About the Book:
Marshall Seaver is being haunted. In The Light, the first installment of this chillingly compelling trilogy, sixteen-year-old Marshall discovers that something beyond our world is after him. The eerie clues pile up quickly, and when people start dying, it’s clear whatever this is–it’s huge.
Marshall has no idea what’s happening to him, but he’s soon convinced that it has something to do with his best friend Cooper, who’s been missing for over a week. Together with Coop’s sister, Marsh searches for the truth about what happened to his friend, ultimately uncovering something bigger than he could ever have imagined.
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Morpheus Road: The Light by D.J. MacHale releases today! In this latest stop in the blog tour, MacHale talks about his favorite scary books and movies:
I love scary stories. I’m not so much a slasher/maniac killer devotee. To me, those kinds of stories aren’t necessarily scary, they’re just exercises in worrying about when you might see the next gruesome bit of carnage. To me, the best kinds of stories are the ones where you’re brought into a mystery and the challenge is to figure out what the supernatural entity is trying to do. And of course, the more creative and surprising that entity (or the author) is, the better. Here are a couple of my personal favorites.
The Shining by Stephen King. The book, not the movie. Though the movie is considered a classic horror-fest, to me it didn’t live up to the book where the ghosts that haunted the father were every bit as frightening as the lunatic the father became. I loved how you didn’t really know if the haunting was really happening, or if it was all in the father’s mind. And I love King’s vivid descriptions….the body in the bathtub, the twin girls, and of course the topiary animals that came to life. Great stuff.
It also by Stephen King. I love the conceit that the supernatural force is showing its victims the things that scares them the most. I still remember the passage where one kid was attacked by the Creature From the Black Lagoon and right up until the moment of his death, he was feeling the creature’s back to find the zipper of the costume because he couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Great moment. I’d rate that above The Shining if it didn’t turn out in the end that the bad guy was a giant turtle from outer space, or some such thing. There was a real big “Huh?” moment for me.
Stephen King honorable mentions: Pet Cemetery and Salem’s Lot.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Sometimes a moment sticks with you from a story. I still remember the moment where the two women were in bed and spooky stuff was happening with the ghosts in their room and one asked the other not to squeeze her hand so hard . . . to which the other woman replied that she wasn’t holding her hand. Awesome.
The movie The Omen. I’ve heard this called a cheesy film, and maybe it is, but it did something that I thought was a brilliant piece of foreshadowing. People kept dying in horrific ways, and of course we the audience all realized it was the work of Damien. There was a photographer who tried to convince Damien’s father that something was not right with the kid, and his proof was that he had all these photos that he snapped of the victims long before their deaths and there were imperfections in the pictures which could be related to the way they eventually died. When the father asked why the photographer cared so much, he showed him a picture he had accidently taken of himself in a mirror, and it showed a black slash through his own neck. Gulp. You knew at that moment that the photographer was doomed, you just didn’t know when. So from that moment on, whenever the photographer was on screen, you sat on the edge of your seat, waiting for him to be killed, and it didn’t happen for a while.
I recently blogged on my website about one of the scariest movies I’d ever seen, an early 60’s flick called “Black Sabbath”. I don’t know if it would be as scary seeing it today, but that movie gave me nightmares for years. Then again, I was also freaked about by Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein when I was little.
Some honorable mention movies: The Others, The Blair Witch Project (Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing, but it had me on the edge of my seat wondering if something might), The Ring (great images) and of course Poltergeist.
There are hundreds of other spooky books and movies that I’ve enjoyed over the years, but those are just a few off the top of my head. – D.J. MacHale
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