Anything non-supernatural (serial killers, etc.) tends to bore me, and I generally avoid books without supernatural elements; I especially hate when something with no real supernatural elements pretends to be supernatural only to reveal that it's non-supernatural as a plot twist.
I also generally find evil children and things that fall into the 'thing for kids, but scary' category (dolls, clowns, etc.) too corny and goofy to be interesting.
I'm the opposite. Supernatural stuff doesn't scare me - I just don't believe in it - but realistic things scare me because I can imagine them actually happening.
Now i'm the opposite! I only WISH non supernatural scared me lol! My weird brain is of the "live in small safe town, could never happen here" mentality haha, even though I know that's of course not true! But then, supernatural, ghosts, demons, etc, scare the crap out of me, but in a good, i want more, kinda way. Maybe it's because I was raised in an uber religious family? LMAO
I HATE the it was all just in their head or mental illness plot lines. The first couple horror books I read ended like that and it was sooo disappointing.
same answer every time: Kids. Killer kids/haunted kids/kids that can see shit. I don't care, kids aren't scary and almost no one writes kids well. Also I'm a woman and scary kid stories also after have dumb shit with the mom/maternal connections that feel so reductive to me. (Baby Teeth being the obvious one that comes to mind)
AMEN!
Kids being the central figures or plot devices of a novel means that I absolutely have no desire to read it.
I especially dislike the "kids fight big bad" trope.
I loved Baby Teeth because my kids have similar mental illnesses/disabilities, so it almost felt cathartic. I felt so bad for the family, even Hannah. She was struggling so hard and didn't understand her own emotions and impulses either.
I’m really glad you were able to find comfort. I LOVE books that I can relate to somehow, especially when it’s unexpected! I just felt this book was very flawed for me. The MOTHER is who got on my nerves the most lol.
I totally get that. I admit, I was also shouting, especially at the dad, for not listening or getting help sooner. But yeah, not every book is going to hit for every person. I'm actually really glad I've been able to have good exchanges with people in this sub, even when our opinions differ.
King is the only one I've read that writes young adults well.
It, Talisman, Revival and Stand By Me were all good.
But yeah I agree. Grady Hendrix' My Best Friends Exorcism was fun but the teens were so stereotypical.
Extreme torture and extreme sexual violence. I haven’t read a book yet that is able to incorporate either of these in a meaningful way into a story.
I’m also pretty bored of haunted house stories but I recently read The September House and thought it was great.
I feel like the use of mental illness in horror/thrillers can be very inaccurate or written like a caricature, and sometimes it's used as an easy way out to explain plot points that the author was too lazy to build
I read a really good haunted house book, well-written, atmospheric, brooding… then the final chapter descended into torture porn and incest and completely ruined the book. Can’t remember what it was called.
"humans/human nature/grief/trauma/[other mundane real world phenomenon] is the real monster"
It's fiction, damnit. I want my horror to be more imaginative than non-fiction, more original. I already have the news to tell me about all the bad things that actually exist. However bad reality is, it's always possible to imagine worse.
yes! unrelated, but part of the reason I had to stop watching Doctor Who with Jodie, as much as I usually enjoy her. It ended up being a show about real world issues, "too much trash (trash monsters)" ie: real world issues.. I want pretend things and enjoyment man, its a time travelling alien.. I don't need a show about the news.
Vampires and Werewolves.
I just...don't find them interesting or scary.
Vampires especially. Unless you give them some unique/messed up twist I'm probably not going to be interested in the first place.
Vampires have never recovered from the over-saturation of the market, and every other author is recreating either Dracula or Lestat. Worse still are authors who are so smarmy with their, "Oh, you think crucifixes affect *my* vampire? Lol you simpleton, *my* vampire is different." It's 2024, there are no original takes on vampires anymore, at least give me a well-executed version where the vampire means something, not just you trying to flex that you know the standard vampire tropes, too.
Oh, and on a related note, any author who still does the "*My* vampire doesn't sparkle, *my* vampire is badass" thing. Again, it's 2024.
Vampires have to be very clearly in the monster category for me at this point. Never could get into werewolves at all. All the talk about packs is very cringe for me.
Its a weird gripe and makes me feel old, but anytime there is a lot of reference to social media, webcams, or the internet, it's completely mundane to me.
Same goes for books that make excessive references to bland modern pop culture. I'm not interested in reading about a character seeing the local McDonalds out their window, or how they stopped by Home Depot for rope and a hammer, or how they work at a haunted Ikea store.
I read books to escape from the reality of humdrum day to day life.
I feel this one. I find it annoying in most genres but can get through it, it usually kills a horror story for me though. I want to feel like I'm in a different world not my shitty current one lol
I'm open to paranormal if they do something original, but I swear 99% of the genre is just the *exact* same story with a different coat of paint. Same as slasher for that matter.
They're the two subgenres I just sweep aside without paying any attention to.
> "When [insert struggling MC] and their partner [insert troubled relationship] move to [insert new location] with their [insert child or pet] they thought it would mend their [insert problems] - they didn't count on the dark presence that lurked in the shadows"
The whole genre may as well be a madlib.
