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Night Terrors
Recounting the many stories he has overheard throughout his years as a graveyard worker, Digger draws in his listeners with tales about ordinary teenagers who encounter vampires, witches, mummies, werewolves, and the grave digger himself. Reprint.
177 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
Jim Murphy
32 books87 followersAn American author of more than 35 nonfiction and fiction books for children, young adults, and general audiences, including more than 30 about American history. He won the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for his contribution in writing for teens. Jim lives in Maplewood, New Jersey, in a hundred-year-old house with his wife Alison Blank, a children’s TV producer and children’s book author and editor, his two talented musician sons, a regal mutt, an African water frog that will live forever, and a house vast collection of books..
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 22, 2024
2.5⭐
A short story collection interspersed with chapters that are narrated by an old cemetery keeper known as "Digger", as he travels around, works at various cemeteries, meeting peculiar characters that tell him strange stories that segue into each short story.
Each story is about a certain kind of monster - vampire, zombie, witch, etc.
And my problem with this book is that some of these stories are super generic and uninteresting. A prime example is the story that features the zombie in which a group of teenage boys visit a cemetery and think it's a good idea/joke to dig up one of the bodies.
What ensues, naturally, is the corpse coming back to life and forcing one of the teenagers to take his place inside the coffin. This was probably my least favorite.
There was one story in here I quite enjoyed, called: "The Cat's Eye"
It's the story that features a witch and it has probably the most unique plot of the stories in here and was quite creepy.
Overall this collection was just kind of okay. I think I enjoyed the brief chapters narrated by Digger more than some of the stories themselves.
A short story collection interspersed with chapters that are narrated by an old cemetery keeper known as "Digger", as he travels around, works at various cemeteries, meeting peculiar characters that tell him strange stories that segue into each short story.
Each story is about a certain kind of monster - vampire, zombie, witch, etc.
And my problem with this book is that some of these stories are super generic and uninteresting. A prime example is the story that features the zombie in which a group of teenage boys visit a cemetery and think it's a good idea/joke to dig up one of the bodies.
What ensues, naturally, is the corpse coming back to life and forcing one of the teenagers to take his place inside the coffin. This was probably my least favorite.
There was one story in here I quite enjoyed, called: "The Cat's Eye"
It's the story that features a witch and it has probably the most unique plot of the stories in here and was quite creepy.
Overall this collection was just kind of okay. I think I enjoyed the brief chapters narrated by Digger more than some of the stories themselves.
August 18, 2017
Some of the stories were dumb but some of them were good. My favorites were "Good night, Jon; sleep tight Jon" which is about graverobbing,"Like father like son" which is about mummies, and "The Cat's Eye" which features witches. They weren't exactly scary but they were interesting.
The setting and narrator reminded me a bit of the Tales from the Crypt tv show that I used to watch as a kid. It was a nice quick nostalgic read.
The setting and narrator reminded me a bit of the Tales from the Crypt tv show that I used to watch as a kid. It was a nice quick nostalgic read.
August 27, 2025
Jim Murphy’s “Night Terrors” was an anthology that interested me purely because of the snowy cover, of which I only found out halfway through reading the book was done by Tim Jacobus. The book itself doesn’t have the greatest of stories, even if all of them are at least good to me, but the wrap-around is purely worth checking out, following Digger—unsurprisingly a gravedigger—and his journey across states, job-to-job, through life and all as he tells you the stories you find here. It’s a fantastic wrap around story with a stellar ending to it. The whole book in itself has a unique cozy vibe with its horror. There’s at least some kind of levity to them all, whether it be the numbness and almost emotionally neutral “Something Always Happens,” or the persuasive nature of “Just Say Yes.” My ratings (and brief reviews) for the stories:
Just Say Yes - 8/10
This one starts off like a Girl Who Cried Monster esc story but evolves into a calm persuasion tale that was fun but lacked much to make me say it’s a banger.
Good Night, Jon; Sleep Tight, Jon - 9.5/10
Awesome ending, melancholic atmosphere, and a solid tale all-in-all. Wish this turned into the ending of the Deep Trouble GB Episode though, with a twist in villainous course.
Like Father, Like Son - 8/10
Mummy/egypt theming is always of warm welcomes, and this one was quite unique—but could’ve been shorter and less drawn-out.
The Cat’s Eye - 10/10
Easily the best story here. Backrooms-esc element of all things, amazing revelations, and a (again) calm but dark af ending. Also, cats. Noice.
Something Always Happens - 7/10
Annnnnd here’s the weakest one. Great ending, delightful ramblings, but lacks much apart from that. Really just waits around for the ball-drop. Great monologuing of all things.
Digger’s Wrap-Around / Footprints in the Snow - 10/10.
I am gonna be subtle but here, but this alone is worth checking the one out for. Diverted what I thought was gonna be a whatever Crypt Keeper esc idea for a life story with great payoff at the end. Love it.
Overall, 8.5/10. Jim Murphy is a great writer and he did a solid job with this anthology. Very nice cover as well.
Just Say Yes - 8/10
This one starts off like a Girl Who Cried Monster esc story but evolves into a calm persuasion tale that was fun but lacked much to make me say it’s a banger.
Good Night, Jon; Sleep Tight, Jon - 9.5/10
Awesome ending, melancholic atmosphere, and a solid tale all-in-all. Wish this turned into the ending of the Deep Trouble GB Episode though, with a twist in villainous course.
Like Father, Like Son - 8/10
Mummy/egypt theming is always of warm welcomes, and this one was quite unique—but could’ve been shorter and less drawn-out.
