Horowitz Horror

Horrowitz Horror Shorts

by Anthony Horowitz

Welcome to a world where everything seems normal. At least, at first. But the sinister and truly terrifying lurk just beneath the surface. Like a bathtub with a history so haunted, no one dares get in it. . . or an ordinary-looking camera that does unspeakable things to its subjects. . .or a mysterious computer game that has terrible consequences if you lose. . . .

From the creator of the blockbuster Alex Rider Adventures and The Diamond Brothers Mysteries, Horowitz Horror is a wicked collection of macabre tales sure to send shivers up your spine.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Young Adult, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Childrens

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Anthony Horowitz, OBE is ranked alongside Enid Blyton and Mark A. Cooper as "The most original and best spy-kids authors of the century." (New York Times). Anthony has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he is also the writer and creator of award winning detective series Foyle’s War, and more recently event drama Collision, among his other television works he has written episodes for Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. Anthony became patron to East Anglia Children’s Hospices in 2009.

On 19 January 2011, the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle announced that Horowitz was to be the writer of a new Sherlock Holmes novel, the first such effort to receive an official endorsement from them and to be entitled the House of Silk.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/anthon...

Reviews

[Coos Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un recién llegado a mi biblioteca más cercana. Creo que si lo hubiera leído de más peque, me hubiera obsesionado. Una antología con relatos cortos pero contundentes. Finales un poco predecibles, pero muy apropiados al fin.

[Supratim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall rating is 3.5! The extra .5 for two specific stories which we shall see shortly. :)

The collection has 17 stories and as seen in anthologies of this sort - the stories are of varying quality. Some of them are very common - what I mean to say is that I have seen similar stories in other anthologies or TV serials.

All the stories do not revolve around the supernatural - a few of them are scary crime stories and one was mixture of crime and the supernatural. In fact I personally liked two stories had elements of crime in them. One was story was The Lift - a police officer on the verge of retirement is tasked with solving the mysterious disappearance of a child from a crowded lift (elevator). He would realize the terrible crime which had occurred towards the end of the story, but had no way of proving it. The other story - Twist Cottage has elements of crime and the supernatural. Both the stories have the potential for sequels probably in the form of full-length novels.

Overall a decent read. The language is easy to read (the book was primarily meant for kids) and the book can be finished in one go if you can spare a couple of hours. The twists were good in some of the stories. This book is not for you if you are into hard core horror, but people with an appetite for medium horror can give this book a try.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read countless short story collections but this collection and its sequel are ones I favour the most. This is because of two reasons;

When I was like 6 or 7, I used to pop around our local library and borrow the smaller collections of these stories - the thin little books with two or three stories in each volume. I've loved them ever since and have since, bought a copy for myself.

Second reason? These stories at the same time, were coldly-humoured, chilling and sort of freaky in a way and simply great quick reads.

There are 9 stories in this first volume -

Bath Night - 5/5
This story revolves around a haunted bath bought in an antique store. Where Anthony Horowitz gets these odd ideas, I don't know.
I found this story rather eerie - well plotted, surprise ending - overall, a good story and probably the scariest in the collection.

Killer Camera - 4/5
What if a certain camera has been imbued with dark magic and anything the camera photographs gets destroyed. And what if someone just took a picture of... Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you.
This story is one of my favourites; its intriguing, well plotted but the only reason I didn't give this five stars is because the premise of an evil camera isn't original enough and has been done countless times - from Goosebumps to Are You Afraid of the Dark?. But I will tell you one thing - be sure to expect a chilling ending.

Light Moves - 4/5
A computer taken from a deceased horse-racing journalist has the power to predict horse-racing winners and even - the future.
I must admit I was fascinated by the premise of this - and it didn't disappoint me. Much recommended.

The Night Bus - 5/5
Even as a child, this has always been my clear favourite - this story follows two brothers who board a sinister night bus who has no intentions in taking them home.
What can I say? Great plot, great writing and great ending.

Harriet's Horrible Dream - 3/5
A girl has a gruesome little dream - but its only a dream, right?
The build up to the climax was well plotted, I must admit but the ending was disappointing and much expected. Good, nevertheless.

Scared - 3/5
A boy who defaces Mother Nature gets his comeuppance when he finds he is lost in the middle of the countryside.
The story built up well and the ending is sure to shock.

