What Book Recommendations Would These Iconic Horror Movie Villains Offer?

Seeking shelter from a heavy rainstorm, Marion Crane, a woman who’s stolen money from her employer, stops at the Bates Motel a few miles from her destination. There she is invited to dine with the owner of the motel, a shy, meek-looking, lonely young man with an unusual hobby as a taxidermist named Norman Bates.

Norman is berated by his abusive mother constantly and opens up to Marion about his inability to leave her. What follows later that night is the most familiar murder scene in film, which is widely recognized even by those who aren’t regular horror movie aficionados.

The sharp, piercing sound of the violin and cello played over the screams of Marion Crane when she is stabbed to death in the shower by “Mother” is horrifying, though unlike the other gory horror movies on this list, the audience never sees the blade ever actually cut flesh.

The systematic way Norman disposes of the body and cleans the crime scene as though it were just another chore to be completed on his list of to-dos is exceedingly chilling. 

The young man in The Collector shares some vital similarities with Norman. For example, his interest in odd hobbies—he collects butterflies—and his feelings of mediocrity and desire for intimacy with a beautiful young woman.

Frederick, a working-class, withdrawn figure, becomes obsessed with an art student named Miranda.

When Frederick suddenly finds himself with quite a lot of money to spare, he decides to buy a remote cottage where he plans on kidnapping Miranda and keeping her in a cellar until she falls in love with him.

This startling story of obsessive love wouldn’t appear outrageous to Mr. Bates; he would console Frederick by explaining, “We all go a little mad sometimes.” 

All Carrie White ever wanted was to feel accepted. With a fanatically religious mother and cruel classmates, Carrie had no place where she could feel fully safe.

Always an outsider and the target of nasty jokes, Carrie is naturally suspicious when a handsome, popular boy asks her to prom. 

Astoundingly, the night was going far better than expected—she had her first kiss, she slow danced for the first time, and then something miraculous happened: Carrie and her date are crowned Prom Queen and King. That’s when the true horror begins.

You know the rest: a bucket full of warm pig’s blood, a few laughs from the crowd, and suddenly poor, kind, harmless Carrie White snaps and uses her telekinetic powers to burn her school to the ground and every classmate and staff in attendance with it. 

Carrie White would want to be friends with 45-year-old protagonist Allison from author Jeff Strand’s dark, humorous, and enthralling horror story. If Carrie White had lived to adulthood, she would most likely be similar to Allison, who also has telekinetic powers that allow her to move objects and make people do as she wants

 Regrettably, Allison is unable to control her powers as much as Carrie White, so to protect herself and those around her, she has spent her life isolating herself.

But after an encounter with a couple on the street who decide to try to take advantage of her power once they know what she is capable of, Allison decides that it’s time to practice using her powers: prepare for a huge bloodbath that’ll make Carrie’s bloody spectacle look like a mere spot of blood.

Despite the age gap, Carrie and Allison would bond over their shared trauma and become the confidants they always wished they had.     

His relentless capacity for stalking and killing innocent victims makes this masked serial killer one of the most iconic horror movie boogiemen of all time.

Getting the taste for bloodlust from the early age of six years old, after the stabbing of his teenage sister Judith, Michael Myers spends 15 years locked away at a psychiatric hospital, until he escapes Smith’s Grove Sanitarium to return to his neighborhood of Haddonfield, Illinois, to terrorize the residents once more.

Consequently, he develops a particularly demented interest in one unsuspecting female teenage babysitter named Laurie Strode.

Michael Myer’s fondness for merciless killing sprees, along with his experiences of being held at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, would make him feel as though he had a type of kinship with the sadistic serial killer in this terrifying slasher.

This gruesome bloodbath of a novel features an extremely violent serial killer known as the Prowler, who just so happens to have recently escaped a nearby mental institution where he was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.

Eighteen-year-old, Zoe Doyle who’s working her first night shift at an isolated gas station in hopes of saving enough money for college and a car, is expecting to deal with the occasional local sketchy patron but instead finds herself shocked and deeply unsettled when a news bulletin on the radio notifies her that a vicious killer is on the run.

Unluckily for Zoe, she appears to be in the path of the Prowler’s killing spree. Shocking, gory, and stomach-churning fun—Michael Myers would certainly approve and would be rooting for the narcissistic, callous killer all the while! 

Campfires and s’mores, kayaking, and nature walks are just some aspects of summer camp that kids and young teens look forward to once school is out.

But at Camp Crystal Lake, spooky campfire stories are the least of campers' worries, for this summer might be their last, especially if you’re a teen camp counselor not doing your job properly and secretly hooking up in the cabins.