The Cat’s Eye - 10/10
Easily the best story here. Backrooms-esc element of all things, amazing revelations, and a (again) calm but dark af ending. Also, cats. Noice.
Something Always Happens - 7/10
Annnnnd here’s the weakest one. Great ending, delightful ramblings, but lacks much apart from that. Really just waits around for the ball-drop. Great monologuing of all things.
Digger’s Wrap-Around / Footprints in the Snow - 10/10.
I am gonna be subtle but here, but this alone is worth checking the one out for. Diverted what I thought was gonna be a whatever Crypt Keeper esc idea for a life story with great payoff at the end. Love it.
Overall, 8.5/10. Jim Murphy is a great writer and he did a solid job with this anthology. Very nice cover as well.
September 30, 2020
it was fine, it was a simple anthology of scary shorts. It was entertaining but not the best or worst I have read.
June 18, 2015
NIGHT TERRORS was very Are You Afraid of the Dark? to me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I’m sure sure it worked less when translated into words.
Digger is an old gravedigger who’s collected stories over the years, except the stories he tells are all rather modern despite the fact that his personal story starts during the Great Depression and, as far as I could tell, only one story (aside from his own current story) could be called recent. I don’t know if I’d use anachronistic so much as a lack of attention to detail. Or a lack of caring about detail. It didn’t directly affect the stories themselves but it made me go uh . . . because you end up with him telling stories from what was rightly the 50s through 70s and some of what happened in them was just too modern. I don’t know. From that perspective it didn’t work.
The stories themselves were okay. The one about vampires was not what I like to see in vampires (basically just humans who drink blood) and didn’t have a creepy ending at all. Actually it was fairly happy and just not a well-written vampire story in any regard. The one with the mummy was okay. Anything Egypt immediately gets my attention but I did like the way it was set-up with the son trying to one-up on his father only to have it backfire. That added an element of scare to the story. The one about being buried alive, always creepy. It’s kind of hard to mess those up because I think anyone who reads them immediately assumes getting buried alive is awful and terrifying so it really requires little work from the author to make a story like that scary. How scary it comes off and how much work the author leaves to the reader varies. The one with the time travel and witches was the most interesting, I think, and had the creepiest ending. Crazy cat lady indeed with that one. I think it was pulled off the best out of all of them.
What I wasn’t too thrilled with was Digger’s portion of the stories. Most of his interludes were just personal travel stories until it got closer to the end and the dogs come into play. Or wolves. Canines. They end up killing a woman he works for and thus starts his own transformation and enter the werewolf portion of the story. Again, not thrilled with the way werewolves were handled here, just all rather light and there’s nothing to the transformation itself and he can basically flit back and forth between werewolf and human. Sure, he kills some people but only as a wolf and with no repercussions so it’s really a non-issue. I didn’t like how the book wrapped up with that. It made the ending weak.
NIGHT TERRORS has a certain nostalgia about it. I could definitely see my younger self curling up with this book and reading it by the light of a pale lamp after dark but I’m not sure how much even that younger self would get out of these stories in terms of scare factor. Overall they’re rather weak and while they’re good scary story fodder that’s pretty much all they are.
2.5
Digger is an old gravedigger who’s collected stories over the years, except the stories he tells are all rather modern despite the fact that his personal story starts during the Great Depression and, as far as I could tell, only one story (aside from his own current story) could be called recent. I don’t know if I’d use anachronistic so much as a lack of attention to detail. Or a lack of caring about detail. It didn’t directly affect the stories themselves but it made me go uh . . . because you end up with him telling stories from what was rightly the 50s through 70s and some of what happened in them was just too modern. I don’t know. From that perspective it didn’t work.
The stories themselves were okay. The one about vampires was not what I like to see in vampires (basically just humans who drink blood) and didn’t have a creepy ending at all. Actually it was fairly happy and just not a well-written vampire story in any regard. The one with the mummy was okay. Anything Egypt immediately gets my attention but I did like the way it was set-up with the son trying to one-up on his father only to have it backfire. That added an element of scare to the story. The one about being buried alive, always creepy. It’s kind of hard to mess those up because I think anyone who reads them immediately assumes getting buried alive is awful and terrifying so it really requires little work from the author to make a story like that scary. How scary it comes off and how much work the author leaves to the reader varies. The one with the time travel and witches was the most interesting, I think, and had the creepiest ending. Crazy cat lady indeed with that one. I think it was pulled off the best out of all of them.
What I wasn’t too thrilled with was Digger’s portion of the stories. Most of his interludes were just personal travel stories until it got closer to the end and the dogs come into play. Or wolves. Canines. They end up killing a woman he works for and thus starts his own transformation and enter the werewolf portion of the story. Again, not thrilled with the way werewolves were handled here, just all rather light and there’s nothing to the transformation itself and he can basically flit back and forth between werewolf and human. Sure, he kills some people but only as a wolf and with no repercussions so it’s really a non-issue. I didn’t like how the book wrapped up with that. It made the ending weak.
NIGHT TERRORS has a certain nostalgia about it. I could definitely see my younger self curling up with this book and reading it by the light of a pale lamp after dark but I’m not sure how much even that younger self would get out of these stories in terms of scare factor. Overall they’re rather weak and while they’re good scary story fodder that’s pretty much all they are.
2.5
February 24, 2015
Read this one for a Horror book discussion meeting. A gravedigger shares some chilling tales he's heard in his graveyard wanderings. He alternates these with stories from his personal history, which gets spookier with each update. The ending was unexpected, but the stories themselves were only lightly spooky.
April 12, 2012
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