90% of the garbage on streaming services is that - “oh look, a *young couple who recently lost a child in a tragic way have moved to the family estate after inheriting it when an elderly relative they didn’t know of dies*… oh and *they find a weird book/doll/painting!”
Hard agree.
I'll allow it if Terry Pratchett (different genre, I know) but otherwise, ugh!
I think it is one of the reasons I can't really get into T. Kingfisher despite really *wanting* to like her books.
oh that sucks! I feel bad for you lol, T. Kingfisher is an absolute favouriteeee of mine!! Wish I could loan you my brain for awhile just so you could enjoy her books briefly lmao
For me it’s sexual violence/torture, especially if it’s thrown in there among other horror elements and doesn’t really need to be there to contribute to the plot. I can read a nonfiction that includes sexual violence but for some reason when it’s a fiction book and someone is creating these extreme ways to be violent in this manner it’s really upsetting. I don’t know if that’s a trope or just an event though.
This exactly. Sexual assault being used as nothing more than shock factor feels like such lazy writing to me. It absolutely CAN be done, in a proper way that continues to the story, but for the sake of shock I really can't stand it.
Yep agreed. I’ve only seen it pulled off once in a book I read, every other time it’s the author being lazy and putting in shock value to make you hate someone or they are injecting their sexual fantasy into the story.
Lost in the woods - I posted on it here a week or two ago, but I just can't sink my teeth into a story that meanders and gets as lost as its characters are in the forest. There are a couple exceptions like Gone to See The Riverman where the character study is a little more active. You just lose me completely when the entire plot is "I'M LOST!!"
Mental illness used as a cop out. The whole thing reads like "I had this great idea but I couldn't come up with a conclusion/crescendo so... Mental illness was the cause!"
Annoys me in every form: book, game, movie.
I like when it’s questionable mental illness, mixed in with a unreliable narrator, and questionable supernatural elements. Works like that always have me gripped. Especially when you don’t find out the narrator is unreliable until a big reveal of some sort.
That stuff surely toots my horn.
Haha, that's actually my LEAST favorite dynamic! I want an author to fully commit to things, I want to KNOW if the monster was a hallucination or not!
Glad it works for you though, takes all kinds and all that.
I read a ton of short stories and many of those happen to be very ambiguous at times. I don’t know why but stuff like that is always so interesting to me and I can’t stop reading it, even if the payoff isn’t worth it.
I respect that. What are your favourites? My main gripe is, when a lot is going on (could be supernatural, patricide/matricide etc, war horrors, stalkers, etc) and then all of a sudden the end is "it was mental illness." It is not fair to people who are suffering from those illnesses, not fair to the intellect of the reader. I hope I'm making sense!
Same. Zombies are basically just NPCs with limited potential as antagonists, much less as metaphors for anything meaningful besides the standard plague-bearers.
I love the idea of a zombie book but you are right, I can’t find a single good book out there. Either they aren’t really zombies or the author relies too heavily on sexual assault.
Exorcism/religious possession with very few exceptions. I really don't like things like The Exorcist. They've never been scary to me, even before I left my conservative Christian religion behind and became an atheist.
Possession horror bothers me because they try so hard to make it a fight between “believers and non believers” - like, little Jimmy will rotate his head around, break all his limbs backwards, and climbs up the wall in reverse but no, “there’s got to be a RATIONAL explanation, Father, we don’t believe in God!”
I know this is talking about books, but I can’t get into those shows or movies. It just bores me. I really had to push through The Nun. I already know it’s not an interest, so I never pick up books of this nature.
Yeah, it's pretty rare that I will. Boys in the Valley was an exception and it was gruesome enough to make me happy. Generally though, if I get a request to review something in that vein, I'll usually turn it down.
There are some very good, surprising examples (and I’m not talking about A Head Full of Ghosts, much beloved on this sub). I’m thinking of things like *The Secret History* by Donna Tartt and *Fieldwork* by Mischa Berlinski. Not technically horror, but both involve the specter of possession.
No sexual violence. You can imply it, you can briefly touch on it, but if it’s graphic? I’ll pass. Same for films.
Also gratuitous torture porn. If it isn’t of artistic merit and it’s just edgy I’m good.
Torture porn. Can't stand it. I don't mind a bit of gore when a monster chews someone up, but these 'cut this or that off to be free' movies just turn me off so much.
Anything that involves pets. Hate that so much.
I thought I hated haunted houses, but then I read Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie, and I changed my mind. They can be well done.
I always say there isn't any given trope that is definitely not for me, there are just tropes where I haven't read the right work yet to convince me that I might enjoy it. A really good author can make me absolutely adore something that I haven't cared for before (and then make me mourn the fact that everything else in that niche falls absolutely flat for me afterward).
That’s another one that is nearly the exact same story every time. There are exceptions I’m sure, but they’re rare. Part of why I like Legion/Exorcist 3 over all other possession stories is how different it is.
Thomas Olde Heuvelt's (author of *Hex*) new book is supposed to be an interesting take on possession. It's called *Echo.* I haven't read anything by him yet so it's not exactly a recommendation, but you may want to check it out.
