The horror genre is one of the most popular out there and sometimes, the stories are not totally fiction. This blog will explore some of the best true horror stories.
Tue horror stories often claim to be based on documented events, personal testimonies, or historical accounts, adding a layer of authenticity to the horror. Many focus on experiences like ghostly encounters, unexplained noises, and strange occurrences within specific locations, often with detailed descriptions of the unsettling phenomena. The element of ‘it could happen to you’ can be particularly frightening as these stories often involve everyday situations or settings that become haunted. This blog will explore the top 5 best true horror stories that you might like to read on a cloudy day or at night. Let’s get spooky!
Dagon
‘Dagon’ is the second story of the writer H.P. Lovecraft, written in 1917 and published, for the first time, in 1919. The work takes its title from the mythological God Dagon and tells a disturbing story that happened years before to a man with an obsession with suicide. Before throwing himself from the window of his attic, this man writes some notes related to his mental state. Then, he began to recall an old story that happened in the years of the First World War: suddenly, he finds himself a prisoner of a German ship in the Pacific Ocean. After only five days, the protagonist manages to escape with a raft. Wandering for days, adrift in the sea, one afternoon he finds himself stranded on a disquieting and deserted island.
Lovecraft’s major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Christianity. Lovecraft’s protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
The Shining
Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
Stephen Edwin King was born the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his father left them when Stephen was two, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father’s family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy, and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of them. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen’s grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.
The Amityville Horror
28 Days of Terror in a House Possessed by Evil Spirits. In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their dream home, the same home where Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters just one year earlier. The psychic phenomena that followed created the most terrifying experience the Lutz family had ever encountered, forcing them to flee the house in 28 days, convinced that it was possessed by evil spirits. Their fantastic story, never before disclosed in full detail, makes for an unforgettable book with all the shocks and gripping suspense of The Exorcist, The Omen or Rosemary’s Baby, but with one vital difference…the story is true.
Jay Anson (November 4, 1921 – March 12, 1980) was an American author whose most famous work was The Amityville Horror. After the runaway success of that novel, he wrote 666, which also dealt with a haunted house. He began as a copyboy for the New York Evening Journal in 1937 and later worked in advertising and publicity. With more than 500 documentary scripts for television to his credit, he was associated with Professional Films, Inc. He died in 1980. His work, The Amityville Horror, was sold as ‘a true story,’ and it was based on the reported experiences of George Lutz and Kathleen Lutz at 112 Ocean Avenue in December 1975. The Lutzes had sold the rights to the book to Anson, who had added to and adapted some of the Lutz’s original claims. A film was later made of the book, which exemplified these additions.
Bird Box
Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from. Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it’s time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster? Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.
Josh Malerman is the New York Times bestselling author of BIRD BOX, MALORIE, GOBLIN, PEARL, GHOUL n THE CAPE, and more. He’s also one of two singers and songwriters for the rock band The High Strung.
The Book of Accidents
Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there. Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures. Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver. And now what happened long ago is happening again and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic. This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for the entire world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.
Chuck Wendig is a novelist, a screenwriter, and a freelance penmonkey.
He has contributed over two million words to the role-playing game industry and was the developer of the popular Hunter: The Vigil game line (White Wolf Game Studios / CCP). He, along with writing partner Lance Weiler, is a fellow of the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab (2010).
Over the years, audiences have been frightened by the varied horror films onscreen, and, while after some jump scares, these audiences can be reminded it’s only a film. However, things can take a dark turn when it’s discovered the stories are based on real-life events. Whether being terrorized by a knife-wielding killer or possessed by a demonic spirit, a variety of real-life crimes and events acted as inspiration for filmmakers and screenwriters who brought scary tales to life onscreen.