A Career In Computer Games - 5/5
I've always loved computers - and a good horror story at that too. Join the two together, and you get one of my favourite titles from this book - 'A Career In Computer Games'.
The story follows a boy who loves computer games and finds the perfect job for him - he gets to play computer games all day! Little does he know that sometimes that isn't a good thing.
Great story, easy to understand - but my only complaint would be about the fact that it sort of resembles the TV episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark, 'The Tale of the Pinball Wizard', who meets the same fate as the protagonist in this story. Nevertheless, it is written well enough to deserve the five stars.

The Man With The Yellow Face - 3/5
A boy gets a picture taken in a photo booth while waiting for a train. When he recieves these photos, he finds a sinister photo of a yellow faced man in the middle of his photos. What could this possibly mean?
Creepy? YES. Well plotted? YES. Predictable? Unfortunately, YES. A good story, but the fact that I practically guessed the whole story within the first few pages ruined it.

The Monkey's Ear - 4/5
In a slight twist of W.W. Jacob's 'The Monkey's Paw', a boy obtains a monkey's ear on his holiday. Its supposed to be able to grant 3 wishes - but the thing is, the ear is partially deaf - or is it?
Great story, great ending - top notch last story.

How does the markings go?
1/5 - 0
2/5 - 0
3/5 - 3 - 9/45
4/5 - 3 - 12/45
5/5 - 3 - 15/45
-------------------
TOTAL 9 - 35/45

Well that settles it, there are 3 mediocre stories, 3 good stories and 3 excellent stories to look forward to. An excellent collection to add to your bookshelf - it gets a combined score of 36/45 which is a rating of about 4/5.

Thanks for reading!,
Marco.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

9 absolutely stunning horror stories at the very best. Normally you always skip some stories in an anthology but not here. I really enjoyed every single story: the haunted bathtub, the eerie nightbus, the camera with a built in special effect, Light moves... every story hits the point and has some great twist. The author really knows how to write a compelling story with a nasty twist. Just killers, no fillers. Must read!

[Arun Divakar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first horror story I remember reading was Dracula in its English version but truth be told I couldn’t make any sense out of it. Imagine for a moment a ten or eleven year old kid who has not had any exposure to reading other than Enid Blyton and Hardy Boys trying his hand at an unabridged version of Dracula. The conclusion can quite obviously be drawn that the book almost put me to sleep in the first try. It was quite a while later that I read a Malayalam translation of the work which did appear watered down a bit but did not lose even a bit of its brooding and terrifying aura.

This is quite a nasty habit of mine that totally unrelated images from the past pop up as I sit down to write and stitching them into the review is something I love doing. This one however made a weird sort of sense now that I think about it. A short story collection such as this if discovered during my childhood days might have brought me much closer to horror as a genre. Horowitz successfully puts together a collection of shorts aimed at a young audience who might just be getting their introduction into the space of the horror short story.

There are a few themes in this book which interestingly recur across multiple tales. The first is the use of common place items as objects of dread. A safe and serene household undergoes brutal transformations under the spell of such items. They might seem harmless enough – a camera, a computer, a bath tub and so on but the havoc they wreak in the lives of people is rather unimaginable. The second recurring theme is of karma catching up with boys and a lady (that again was an amusing part, all the bullies and baddies are young men and in one odd tale a cantankerous and caustic woman) who have been particularly nasty in their lives through the most supernatural ways possible. While they seem to relish in their ways of being rude and overall bullies, karma does repay them in kind in these tales. The way these stories are written, I did feel that the author does seem to enjoy meting out these retributions on them. The third and last theme I observed was of innocent bystanders getting caught in the backdraft of circumstances and forces that are inexplicable. Here again the bewilderment and helplessness of the people involved are captured well by the author in sometimes horrifying and in a couple of stories, darkly comical tones.

If you are a younger reader starting off on horror, this would be a good point to start. If you are an adult, then sit back and enjoy a quick ride through stories that might have given you a chill if you read this as a kid. Recommended !

[Sue Gerhardt Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

SpookTober read 2024 - #3

Nine stellar short horror stories.



Listened to the audiobook via BorrowBox
Published by Bolinda audio
Read by Simon Shepherd
Duration: 4 hrs, 26 min. 1.25x Speed

[Khindra · Rating 3 out of 5]

II traînait dans ma Pal depuis un certain temps... Les histoires sont originales mais ca reste un livre pour le collège

[Hafsa Sabira · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I say that I like horror stories, I mean stories that scare me to the bones for their ominous effect altogether, not stories with horrific activities of a serial killer or a mentally disturbed person.