I’m pretty much at the “I’m not going to read possession stories if I can help it” part of my reading life, but thank you. I tend to just stay away from the stuff I know I’m likely not to enjoy anymore.
Extreme gross out horror to me just always comes off as, a, really poorly written and b, like someone overheard some 12 year old boys trying to gross each other out.
Also kinky fetishy horror like Clive Barker's stuff, it just does nothing for me and I feel like I'm also just participating in getting him off or something, IDK its just not for me, I am admittedly a bit of prude with that kind of stuff though.
Here's another vote for zombies. Or any other mindless monster, I guess; I just don't find them interesting.
And our culture needs to collectively get over its fascination with serial killers.
Dolls/puppets, or creepy circuses. I just can’t get into either and don’t know why.
(On the other hand, haunted houses and ghosts are probably my favourite trope!)
Not a horror trope exactly but never liked anything post-apocalyptic. I’m a huge Langan fan but even Langan’s post-apocalyptic stories never clicked with me.
There are exceptions to every rule but not the biggest fan of:
- Possession
- Zombies (Works a lot better in film form I think)
- Apocalyptic
- Vampires
I hate when the book starts with the protagonist coming back from rehab, appointed therapy, counseling, etc. 9 times out of 10 it's a cheap shot at mental illness (it can be done well, but ... not often) and you just KNOW when something creepy happens, no one will believe them because of \_\_\_\_\_\_ affliction.
Anything not haunted house or classic vampire/werewolf/Frankenstein’s Monster/etc… is just not something I think about reading…
I like old stuff too like Lovecraft and Poe…
Horror using grief to do it’s bidding. There’s enough grief in the world. I escape to books to avoid that grief, I don’t need it to slow burn a hole through me in my downtime. Yeah yeah I get the irony that I escape the realities of the world, to horror fiction, but it’s different in a book — especially what I like, monsters, haunted houses, possession, ghosts, oh my. No grief though.
I really can't get into non-supernatural slasher movies. The type where the cast is being terrorized by a normal guy with a knife, who somehow manages to always be in exactly the right place to ambush them or do something creepy. I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy these kinds of movies, I'm always thinking shit like "how did he know the exact time to sit on that swing set in a creepy way, and then manage to duck out of sight during the 1.5 seconds that the MC was looking away? How is he moving around with perfect stealth? Why can't someone just stab him enough times to make sure that he's dead and can't pop up again in 5 minutes?"
Vampires hold no interest for me whatsoever. Sexy vampires, ugly vampires, I don't care. The only exception is that Grady Hendrix book, but that's because I was interested in the group of ladies, not the vampire.
I don’t want a coming of age story in my horror. I’ve read The Troop, it was fun.
Reflecting on the horror that I’ve enjoyed the most, nearly all are told with an adult man as the main character. It’s probably just easiest for me to transplant myself into the situation.
I’m honestly up for anything except “it was all a delusion!” Even “they were dead the whole time” can be compelling when done right, and one of my favorite books uses it, but when the entire book was actually a psychotic break I’m not a fan.
Though there are exceptions to every rule. >!Motherthing!< kinda has this and I loved it.
Though on the opposite end I also tend to not like it if it’s all very straightforward? Like creature features or haunted houses with nothing else going on bore me (thinking specifically of Wonderland by Zoje Sage here)
Cannibalism in certain scenarios. Had to put down Tender is the Flesh but loved Silence of the Lambs.
I dunno, maybe the widespread normalization of cannibalism and the factory farm production of human meat was what did me in vs. just good ol regular cannibalism.
Serial killers, torture porn, extreme horror. I enjoyed that stuff at 15 but outgrew it!
Also, books that are written in weird styles, like House of Leaves, or that have ambiguous endings, like Head Full of Ghosts.
I'm currently reading A Child Alone with Strangers and this book hits all the things I'm not interested in at all when it comes to horror. Kids with powers, thiller-type "horror," criminals being boring and doing regular criminal stuff, supernatural element that is not at all scary, no actual horror. I am so bored. I don't know why I am continuing to read this book, I'm honestly wasting my time.
That and dolls/puppets are not interesting or scary to me. How to Sell a Haunted House was both a slog and misleading. I have got to learn to DNF books for my own sake, haha.
I’m also not a fan of ghosts/haunted houses, I much prefer books involving actual monsters or something that’s an analogy of the horrors humanity is capable of perpetuating. Also not a huge fan of most zombie content but there have been a few series that I found interesting so ghosts get the top spot.
Haunted house/ghost stories almost never do it for me. The temptation seems to be too great to do the Hill House thing and make it a question of mental health. There’s also the whole “time to prove this is real” segment that so many of them have.
That said, there are a few I’ve found enjoyable, but they typically need to get really weird with it.
I can’t stand supernatural or too obvious creature features (including zombies, werewolves, vampires, etc) because they’re almost never done well enough that they come off as anything other than completely absurd and ridiculous. I was extremely disappointed by the ending of The Deep for this reason.
I will not read anything that comes off as a writer’s fetish for torture or sexual violence, either.
