recommendations for newbies to horror

[Peronel]

A nice intro to horror would be any of King's short story collections.

I agree, and "Graveyard Shift" from his Night Shift collection is still the grossest and most unnerving story I've ever read.

PS If you're going to read Laymon, do so before you read any King because (IMHO), King taints everyone else by being so good. Take THAT all you King-haters (don't know if there are any out there, just getting in early)

 

[fluffy bunny]

Look to the classics, first:

• Dracula, Bram Stoker
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
• The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
• The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
• The Turn of the Screw, Henry James

And then try short story collections of other contemporary authors. No point wasting time on a lengthy novel if you don't like their style - at least with short fiction you can read one or two tales, see if you like them, and proceed from there.

I'd second this. The horror writers of america made a good list:
http://www.horror.org/readlist.htm

Like science fiction, some of the best works I've found in the horror genre are the short story collections.