So far I have realized that short horror stories create the greatest impact on me and even after a long time, when someone asks me to tell a story, I end up remembering a few of those stories which haunted me in the middle of the night. As for this book, this has every single element I look for in horror stories. It's a collection of Horowitz's horror stories and I felt like each story is scarier than the other. The best part about these stories is their beginning and ending lines. I have always felt that it takes a huge potential to choose the right sentences to begin and end a story. Just this simple credibility can turn the writing into a masterpiece and Horowitz has indeed mastered this art long ago.

This is undoubtedly one of my most favourite horror story collection and I must say, I am feeling like giving it more than 5 stars.

[Angélica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha gustado, me ha recordado mucho a la series que veía de niña “Le temes a la oscuridad” y “Escalofríos”. Si están hechos para niños sin embargo el autor no teme en hacerlos muy oscuros y terroríficos.

Mi favorito es el primero, creo que abre muy bien con ese primer cuento “La cámara asesina” además que tiene un final que me encantó.

En general disfrute todos, mis favoritos aparte del primero que fue el último sobre la bañera maldita, el camión nocturno esta buenísimo para halloween.

Hay muchos que en los que los protagonistas son niños malcriados recibiendo su merecido pero hay otros en que los protagonistas no son así y aún si les va como en feria.

Me han gustado, se leen rápido, se disfrutan y ideales para estas épocas de Halloween y Día de muertos.

[Rocio Pritchett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read these stories to my students before Halloween. We turned off the lights and I read the part of a story, with voices, per day. Although they didn't mention liking them at the time, they talked about it for a month afterward. "Do you remember that voice you did for that creepy guy in that story? We had a sub who sounded Just like that, and I was creeped out all hour long!" Mission accomplished.

[Dany Hdz · Rating 5 out of 5]

El libro está muy divertido. Todos los cuentos te transmiten cierto terror, es casi como si te imaginaras a ti mismo como el personaje del cuento. Mis cuentos favoritos fueron: El hombre de la cara amarilla, El horrible sueño de Harriet y Hora de bañarse. :)

[Mumis Depp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente libro, uno de mis libros favoritos, las historias son cortitas pero muy buenas.

[Lauren Crofts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago and it was such a nostalgic read, I really enjoyed it. Some of the stories were actually a little spooky and rather silly in the best way, each one just as entertaining as the last.

[AngeloBackFlip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shoutout à madame larcher qui nous avait fait lire ça en 4e, je m’étais chié dessus à l’époque, et rien a changé la première histoire fait trop peur.
Parfois l’auteur écrit des trucs un peu inutiles mais bon pourquoi pas, c’est juste un peu lourd et ça n’ajoute rien à la compréhension de l’histoire.
Mon histoire préférée est toujours la sixième, qui s’appelle humblement « Peur ».

[Overbooked ✎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice YA collection, although the book publication date is shown in the use of old technologies.

[15HarrisonT · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very engaging and the story’s were good but i felt as if some of the story’s were a bit weird and weren’t very horror related

[Valeria Cardoso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disfruté muchísimo este libro. Cuantos de terror para niños, bien estructurados y con la extensión justa. Súper recomendados, seguro los habría adorado de niña.

[Klara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit, I judged this book by its cover. I am a fan of Anthony Horowitz, but I didn't pay attention to the book's author or description; the word "HORROR" boldly emblazoned on the spine and the bloody handprint dominating the cover were all it took for me to conclude I'd like the book. In this case, my first impression was fairly accurate: the book is a collection of horror stories, albeit none too horrible since the target audience is a younger once. Given that demographic, the stories' impact varies with readers' age and exposure to the genre. Whereas small children will likely find characters' invariably unpleasant fates truly frightening, older readers will likely be less moved, depending on how many horror stories they've encountered before. Longtime horror fans of any age might find it hard to shiver at all because the book draws heavily from classic scenarios that will likely seem familiar and predictable. The collection is still worth a look for the aforementioned longtime fans, though, because author Anthony Horowitz puts a distinctive spin on the older plotlines he employs. The "possessed item drives new owner mad" formula comes in the surprising form of a bathtub, for example, while the traditional "monkey's body part grants wish at terrible price" tale gets fresh humor. This means that while veteran horror fans might easily guess a story's ending, the ride there is still entertaining. The shock factor might not be there for older readers and longtime fans, moreover, but the collection can successfully foster a more prolonged sense of dread for savvy readers as they anticipate the a character's bitter end. In light of this, though younger fans will likely be the most enthusiastic about "Horowitz Horror," older fans can enjoy it as well.