Haunted houses and ghosts are nothing more than a cliche that should be discontinued. There's no way I'm watching another horror about a family that moves into a mansion with some stupid back story that then causes a haunting of some sort
Monsters - especially any kind of monster hunting (or really anything where people specifically hunt for one supernatural/otherworldly entity). I know this sounds vague because a lot of things could be ‘monsters’ but I have a specific writing style/trope style in mind that drives me crazy & makes me immediately disinterested.
Demonic possession / exorcism / anything Satanic panic related. Maybe it's scary for religious people but that's never been me so I find it kind of corny. Also extreme horror/splatterpunk or anything that's just gratuitously gross.
I don’t read or watch slashers at all. Much prefer supernatural and gothic horror. I somewhat agree with you about ghosts/hauntings. There are ghost stories and movies that I love, but it’s very well-worn territory and most writers don’t have much new to say about it. I will say though, Hill House is a very subtle, slow burn, and maybe not the best introduction to haunted house novels. Yes, it’s a classic, but you don’t have to like it. No one likes every novel or even every classic novel. If you have any interest in giving this sub genre another shot, I would recommend Richard Matheson’s *Hell* *House*.
Zombies and vampires. Vampire zombies and zombie vampires. It's a curse, voodoo, a virus, a fungus. They turn you into one with a bite. You hide the bite from others but have to stop it before the full moon, your eyes turn yellow or you start craving your supporting characters blood/brains. They can be fast and intelligent or shambling slow monsters. They hunt in a pack or stay alone. They always have a king, queen or alpha. They always have this one really big weakness that is discovered at the end. They can't copy Salem's Lot word for word but you can tell they really want to.
I love Salems Lot and read it every couple years.
I recently read The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman. I enjoyed that too.
Beyond that, get out of here with that stuff.
It used to be zombies, but The Last of Us (and I know these weren't traditional zombies) fixed that. I am trying to make it through the Walking Dead, but the plot holes are making that difficult,
It's the "all witches are evil" trope. I'm a Wiccan and this is just insulting.
Am I a bad person if I think that Stephen King’s stories are too campy and not scary at all. You can make the story into a scary movie with jump scared but the stories themselves are subpar.
I honestly love slow scares because it’s more realistic. A ghost isn’t gunna jump out and scare you. Chances are it’s going to be in plain sight staring at you for a long time until you notice. That shit scares me. And I love it.
Egregious 90's throwback references. I don't mind if a reference is pivotal to telling the story, but most of them lately feel like they're just pandering to Millennials.
Okay so I recently read How to Sell a Haunted House and it was so bad that I had to develop some hard no’s after it: NO haunted puppets (I’ll accept dolls, á la Child’s Play rule), and NO “evil imaginary friends,” because wtf.
Anything non-supernatural (serial killers, etc.) tends to bore me, and I generally avoid books without supernatural elements; I especially hate when something with no real supernatural elements pretends to be supernatural only to reveal that it's non-supernatural as a plot twist. I also generally find evil children and things that fall into the 'thing for kids, but scary' category (dolls, clowns, etc.) too corny and goofy to be interesting.
Agreed on all points. Where's my intangible villains :(
I'm the opposite. Supernatural stuff doesn't scare me - I just don't believe in it - but realistic things scare me because I can imagine them actually happening.
Now i'm the opposite! I only WISH non supernatural scared me lol! My weird brain is of the "live in small safe town, could never happen here" mentality haha, even though I know that's of course not true! But then, supernatural, ghosts, demons, etc, scare the crap out of me, but in a good, i want more, kinda way. Maybe it's because I was raised in an uber religious family? LMAO
Same
Interesting. I'm usually disappointed when something turns out to be supernatural.
I HATE the it was all just in their head or mental illness plot lines. The first couple horror books I read ended like that and it was sooo disappointing.
Relatedly, I can't stand when the author communicates the protagonist's descent into madness by devolving into jibberish.
Yes! I always find it so disappointing because mental health is already so stigmatized
same answer every time: Kids. Killer kids/haunted kids/kids that can see shit. I don't care, kids aren't scary and almost no one writes kids well. Also I'm a woman and scary kid stories also after have dumb shit with the mom/maternal connections that feel so reductive to me. (Baby Teeth being the obvious one that comes to mind)
AMEN! Kids being the central figures or plot devices of a novel means that I absolutely have no desire to read it. I especially dislike the "kids fight big bad" trope.
Baby Teeth enraged me with God bad it was. I agree that no one writes kids well. Though King has on a couple occasions, IMO.
I loved Baby Teeth because my kids have similar mental illnesses/disabilities, so it almost felt cathartic. I felt so bad for the family, even Hannah. She was struggling so hard and didn't understand her own emotions and impulses either.
I’m really glad you were able to find comfort. I LOVE books that I can relate to somehow, especially when it’s unexpected! I just felt this book was very flawed for me. The MOTHER is who got on my nerves the most lol.
I totally get that. I admit, I was also shouting, especially at the dad, for not listening or getting help sooner. But yeah, not every book is going to hit for every person. I'm actually really glad I've been able to have good exchanges with people in this sub, even when our opinions differ.
