Top 20 Horror Novels of the 2000s

Haunted houses, cursed small towns and ancient things under the ice: the decade's scariest fiction ranged from bestseller shelves to small-press cult reads.

1. 1
   The Terror

   Dan Simmons's 2007 reimagining of the lost Franklin Expedition, stalked across the Arctic ice by something monstrous.
   1000pts
2. 2
   House of Leaves

   Mark Z. Danielewski's 2000 labyrinthine debut about a house that is bigger on the inside, told through footnotes and warped typography.
   915pts
3. 3
   Heart-Shaped Box

   Joe Hill's 2007 debut novel about an aging rock star who buys a dead man's suit and gets his ghost with it.
   689pts
4. 4
   The Ruins

   Scott Smith's 2006 survival nightmare about tourists trapped on a Mexican hill with a predatory vine.
   689pts
5. 5
   Cell

   Stephen King's 2006 apocalypse in which a signal through mobile phones turns users into a violent mob.
   611pts
6. 6
   Dreamcatcher

   Stephen King's 2001 story of four friends on a hunting trip caught up in an alien invasion.
   517pts
7. 7
   The Historian

   Elizabeth Kostova's 2005 bestseller tracing the real Dracula across Cold War-era Europe through archives and letters.
   517pts
8. 8
   World War Z

   Max Brooks's 2006 oral history of a global zombie war, told through survivors' interviews.
   517pts
9. 9
   Black House

   Stephen King and Peter Straub's 2001 sequel to The Talisman, hunting a child killer in small-town Wisconsin.
   517pts
10. 10
    Drood

    Dan Simmons's 2009 novel narrated by Wilkie Collins, obsessed with Charles Dickens and a phantom called Drood.
    517pts
11. 11
    The Strain

    Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's 2009 thriller about a viral vampire plague arriving at JFK airport.
    402pts
12. 12
    Haunted

    Chuck Palahniuk's 2005 novel-in-stories about writers locked in a theater, including the infamous story Guts.
    402pts
13. 13
    The Good House

    Tananarive Due's 2003 novel about a family curse rooted in a Pacific Northwest home and its voodoo past.
    402pts
14. 14
    From a Buick 8

    Stephen King's 2002 tale of Pennsylvania state troopers guarding a car that is not a car.
    0pts
15. 15
    Handling the Undead

    Lindqvist's 2005 follow-up in which Stockholm's recently dead wake up and come home.
    0pts
16. 16
    Duma Key

    Stephen King's 2008 Stoker winner about an injured contractor whose Florida paintings start changing reality.
    0pts
17. 17
    Coraline

    Neil Gaiman's 2002 novella about a girl who finds a button-eyed Other Mother behind a bricked-up door.
    0pts
18. 18
    The Little Stranger

    Sarah Waters's 2009 slow-burn haunting of a crumbling Warwickshire manor in postwar Britain.
    0pts
19. 19
    Let the Right One In

    John Ajvide Lindqvist's 2004 Swedish novel about a bullied boy and the ageless vampire who moves in next door.
    0pts
20. 20
    Lisey's Story

    Stephen King's 2006 Bram Stoker Award winner about a novelist's widow confronting the dark world he escaped into.
    0pts

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