Eight of Stephen King’s scariest tales to terrify you this Halloween

Misery - Stephen King

After a car accident, writer Paul Sheldon is captured by his ‘number one fan’, the diabolical Annie Wilkes, who plans on holding him captive until he completes another instalment of his Misery Chastain novels. Annie’s nursing background – and her handiness with a hacksaw – mean that this book is surprisingly brutal. But more than that, this book deals with addiction, fandom and the torture of being a writer (and trying to please your reader). And what is scarier than that? BM

Cujo - Stephen King

Cujo did for dogs, what It did for clowns. This tale of man’s best friend terrorising a neighbourhood has one of the most brutal endings of all King’s novels – and that’s saying something! It’s enough to turn you into a cat person. BM

Carrie - Stephen King

High school was scary enough. Add King’s mastery of tension and a bucket of pig’s blood, and a you’ve got yourself a horror classic. King’s first novel – the tale of Carrie White, a beleaguered high schooler with a brutal mother and a dangerous gift – is just as chilling as his later, more gruesome books. BM

The Shining - Stephen King

The third novel Stephen King ever wrote firmly established him as one of the world’s best horror storytellers. In it, Jack Torrance and his family find themselves isolated by a snowstorm at a haunted hotel in the Colorado Rockies where Jack works. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, indeed. TW

Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King

The novella to be on the lookout for in this collection is 1922. It’s a dark and fascinating look at the disintegration of one man’s life after he (slight spoiler alert) murders his wife. You’ll never look at rats in the same way again. TW

Flight or Fright - Dan Simmons, Richard Matheson, E.C. Tubb, Stephen King, Michael Lewis, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Tom Bissell, Bev Vincent, Ambrose Bierce, Cody Goodfellow

What’s scary about plane travel, I hear you say. Oh, just literally EVERYTHING. There’s nothing about those giant, logic-defying metal birds that makes sense to my caveman brain. King, and his co-editor Ben Vincent, tap into this primitive fear to bring us a terrifying collection of all the things that can go horribly wrong when we are 12 km above the ground. GULP. BM

It - Stephen King

The titular murderous clown from the horror classic It has been terrorizing readers for over thirty years, and 2017’s cinematic masterpiece introduced Pennywise to a new generation. Come for the clown’s antics and stay for the Losers’ Club friendship that transcends both time and reality. TW

Pet Sematary - Stephen King

Pet Sematary reads like a brilliant horror movie. There are no jump scares to be found here; instead, it’s a slow burn horror novel about death and how far people might go to save a loved one. Dark, disturbing, and intensely shocking, this King will haunt your dreams for life. TW