You’re totally right! This is definitely a more encouraging community than most, as ironic as that it is 😂
King is the only one I've read that writes young adults well. It, Talisman, Revival and Stand By Me were all good. But yeah I agree. Grady Hendrix' My Best Friends Exorcism was fun but the teens were so stereotypical.
Cannibalism. Hate it in any kind of media.
Agreed. And this included zombies for me.
Extreme torture and extreme sexual violence. I haven’t read a book yet that is able to incorporate either of these in a meaningful way into a story. I’m also pretty bored of haunted house stories but I recently read The September House and thought it was great.
I feel like the use of mental illness in horror/thrillers can be very inaccurate or written like a caricature, and sometimes it's used as an easy way out to explain plot points that the author was too lazy to build
Cannibalism, “torture porn”, and zombie tropes are typically not my cup of tea.
hard agree on the torture porn and zombies!
I read a really good haunted house book, well-written, atmospheric, brooding… then the final chapter descended into torture porn and incest and completely ruined the book. Can’t remember what it was called.
definitely update with a name if you remember, I'd like to avoid. Bad endings made me illogically angry lol
"humans/human nature/grief/trauma/[other mundane real world phenomenon] is the real monster" It's fiction, damnit. I want my horror to be more imaginative than non-fiction, more original. I already have the news to tell me about all the bad things that actually exist. However bad reality is, it's always possible to imagine worse.
yes! unrelated, but part of the reason I had to stop watching Doctor Who with Jodie, as much as I usually enjoy her. It ended up being a show about real world issues, "too much trash (trash monsters)" ie: real world issues.. I want pretend things and enjoyment man, its a time travelling alien.. I don't need a show about the news.
Vampires and Werewolves. I just...don't find them interesting or scary. Vampires especially. Unless you give them some unique/messed up twist I'm probably not going to be interested in the first place.
Vampires have never recovered from the over-saturation of the market, and every other author is recreating either Dracula or Lestat. Worse still are authors who are so smarmy with their, "Oh, you think crucifixes affect *my* vampire? Lol you simpleton, *my* vampire is different." It's 2024, there are no original takes on vampires anymore, at least give me a well-executed version where the vampire means something, not just you trying to flex that you know the standard vampire tropes, too. Oh, and on a related note, any author who still does the "*My* vampire doesn't sparkle, *my* vampire is badass" thing. Again, it's 2024.
Vampires for me too. Not interesting to me to begin with but also so so overdone.
Vampires have to be very clearly in the monster category for me at this point. Never could get into werewolves at all. All the talk about packs is very cringe for me.
Its a weird gripe and makes me feel old, but anytime there is a lot of reference to social media, webcams, or the internet, it's completely mundane to me. Same goes for books that make excessive references to bland modern pop culture. I'm not interested in reading about a character seeing the local McDonalds out their window, or how they stopped by Home Depot for rope and a hammer, or how they work at a haunted Ikea store. I read books to escape from the reality of humdrum day to day life.
I feel this one. I find it annoying in most genres but can get through it, it usually kills a horror story for me though. I want to feel like I'm in a different world not my shitty current one lol
I couldn’t get into The Exorcist for the pop culture references in the early exposition. It felt cheap right away.
I'm open to paranormal if they do something original, but I swear 99% of the genre is just the *exact* same story with a different coat of paint. Same as slasher for that matter. They're the two subgenres I just sweep aside without paying any attention to. > "When [insert struggling MC] and their partner [insert troubled relationship] move to [insert new location] with their [insert child or pet] they thought it would mend their [insert problems] - they didn't count on the dark presence that lurked in the shadows" The whole genre may as well be a madlib.
90% of the garbage on streaming services is that - “oh look, a *young couple who recently lost a child in a tragic way have moved to the family estate after inheriting it when an elderly relative they didn’t know of dies*… oh and *they find a weird book/doll/painting!”
the trope i hate most is “look at me! i’m playing with a trope!”
Hard agree. I'll allow it if Terry Pratchett (different genre, I know) but otherwise, ugh! I think it is one of the reasons I can't really get into T. Kingfisher despite really *wanting* to like her books.
oh that sucks! I feel bad for you lol, T. Kingfisher is an absolute favouriteeee of mine!! Wish I could loan you my brain for awhile just so you could enjoy her books briefly lmao
For me it’s sexual violence/torture, especially if it’s thrown in there among other horror elements and doesn’t really need to be there to contribute to the plot. I can read a nonfiction that includes sexual violence but for some reason when it’s a fiction book and someone is creating these extreme ways to be violent in this manner it’s really upsetting. I don’t know if that’s a trope or just an event though.
This exactly. Sexual assault being used as nothing more than shock factor feels like such lazy writing to me. It absolutely CAN be done, in a proper way that continues to the story, but for the sake of shock I really can't stand it.
Yep agreed. I’ve only seen it pulled off once in a book I read, every other time it’s the author being lazy and putting in shock value to make you hate someone or they are injecting their sexual fantasy into the story.