[Geert Daelemans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nine ltittle gems

Horowitz Horror was first published in 1999 and contains nine short stories where the protagonist is predominantly a younger person, as such is seems to be written for a preadult audience.

The nine stories:
-When it's Bath Night Isabel has to deal with a rather hostile, old Victorian bath.
-Do not by that Killer Camera, because is has a certain influence on the subjects it photographs.
-The future is no secret anymore in Light Moves, but Ethan Sly should get worried when other people notice his good luck.
-You never know where The Night Bus will stop.
-Luckily Harriet's Horrible Dream is only a dream, not?
-A school bully gets Scared while walking through the countryside.
-How doesn't want A Career in Computer Games, but be aware it might be a job for life.
-The Man with the Yellow Face haunts a sinister photo booth, but is he maybe trying to tell you something?
-The Monkey's Ear is pure rubbish, it can't even get its spells right.

When Anthony Horowitz enters the world of creepy short stories, be warned that he will behave himself like a child in a candy store. It becomes very clear that his prefered habitat is the world of mystery and the supernatural, but the humour is never really far away. The nine easily digestible stories collected in this book are each little gems of guilty pleasure. It's not surprising that the stinger always comes at the end, because if Horowitz knows one thing, it's certainly the technique to plot a good suspense story. The mix of stories is so diverse that it is quite impossible to select your favourite. But rest assured, you will chuckle more than once. A must read for those horror buffs that are still young at heart.

[Megan Wintrip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains 17 scary stories which are very creepy and twisted. I love books like this and I highly recommend it.

From a ghost in a computer which predicts things, to a bone idol boy who gets trapped in an video game and a demon in a camera.. these unusual stories will get you thinking and make you think twice about things. I particularly liked the short story at the end!

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories in the book, they were well written and all based in parts of the UK which is really nice as the other stories I have read in different books were in the US.

If you like spooky stories you may like this.. so get your creep on and read it.

[Bri Little · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is actually more of a 4-4.5 stars in terms of quality of writing and creepiness of the stories, but there was a LOT of racism in here, even for 2006. Yikes. So can’t give it more than 3 stars.
I will be reading the next one though.

[Fatemeh · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Febe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this book as a kid. As an adult it doesn’t hit quite the same, but the stories still make an impression/ are entertaining to read.

[Cameron Trost · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not always easy for an adult to give a YA book a fair review. The writing in these stories is simple and the theme of conflict between children and parents is perhaps over-exploited, but Anthony Horowitz achieves his objective. These are stories children can relate to. They take everyday situations, like playing computer games or going to a flea market, and put a nasty spin on them. Judging the book for what it is, a collection of nasty and creepy stories for young people, it deserves four stars.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horowitz, it's been long.... too long! I had almost forgotten how I appreciate his style. From these 9 gems in this collection, the first - "Bath Night", might be the scariest and is still my favourite; The last - "The Monkey's Ear", without doubt the funniest! Such a fun read!

[Bastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Top de cuentos y sus calificaciones 👻

Hora de bañarse 5 ⭐
El horrible sueño de Harriet 4,5 ⭐
La cámara asesina 4,5 ⭐
La ruta nocturna 4 ⭐
Relámpago 3,75 ⭐
Espanto 3,5 ⭐
El hombre de la cara amarilla 3,5⭐
Una carrera en juegos de computadora 3,25 ⭐

[Mia Phillips (currently in a book slump) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great variety of short horror stories by Anthony Horowitz, even though it’s been a long time since I’ve read this book it still randomly pops in my mind and makes me think about it.
Definitely recommend giving this a read if you enjoy chilling tales.

[Mells]

If I was thirteen, I'd be all over it. The stories are short and simple, they flow really nicely, and most of them have cute twists at the end.

The real horror were all the people in the UK using US dollars as currency, though.

[Luis Paredes Martínez · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
La verdad me gustaron bastante los cuentos, quizá siento que tenía más expectatvias de las necesarias porque me gustó mucho La granja Groosham. Aun así, está genial encontrar mucho de ese humor tan ácido en estos cuentos.