A surprising reveal at the end of the first Friday the 13^th installment occurs when audiences finally uncover the person who has been responsible for massacring the camp counselors, turning this story of a killer who appears to be motivated by pure bloodlust into a complex story of revenge.

Consequently, Jason Voorhees and his mother, Mrs. Voorhees, would buddy-read You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron, which is set at an eerily similar place as Camp Crystal Lake, called Camp Mirror Lake, where guests pay to be frightened while they witness the camp’s crew recreate scenes from the classic slasher film, Curse of Camp Mirror Lake.

It’s Charity Curtis’ ideal summer job when she gets the opportunity to play a “final girl.” It’s all fun and games until the last weekend of the season when one of her coworkers is found dead.

And unfortunately, they’re not just giving an excellent performance. Charity and her girlfriend Bezi will have to determine what kind of sick game the killer is playing and uncover the camp’s mysterious past if they hope to survive the night.

This YA horror thriller would excite the Voorhees duo, as I imagine both would find it incredibly amusing that a simulated horror experience suddenly became too uncomfortably real. 

It’s bad enough that individuals in horror movies are hunted in broad daylight by crazed lunatics and remorseless serial killers, but the film A Nightmare on Elm Street takes it a step further, stealing the victim’s one mode of respite: sleep.

Freddy Krueger, the persistent, malevolent spirit of a child killer who was burned to death by his victims’ parents, is the stuff of nightmares—literally. As he waits for his victims to fall asleep so that he can slash them with his trademark metal-clawed glove, killing them in the real world. 

Dreams also become nightmares in Dreamfall, the first book of the duology from international bestselling author Amy Plum, much like in Freddy Krueger’s world. Seven teenagers elect to take part in an experimental procedure to cure their insomnia.

The group is undergoing this process when the lab equipment malfunctions, and they find themselves stuck in a dream world conjured from their deepest, most personal fears. They will have to fight monsters and battle their inner demons come to life if they wish to wake up.

Freddy Kreuger would probably read Dreamfall as a soothing bedtime story, but everyone else should be ready to experience an exhilarating, action-packed sci-fi, fantasy horror thrill ride.           

Chucky—Your favorite snarky, foul-mouthed “Good Guy” doll is one of the most ruthless and infamous killers, despite only being knee-high.

As a young kid, the manipulative, sinister plaything was the horror movie villain most disturbing to me (okay, maybe also into adulthood, as well), especially as Chucky’s presence revealed that even the most innocent, comforting toys you rely on to bring joy and companionship may be plotting to either kill you or use your body as a vessel to house their immoral soul. Not fun! 

But you know what would be considered loads of fun to a maniacal doll? A story about a creepy malevolent wooden puppet.

In The Toymaker, horror author Sergio Gomez writes his own take on the evil toy trope with a wicked and mischievous presence reminiscent of Slappy from the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine, but instead of being geared towards a younger audience, this one is certainly for adults. 

A lonely old man named Raymond Gibson is inspired by a ventriloquist act on TV to build his own dummy. Except, rather than simply becoming an entertaining companion, this dummy accidentally gets possessed by a cruel spirit. It’s up to five neighborhood kids to figure out how to stop the toy’s reign of terror.

Chucky would enjoy reading about the antics of the cursed puppet and witnessing the despair of those anxious for answers on how to defeat an evil, more powerful than your average, boring, serial murderer.   

Pennywise the Dancing Clown at first glance seems like your typical clown, with a white-painted face, a red nose, and an animated personality; it’s just that this clown…also eats children.

This entity isn’t above using his shapeshifting abilities and his powers to warp reality to horrify kids, making their deepest, darkest fears come to life; after all, kids are much tastier when terrified, according to Pennywise.

But the group of seven loners, who end up forming the Losers Club and are targeted by the terrifying clown are more formidable adversaries than Pennywise would care to admit.

Pennywise would most likely recommend a story that contains an irritatingly bothersome group of friends who try to prevent an ancient evil presence from taking over their community.

Author Dan Simmons’ coming-of-age horror book, Summer of Night, checks all the boxes. Set in the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, five 12-year-old friends are looking forward to a summer vacation filled with long restful days of doing whatever they want while making memories that will last into adulthood. 

But on the last day of school, one of their classmates vanish. And this is only the beginning of the strange and troubling occurrences that start to plague their town. Evil is lurking and it’s preparing to swallow them whole.

Together they must fight to prevent it from overtaking the entire town, much like the clash between Pennywise and the Losers Club. 

The relentless dread that permeates this unsettling narrative would surely make it one of Pennywise’s favorite tales. 

Don’t say his name five times in the mirror, and never suggest that he’s only an urban legend, because if you do, you’ll find yourself gutted by the sharp hook at the end of his sawed-off hand.