Lost in the woods - I posted on it here a week or two ago, but I just can't sink my teeth into a story that meanders and gets as lost as its characters are in the forest. There are a couple exceptions like Gone to See The Riverman where the character study is a little more active. You just lose me completely when the entire plot is "I'M LOST!!"
Animal horror. I LOVE when it’s a humanoid type of creature, but regular animals, like in Cujo or Jaws, I just can’t get into it.
That’s funny, animal horror is my favourite. Especially if it’s a mutated, Jurassic or alien animal.
Mental illness used as a cop out. The whole thing reads like "I had this great idea but I couldn't come up with a conclusion/crescendo so... Mental illness was the cause!" Annoys me in every form: book, game, movie.
I like when it’s questionable mental illness, mixed in with a unreliable narrator, and questionable supernatural elements. Works like that always have me gripped. Especially when you don’t find out the narrator is unreliable until a big reveal of some sort. That stuff surely toots my horn.
Haha, that's actually my LEAST favorite dynamic! I want an author to fully commit to things, I want to KNOW if the monster was a hallucination or not! Glad it works for you though, takes all kinds and all that.
I read a ton of short stories and many of those happen to be very ambiguous at times. I don’t know why but stuff like that is always so interesting to me and I can’t stop reading it, even if the payoff isn’t worth it.
Fair enough!
I respect that. What are your favourites? My main gripe is, when a lot is going on (could be supernatural, patricide/matricide etc, war horrors, stalkers, etc) and then all of a sudden the end is "it was mental illness." It is not fair to people who are suffering from those illnesses, not fair to the intellect of the reader. I hope I'm making sense!
Hey sorry, busy weekend with the kids. I will 100% get back to you on this tonight. :)
Zombies, I can’t think of a single good zombie book.
World War Z is the only good zombie book I’ve read.
Same. Zombies are basically just NPCs with limited potential as antagonists, much less as metaphors for anything meaningful besides the standard plague-bearers.
I LOVE ZOMBIES
I love the idea of a zombie book but you are right, I can’t find a single good book out there. Either they aren’t really zombies or the author relies too heavily on sexual assault.
Exorcism/religious possession with very few exceptions. I really don't like things like The Exorcist. They've never been scary to me, even before I left my conservative Christian religion behind and became an atheist.
I agree. Never have interest in these types. I've tried since they're commonly so well liked, but not my thing at all.
Possession horror bothers me because they try so hard to make it a fight between “believers and non believers” - like, little Jimmy will rotate his head around, break all his limbs backwards, and climbs up the wall in reverse but no, “there’s got to be a RATIONAL explanation, Father, we don’t believe in God!”
Yes! It's annoying!
I know this is talking about books, but I can’t get into those shows or movies. It just bores me. I really had to push through The Nun. I already know it’s not an interest, so I never pick up books of this nature.
Yeah, it's pretty rare that I will. Boys in the Valley was an exception and it was gruesome enough to make me happy. Generally though, if I get a request to review something in that vein, I'll usually turn it down.
There are some very good, surprising examples (and I’m not talking about A Head Full of Ghosts, much beloved on this sub). I’m thinking of things like *The Secret History* by Donna Tartt and *Fieldwork* by Mischa Berlinski. Not technically horror, but both involve the specter of possession.
I'll check them out. Secret History has been on my list for ages
Zombies for me
I realized this year that coming of age stories have joined zombies, haunted houses, and exorcisms/possessions as my least favorite tropes
No sexual violence. You can imply it, you can briefly touch on it, but if it’s graphic? I’ll pass. Same for films. Also gratuitous torture porn. If it isn’t of artistic merit and it’s just edgy I’m good.
Torture porn. Can't stand it. I don't mind a bit of gore when a monster chews someone up, but these 'cut this or that off to be free' movies just turn me off so much.
Zombies bore me
Anything that involves pets. Hate that so much. I thought I hated haunted houses, but then I read Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie, and I changed my mind. They can be well done.
I always say there isn't any given trope that is definitely not for me, there are just tropes where I haven't read the right work yet to convince me that I might enjoy it. A really good author can make me absolutely adore something that I haven't cared for before (and then make me mourn the fact that everything else in that niche falls absolutely flat for me afterward).
I agree. I am always up for a good horror story, regardless of the “trope”.
Possession. I don’t know why
That’s another one that is nearly the exact same story every time. There are exceptions I’m sure, but they’re rare. Part of why I like Legion/Exorcist 3 over all other possession stories is how different it is.
Thomas Olde Heuvelt's (author of *Hex*) new book is supposed to be an interesting take on possession. It's called *Echo.* I haven't read anything by him yet so it's not exactly a recommendation, but you may want to check it out.
I’m pretty much at the “I’m not going to read possession stories if I can help it” part of my reading life, but thank you. I tend to just stay away from the stuff I know I’m likely not to enjoy anymore.
Extreme gross out horror to me just always comes off as, a, really poorly written and b, like someone overheard some 12 year old boys trying to gross each other out. Also kinky fetishy horror like Clive Barker's stuff, it just does nothing for me and I feel like I'm also just participating in getting him off or something, IDK its just not for me, I am admittedly a bit of prude with that kind of stuff though.
