Some readers feel that many of King's stories could be cut down and thereby made even more effective. But where is the editor who dares to cut down a Stephen King manuscript? And so, King continues on his wordy and undisciplined ways. But it can also be argued that some of the magic of a trademark King work comes from the multi-layered narratives and long-winded storylines ... imagine how limp IT would have been if it had been cut down to a third of its present length!
What I have found more alarming is how King rehashes his own plots these days. Childhood bullying, the precocious child with supernatural gifts, the alien being in the woods, evil coming to a small town, a group of good people banding together to fight an other-worldly villain - these are just five motifs that King has repeated over and over in his stories. Maybe the human brain, however creative, just runs out of new ideas after a while ... that is probably the problem with King currently. To King's credit, he has tried various innovative formats - like e-publishing, the serial novel and crime noir - and some newer topics (cellphones) to bring freshness to his stories but somehow none of it works as well as some of his earlier creations (like the killer clown, the possessed car, the rabid dog or the crazed fan).
Nowadays, the main interest for King fans seem to be following the multiple treatments of his works in other media like movies, TV and audiobooks. His stories, being vivid and extremely visual, lends itself easily to cinematic adaptations, though some of the latter are laughably bad (think Children of the Corn!). So King continues to reign as the ultimate best-selling author, even though his best days are well behind him.