Scan barcode
angay_reads's review against another edition
4.0
A compilation of 18 short horror stories that will entertain you for hours!
I think some of these aren't actually scary, some of them were rather sad. "Light Moves" and "The Sound of Murder" were my favorites. I think some of the stories were kinda predictable, such as "The Elevator", and "The Phone Goes Dead".
The last chapter was kinda fun. It's short but spooky once you figure it out.
Overall an interesting mash of horror stories that I definitely recommend!
I think some of these aren't actually scary, some of them were rather sad. "Light Moves" and "The Sound of Murder" were my favorites. I think some of the stories were kinda predictable, such as "The Elevator", and "The Phone Goes Dead".
The last chapter was kinda fun. It's short but spooky once you figure it out.
Overall an interesting mash of horror stories that I definitely recommend!
jayykitty's review against another edition
4.0
This collection was one of my favorites growing up. I've read it many times throughout the years and some of the stories still haunt me. Not all of them are hits, but overall I'd recommend this book.
gabstar43's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
tjlcody's review
5.0
I'm just saying that if you write more stuff like this, Mr. Horowitz, I will read it.
awblass's review
2.0
Before I read this, I had read all the books in the Alex Rider series so I wondered how well Anthony Horowitz could handle the horror genre. Going into this book, I did not have high hopes and that may have been a good thing because I was sorely disappointed when I finished reading it. This collection of eighteen short horror stories were nowhere near as scary as the books and short stories of Richard Matheson and Stephen King. Now I don't blame Horowitz for giving horror writing a try but he should stick to what he is good at and what made him successful in the first place: action writing. I mean this was an mediocre start for the author but usually you can tell when a writer has promise or potential for a certain genre or not. Moving on, I think the key to writing horror is you can't be too predictable for the audience because if you are then your stories will become boring fast. This can be said for any genre but, as I found out, is especially true of horror. That is the mistake Anthony Horowitz makes time and time again with each of his short stories as the reader can predict what is going to happen within the first few pages of each story.
Bath Night: After a family buys an antique bath tub, a girl refuses to take a bath in it, fearing it's haunted. Solution: when the girl found out the backstory behind the bath tub she should have straight up told her parents about it and that would have been the end of the story because they would have definitely gotten rid of it then.
Killer Camera: A son buys a camera from a yard sale as a gift to his father but soon finds out the dangerous effects it has when it takes a picture. Question: why did he buy the camera in the first place after hearing the strange story behind how it got to the yard sale?
Light Moves: A computer owned by a recently deceased coworker is given by a father to a son. I really didn't know where this story was going up until a bully showed up then I knew for sure what was coming to him.
The Night Bus: After leaving a party, two brothers hop on a bus filled with the dead. Another story I didn't know where it was going. Kind of reminded me of the night bus in Harry Potter.
Harriet's Horrible Dream: Harriet has a nightmare in which her parents sell her to a restaurant that serves a delicacy that even Sweeney Todd would be proud of. Predictable but my question is how could Harriet think this was all some horrible dream?
Scared: After leaving the footpath, a bully gets lost in the countryside. Very predictable as I didn't know what exactly was going to happen to the bully, I just knew it wasn't anything good.
A Career in Computer Games: A boy finds an ad about a job in computer games with no qualifications necessary. Again, predictable and my question is, who would even take such a job offer?
The Man with the Yellow Face: After taking a few pictures in a photo booth, all of them turn out okay except for one which shows a strange looking man who looks familiar. This was the first story that almost took me by surprise with its ending.
The Monkey's Ear: After buying their son a monkey ear that can supposedly grant four wishes, the family soon finds it is much more than they expected. Didn't know where this was headed but the ending reminded me of a similar incident that happened in the TV show Preacher.
The Hitchhiker: When a family picks up a hitchhiker, the son wonders if he might be a killer from the insane asylum nearby. The second story in this collection that almost surprised me as I should have seen the ending coming with all the hints right there.
The Sound of Murder: A deaf student begins to hear voices whenever she gets close to a certain teacher. Solution: she should have just told a teacher what happened and everything would have been alright.
Burned: A boy joins his aunt and uncle on a vacation where the uncle tries to get a tan. I don't know what the uncle's obsession with getting a tan was but the whole story could have been avoided if he wasn't so gung-ho about it.
Flight 715: After a dream in which she and her family die on a plane, a girl goes to great extremes to make sure they don't get on that flight. This was the third story that didn't go according to what I thought and surprised me with the way it turned out.
Howard's End: After a bus runs over and kills him, a shoplifter goes to what he imagines is heaven. How in the world did this kid think he was in heaven after all the bad stuff he did?
The Elevator: A detective tries to figure out what happened to a boy who disappeared in an elevator. It was pretty obvious what happened to the boy after the detective found out what kind of tastes the people in the elevator had but my question is how did they do it so quickly?
The Phone Goes Dead: A dead woman's phone falls into the hands of a teenaged boy and soon he starts to get phone calls from the dead. Solution: Just destroy the phone: no more phone, no more calls from the dead. It's as simple as that.
Twist Cottage: A couple and their son move into a haunted cottage where strange things start to happen to them. I saw where this story was headed but was unprepared for what the father planned to do with the cottage afterwards.
The Shortest Horror Story Ever Written: The author breaks into the office of his publisher to sneak in a story for this collection. Theory: the author probably only added this in to leave a creepy impression on the reader. I have to say he almost had me there.