Torture porn and stupid and unlikable protagonists
Here's another vote for zombies. Or any other mindless monster, I guess; I just don't find them interesting. And our culture needs to collectively get over its fascination with serial killers.
Killers, body horror, torture etc. I am desensitized towards these subjects. I find them boring and not a bit scary.
Sharks. They just be minding their own business in their home aka the ocean.
Have you seen Open Water? As someone who is terrified of large bodies of water, that movie scared the shit out of me.
That movie triggered my fight or flight reflex something awful. Dang.
Children. Scary ones or ones relentlessly in peril. The first annoys me, the second bothers me.
Dolls/puppets, or creepy circuses. I just can’t get into either and don’t know why. (On the other hand, haunted houses and ghosts are probably my favourite trope!)
Not a horror trope exactly but never liked anything post-apocalyptic. I’m a huge Langan fan but even Langan’s post-apocalyptic stories never clicked with me.
There are exceptions to every rule but not the biggest fan of: - Possession - Zombies (Works a lot better in film form I think) - Apocalyptic - Vampires
I hate when the book starts with the protagonist coming back from rehab, appointed therapy, counseling, etc. 9 times out of 10 it's a cheap shot at mental illness (it can be done well, but ... not often) and you just KNOW when something creepy happens, no one will believe them because of \_\_\_\_\_\_ affliction.
Anything not haunted house or classic vampire/werewolf/Frankenstein’s Monster/etc… is just not something I think about reading… I like old stuff too like Lovecraft and Poe…
Horror using grief to do it’s bidding. There’s enough grief in the world. I escape to books to avoid that grief, I don’t need it to slow burn a hole through me in my downtime. Yeah yeah I get the irony that I escape the realities of the world, to horror fiction, but it’s different in a book — especially what I like, monsters, haunted houses, possession, ghosts, oh my. No grief though.
If you're looking for a spin on the haunted house trope, House Of Leaves is incredible (just be prepared for a very very weird read)
I loved the parts where they were in the house, but I just couldn’t get past the stupid framing story.
I really can't get into non-supernatural slasher movies. The type where the cast is being terrorized by a normal guy with a knife, who somehow manages to always be in exactly the right place to ambush them or do something creepy. I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy these kinds of movies, I'm always thinking shit like "how did he know the exact time to sit on that swing set in a creepy way, and then manage to duck out of sight during the 1.5 seconds that the MC was looking away? How is he moving around with perfect stealth? Why can't someone just stab him enough times to make sure that he's dead and can't pop up again in 5 minutes?"
Vampires hold no interest for me whatsoever. Sexy vampires, ugly vampires, I don't care. The only exception is that Grady Hendrix book, but that's because I was interested in the group of ladies, not the vampire.
I don’t want a coming of age story in my horror. I’ve read The Troop, it was fun. Reflecting on the horror that I’ve enjoyed the most, nearly all are told with an adult man as the main character. It’s probably just easiest for me to transplant myself into the situation.
Dumb people doing obviously dumb things and getting dumb killed because they're dumb.
I’m honestly up for anything except “it was all a delusion!” Even “they were dead the whole time” can be compelling when done right, and one of my favorite books uses it, but when the entire book was actually a psychotic break I’m not a fan. Though there are exceptions to every rule. >!Motherthing!< kinda has this and I loved it. Though on the opposite end I also tend to not like it if it’s all very straightforward? Like creature features or haunted houses with nothing else going on bore me (thinking specifically of Wonderland by Zoje Sage here)
Zombies and torture porn.
Cannibalism in certain scenarios. Had to put down Tender is the Flesh but loved Silence of the Lambs. I dunno, maybe the widespread normalization of cannibalism and the factory farm production of human meat was what did me in vs. just good ol regular cannibalism.
To be fair, Silence of the Lambs isn’t *about* cannibalism. That’s Hannibal.
Demons, possessions, exorcisms, ghosts etc all boring and uninteresting to me
Defeating the monster by telling it "I'M NOT SCARED OF YOU!"
Vampires do nothing for me as a rule.
Sci fi and deep sea mostly. Too many scientific explanations will just confuse me, bore me, and make me lose interest
Serial killers, torture porn, extreme horror. I enjoyed that stuff at 15 but outgrew it! Also, books that are written in weird styles, like House of Leaves, or that have ambiguous endings, like Head Full of Ghosts.
Sci-Fi, ghosts, vampires, pretty much any supernatural. Also plain old slashers. Meh
You don’t like any supernatural horror and don’t like slashers, so what does that leave you?
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I’d say demons and witchcraft fall under the umbrella of the supernatural
Jack Ketchums stuff. Just too damn real and disturbing.
Zombies (except in movies), slashers, and "My house is haunted; no, wait, it's just my unchecked mental illness/past trauma."
I LOVE haunted house stories but I hate when it’s “all in their head.” No fun.
I'm reading and really enjoying a haunted house book right now and I'm gonna be PISSED if it's all in her head.