Inspired by author Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden,” a graduate student and her friend are working on a thesis on how the community of the local housing project Cabrini-Green Homes in Chicago claims that a spirit named Candyman is responsible for mutilations and a murder that has recently taken place.

The woman is fascinated by how this folklore has spread but ultimately believes it to be fake until Candyman pays her a visit and begins threatening her life.

While alive, Candyman was a deeply wronged man—an African American artist born in the late 1800s who was brutally tortured and murdered for having a relationship with a white woman. He now targets those who try to deny his presence after his life was stolen from him prematurely. 

Candyman’s transformation into a spiteful, violent monster is the direct result of the true horror of the film—racism and the targeted violence committed toward Black Americans throughout history.

The horror novel Jackal by author Erin E. Adams masterfully explores themes of race, particularly through the perspective of a Black woman named Liz Rocher, who is heading back to her predominantly white hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to attend her best friend’s wedding.

For her friend’s sake, she will put up with being around people who throw passive-aggressive microaggressions her way; needless to say, she can’t wait to leave as soon as it’s over.

But on the day of the wedding, the bride’s daughter goes missing, a situation eerily similar to what happened to Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school besides Liz, who walked into the woods with a man and was later found with her chest ripped open and her heart missing.

As she digs deeper into the history of her town, Liz will discover that this has not been a singular incident; in fact, Black young girls have been going missing in the woods for years. 

In an interview with the author, when asked what Adam’s inspiration was for writing this story, she states, “I started trying to make up my own folk tales and make up my own monster…what is terrifying about feeling and being in a hostile place—that’s also your home…How does that kind of hostile home feeling, feel unfortunately familiar as a Black woman in America? I grapple with the unfortunate fact that if something happens to me, like if I literally disappear, it will be treated differently than everybody else, and that in and of itself is horrifying. I wanted to write about that.”

Therefore, Candyman would find this social horror novel to be a thought-provoking, necessary spotlight on how the Black community is often mistreated and their trauma, minimized. 

“Do you like scary movies?” Ghostface does! And they’ll even allow their victims to become the stars of their very own slasher film. Unfortunately, that also means they’ll die horrifically traumatizing deaths, but for Ghostface, that makes it all the more fun! 

Celebrated for deconstructing the horror genre by combining dark humor and beloved cliches to create a witty plot that both makes fun of and pays homage to horror movie tropes, the Scream franchise introduced audiences to Ghostface—a vengeful serial killer who sets their eyes on Sidney Prescott, one of the most notable “Final Girls” in horror film history. 

If you’ve watched the first Scream movie, you know the shocking final reveal, so in honor of that brilliant plot twist, I think Ghostface would recommend two horror novels. The first one would be The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones, which is written in an experiential style to evoke the feeling of watching a slasher film and includes self-aware characters allowing for a meta-horror experience similar to Scream.

It centers around a homecoming princess who forms a new homecoming court full of “final girl” misfits after her former court was slaughtered by a Michael Jackson-masked killer, who is still out for more blood. Ghostface would appreciate the nods to popular horror films and the clever satire. 

The second recommendation Ghostface would provide would be I Was a Teenage Slasher, another Stephen Graham Jones novel set in 1989 in the small town of Lamesa, Texas, centered around a surprisingly sympathetic teenage slasher who’s writing a memoir about how he became a cold-blooded killer.

Tolly Driver was a kind, unassuming kid until he was driven to kill for revenge. A warped and twisted version of a coming-of-age novel, Ghostface would empathize with Tolly’s story and use his narrative as an excuse to prove—sometimes, killing is necessary.   

A lover of demented, gruesome games in which his victims must test their will to survive by inflicting pain on themselves and others to try to make it out alive, Jigsaw is the most calculated, inventive killer on this list.

Jigsaw finds immense satisfaction watching as individuals are forced to do things they thought they were once incapable of; for instance, sawing off one’s foot.

This voyeuristic maniac would get a massive kick out of the disconcerting plot of The Chain, which forces a mother to do the unthinkable to save her kidnapped daughter.

Rachel Klein believes it will be like any other ordinary day once she drops her daughter Kylie off at the bus stop; instead, she receives a phone call from a woman who explains that if she ever wants to see her child again, she will have to follow her instructions.

Not only will Rachel have to pay a ransom, but she will also have to put her morals to the test by finding another child to abduct. The caller is also a mother whose son was taken and is desperate to save him under any circumstances. Rachel has become a part of The Chain.

Jigsaw would find this harsh game ingenious and feel a little jealous that he didn’t think of the scheme himself and would happily force his victims to read this page-turning horror mystery thriller.