I already explained how predictable Horowitz was throughout all his short stories so I won't go on about it. However, I will say that all his characters fall flat as they are not fleshed out enough or are just plain stupid. Most of these stories would be solved if the protagonist told an adult or someone in authority what was going on. Also, the concepts for each story were not strong so they dragged on and didn't make a whole lot of sense in the long run. Overall, I decided to give it two stars instead of one because of the effort the author put into this book and the three stories that caught me off-guard.
I would recommend this to fans of children's thrillers with a side of creepy.
Bath Night: After a family buys an antique bath tub, a girl refuses to take a bath in it, fearing it's haunted. Solution: when the girl found out the backstory behind the bath tub she should have straight up told her parents about it and that would have been the end of the story because they would have definitely gotten rid of it then.
Killer Camera: A son buys a camera from a yard sale as a gift to his father but soon finds out the dangerous effects it has when it takes a picture. Question: why did he buy the camera in the first place after hearing the strange story behind how it got to the yard sale?
Light Moves: A computer owned by a recently deceased coworker is given by a father to a son. I really didn't know where this story was going up until a bully showed up then I knew for sure what was coming to him.
The Night Bus: After leaving a party, two brothers hop on a bus filled with the dead. Another story I didn't know where it was going. Kind of reminded me of the night bus in Harry Potter.
Harriet's Horrible Dream: Harriet has a nightmare in which her parents sell her to a restaurant that serves a delicacy that even Sweeney Todd would be proud of. Predictable but my question is how could Harriet think this was all some horrible dream?
Scared: After leaving the footpath, a bully gets lost in the countryside. Very predictable as I didn't know what exactly was going to happen to the bully, I just knew it wasn't anything good.
A Career in Computer Games: A boy finds an ad about a job in computer games with no qualifications necessary. Again, predictable and my question is, who would even take such a job offer?
The Man with the Yellow Face: After taking a few pictures in a photo booth, all of them turn out okay except for one which shows a strange looking man who looks familiar. This was the first story that almost took me by surprise with its ending.
The Monkey's Ear: After buying their son a monkey ear that can supposedly grant four wishes, the family soon finds it is much more than they expected. Didn't know where this was headed but the ending reminded me of a similar incident that happened in the TV show Preacher.
The Hitchhiker: When a family picks up a hitchhiker, the son wonders if he might be a killer from the insane asylum nearby. The second story in this collection that almost surprised me as I should have seen the ending coming with all the hints right there.
The Sound of Murder: A deaf student begins to hear voices whenever she gets close to a certain teacher. Solution: she should have just told a teacher what happened and everything would have been alright.
Burned: A boy joins his aunt and uncle on a vacation where the uncle tries to get a tan. I don't know what the uncle's obsession with getting a tan was but the whole story could have been avoided if he wasn't so gung-ho about it.
Flight 715: After a dream in which she and her family die on a plane, a girl goes to great extremes to make sure they don't get on that flight. This was the third story that didn't go according to what I thought and surprised me with the way it turned out.
Howard's End: After a bus runs over and kills him, a shoplifter goes to what he imagines is heaven. How in the world did this kid think he was in heaven after all the bad stuff he did?
The Elevator: A detective tries to figure out what happened to a boy who disappeared in an elevator. It was pretty obvious what happened to the boy after the detective found out what kind of tastes the people in the elevator had but my question is how did they do it so quickly?
The Phone Goes Dead: A dead woman's phone falls into the hands of a teenaged boy and soon he starts to get phone calls from the dead. Solution: Just destroy the phone: no more phone, no more calls from the dead. It's as simple as that.
Twist Cottage: A couple and their son move into a haunted cottage where strange things start to happen to them. I saw where this story was headed but was unprepared for what the father planned to do with the cottage afterwards.
The Shortest Horror Story Ever Written: The author breaks into the office of his publisher to sneak in a story for this collection. Theory: the author probably only added this in to leave a creepy impression on the reader. I have to say he almost had me there.
I already explained how predictable Horowitz was throughout all his short stories so I won't go on about it. However, I will say that all his characters fall flat as they are not fleshed out enough or are just plain stupid. Most of these stories would be solved if the protagonist told an adult or someone in authority what was going on. Also, the concepts for each story were not strong so they dragged on and didn't make a whole lot of sense in the long run. Overall, I decided to give it two stars instead of one because of the effort the author put into this book and the three stories that caught me off-guard.
I would recommend this to fans of children's thrillers with a side of creepy.
veewillrockyou's review
4.0
Pretty much every story was fantastic. I do have a little problem with Horowitz's writing, how he tends to repeat certain phrases and lines in a lot of the stories. But I guess when you're reading a collection of short stories, all by the same author, that kind of thing is expected.
The last story is particularly delicious ;)
The last story is particularly delicious ;)
readbyashleyd's review
1.0
Well it’s definitely safe to say that this is the last time I read anything by Horowitz. This supposed horror story collection was absolutely dreadful and definitely NOT what I’d call horror. The stories were just so juvenile and there was so much wrong with them on so many levels. And don’t get me started on how predictable they were, I could tell the whole damn story just by the title!
booksandbosox's review
4.0
If I were a kid reading this, I would love it. Horowitz presents a collection of short stories, all slightly terrifying. Well, none of them actually terrified me (it takes a lot to scare me), but regardless, they are meant to terrify. And if I were a kid, I would have absolutely adored this. The stories are just spooky and scary and mystifying enough. Even though I'm an adult now (according to who?), I still rather enjoyed this collection. I've never read Horowitz before (nothing else of his ever interested me) but I might give something else a try now. Very entertaining.