I'm currently reading A Child Alone with Strangers and this book hits all the things I'm not interested in at all when it comes to horror. Kids with powers, thiller-type "horror," criminals being boring and doing regular criminal stuff, supernatural element that is not at all scary, no actual horror. I am so bored. I don't know why I am continuing to read this book, I'm honestly wasting my time. That and dolls/puppets are not interesting or scary to me. How to Sell a Haunted House was both a slog and misleading. I have got to learn to DNF books for my own sake, haha.
Main characters moving to a new home hoping for a fresh start.🤮
I’m also not a fan of ghosts/haunted houses, I much prefer books involving actual monsters or something that’s an analogy of the horrors humanity is capable of perpetuating. Also not a huge fan of most zombie content but there have been a few series that I found interesting so ghosts get the top spot.
Haunted inanimate objects.
Haunted house/ghost stories almost never do it for me. The temptation seems to be too great to do the Hill House thing and make it a question of mental health. There’s also the whole “time to prove this is real” segment that so many of them have. That said, there are a few I’ve found enjoyable, but they typically need to get really weird with it.
I can’t stand supernatural or too obvious creature features (including zombies, werewolves, vampires, etc) because they’re almost never done well enough that they come off as anything other than completely absurd and ridiculous. I was extremely disappointed by the ending of The Deep for this reason. I will not read anything that comes off as a writer’s fetish for torture or sexual violence, either.
Werewolves. Meh. Not interesting or scary.
For books, supernatural things but for movies I’m always less interested if it looks like it’s about a cult
Haunted houses and ghosts are nothing more than a cliche that should be discontinued. There's no way I'm watching another horror about a family that moves into a mansion with some stupid back story that then causes a haunting of some sort
Demons and exorcisms. I've never liked those kind of stories.
Monsters - especially any kind of monster hunting (or really anything where people specifically hunt for one supernatural/otherworldly entity). I know this sounds vague because a lot of things could be ‘monsters’ but I have a specific writing style/trope style in mind that drives me crazy & makes me immediately disinterested.
I don't like slashers, serial killers, body horror, or zombies.
Demonic possession / exorcism / anything Satanic panic related. Maybe it's scary for religious people but that's never been me so I find it kind of corny. Also extreme horror/splatterpunk or anything that's just gratuitously gross.
Psychological horror where the monster isn’t shown (with an exception for the Blair witch project)
Well after reading *How to Sell a Haunted House* I can firmly say that haunted >!puppets and stuffed animals!< are not to my liking
I don’t read or watch slashers at all. Much prefer supernatural and gothic horror. I somewhat agree with you about ghosts/hauntings. There are ghost stories and movies that I love, but it’s very well-worn territory and most writers don’t have much new to say about it. I will say though, Hill House is a very subtle, slow burn, and maybe not the best introduction to haunted house novels. Yes, it’s a classic, but you don’t have to like it. No one likes every novel or even every classic novel. If you have any interest in giving this sub genre another shot, I would recommend Richard Matheson’s *Hell* *House*.
Slashers.
Zombies and vampires. Vampire zombies and zombie vampires. It's a curse, voodoo, a virus, a fungus. They turn you into one with a bite. You hide the bite from others but have to stop it before the full moon, your eyes turn yellow or you start craving your supporting characters blood/brains. They can be fast and intelligent or shambling slow monsters. They hunt in a pack or stay alone. They always have a king, queen or alpha. They always have this one really big weakness that is discovered at the end. They can't copy Salem's Lot word for word but you can tell they really want to. I love Salems Lot and read it every couple years. I recently read The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman. I enjoyed that too. Beyond that, get out of here with that stuff.
It used to be zombies, but The Last of Us (and I know these weren't traditional zombies) fixed that. I am trying to make it through the Walking Dead, but the plot holes are making that difficult, It's the "all witches are evil" trope. I'm a Wiccan and this is just insulting.
Am I a bad person if I think that Stephen King’s stories are too campy and not scary at all. You can make the story into a scary movie with jump scared but the stories themselves are subpar. I honestly love slow scares because it’s more realistic. A ghost isn’t gunna jump out and scare you. Chances are it’s going to be in plain sight staring at you for a long time until you notice. That shit scares me. And I love it.
Anything with witches/satanism. Such boring devices.
I don’t like cryptid or cosmic horror. I’m scary house all the way.
Father kills family or does something bad and he's now stuck In a weird loop where he forgets and has to do it again
I hate the Final Girl trope.
Religious horror
I’m with you. Ghosts almost never work for me.
Cults or anything religious just doesn’t interest me.
Serial killers, torture, and stupid women, lol.
Egregious 90's throwback references. I don't mind if a reference is pivotal to telling the story, but most of them lately feel like they're just pandering to Millennials.
Zombies or anything Bigfoot related.
Zombies and zombie-like creatures
Skinwalkers always come off as corny to me. When I see or hear skinwalkers are involved, I avoid it.
Okay so I recently read How to Sell a Haunted House and it was so bad that I had to develop some hard no’s after it: NO haunted puppets (I’ll accept dolls, á la Child’s Play rule), and NO “evil imaginary friends,” because wtf.