The scariest book covers you'll see today!

The 12 Creepiest Book Covers of All Time
(... or at least that you'll see today)

With only one more day until Hallowe'en it's about time to get out your creepiest, scariest, most terrifying book! I'm a pretty big chicken and can't attest to reading most of the books on this list but for the sake of Hallowe'en I think I just might! What makes a book scary? I think it's the cover! Like wine, you're not supposed to choose (or judge!) a book by its cover... but we all do it! So what makes a book cover creepy? I’ve come to the conclusion that anything with masked or morphed faces, blood red backgrounds, cemeteries, ravens and old houses is going to be scary. If you’re doing some last minute Hallowe’en decorating be sure to include any of these elements to truly frighten the trick or treaters coming to your door (...or me!). I’ve compiled the twelve book covers that scare me the most. Don’t agree? Put your picks in the comments section and I'll check them out!

12. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

A quick Google image search will reveal a multitude of creepy, dark and forlorn covers for Wuthering Heights. Personally, I think this cover captures the bleakness of the Yorkshire moors perfectly. The dark foreboding clouds and winding laneway are equally uninviting. Would you go up that lane and inside that house? I wouldn’t. I would run. Far, far away... especially on Hallowe'en!

11. Doomed - Chuck Palahniuk

Most of Chuck Palahniuk’s books have an eerie quality to them that remind the reader of exactly how frank Palahniuk’s writing is (think of the scientific diagram of the human muscular system for Choke), or an oversimplified, childlike quality (think Lullaby, Diary, Invisible Monsters and Snuff) but Doomed takes the cake for being blatantly scary. That little face is going to haunt my dreams. 

10. Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs

Everything about this book cover scares me. The greyscale, the shadows, the messy scrawl of the words “Peculiar Children”, the creepy vintage image of a girl, the skull – it sets up the novel which begins with a horrific family tragedy and includes abandoned bedrooms and hallways and dangerous children quarantined on a deserted island. What makes this book even scarier is the vintage photography interspersed throughout.

10. The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson

What is it with English Literature and old houses? The house on this cover is ultimately uninviting because of the dark branches obscuring our view of the house. Doesn’t it look exactly like that dark, abandoned house your friends dared you to go up to on Hallowe’en?

9. Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos – H.P. Lovecraft
I don’t even know what to say about the alien-masked being, animal skull and pint sized grave on the cover of Lovecraft.  I don’t understand it and I don’t want to!

8. Green Water Lullaby – Lori Titus

Any book with a raven on the cover is going to be scary. But a raven with an eyeball in his mouth and a cemetery in the background? Yikes.

 

7. Tales of Terror – Edith Nesbit

There is nothing – nothing – worse than a red-eyed ghost creeping up behind you in the library. Thanks, Nesbit now I can never go to the library again.

6. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is delightfully creepy in my opinion, and one of the only books on this list that I would willingly indulge in (the other being Wuthering Heights, of course), but I am partial to anything written by Mr. Wilde. Most covers for The Picture of Dorian Gray don’t capture the truly evil nature of the book as well as this one does. Two sided face? Love it. Dark, murky colours? Perfect. Don’t forget to make eye contact with him to really creep yourself out.

5. Pet Semetary – Stephen King

Stephen King is the king of creepy covers (and horror lit, obviously). It was actually hard to pick just one cover. Pet Semetary made the list because to me the deranged cat, the blood red sky, the cemetery in the background, the tilted cross and lone figure encapsulate everything that is Hallowe’en. If you want more check out; It, Salem’s Lot, Carrie, Cujo, The Stand and his latest Doctor Sleep.

 

4. The Monk – Matthew Lewis

Any book with a demonic, hooded monk with his too-close-together eyes and noseless face on the cover promises to be a disturbing read.

3. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

Any weird, masked, distorted or morphed face gives me the heebie jeebies (think Voldemort) and this cover for American Psycho captures everything about masked faces that I hate. 

2. The Pilo Family Circus – Will Elliott

Clowns are supposed to good, old fashioned family fun.  But, everyone knows they’re not. This one has those glowing red eyes I was talking about, too. I’m staying as far away from this one as possible!

1. Creepy-Ass Dolls - Stacey Leigh Brooks

Yes, this is really a book. One that I will never read. When we did a walkthrough of our house before we bought it the previous home owner had dolls everywhere, Including a huge display case of them in the living room. For some reason we still bought the house and hence why I can never read this book!