It’s finally time for us to get into one of our favorite horror sub-genres, that’s right, survival horror! Grab a concealable weapon, water and a power bar because chances are we’re headed outdoors. Here are some of our favorite stories to give you chills and make you wonder if you can trust your friends.
“His fear was whetted to such a fine edge that he could actually feel it now: a disembodied ball of baby fingers inside his stomach, tickling him from the inside. That’s what mortal terror felt like, he realized. Tiny fingers tickling you from the inside.”
Nick Cutter, The Troop
Two young American couples on vacation in Mexico attempt to help out a fellow tourist look for his missing brother. The worst happens when they make it up to the uncharted ruins where the brother was doing an archeological dig.
“Todd Curry wants nothing more than to spend Christmas with his son, but his flight gets cancelled when a brutal snow storm blows through Chicago. So together with a group of fellow travellers, Todd decides to rent a Jeep and drive through the storm to get to his son. During the drive, they pick up a man wandering through the snow, who claims to be searching for his lost daughter. He is disoriented and something about him makes Todd and the other travellers uneasy. Eventually they pass through a nearby town, but it’s completely deserted. Fill with abandoned cars and unattended fires, something has gone horribly wrong. Todd and the rest of the travelers start to get a horrible feeling that something terrible is coming for them…”
Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
A Japanese high school class is on a field trip, but when there’s sleeping gas released on the bus, the student wake up on a remote island. They have been provided with weapons and forced to kill each other until one person is left standing.
Four old university friends go on a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. Injured and tired, they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. A place of dark ritual has awoken something and now these four friends must struggle to survive the forest.
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
(First in the Area X Series)
“Area X is a part of the Southern United States that has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades since nature reclaimed it. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. Now there’s a twelfth expedition with four women: an anthropologist, a psychologist, a surveyor and our narrator the biologist. They are tasked with recording observations of the terrain without being affected/ infected by the area itself. They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.”
Every year, scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for
a three-day camping trip. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite, Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. This man is shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry… a human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. In order to survive, the troop must fight against the elements, the infected…and one another.
Creepy Things We Are Loving at the Moment:
Rachel discovered the unnerving movie Creep. It should be available on Netflix. Stephanie sang the praises of the fourth season of anthology series Black Mirror. What are some creepy things you are loving at the moment?
WHERE TO FIND US
Email: booksinthefreezer@gmail.com
Consider Supporting the Podcast on Patreon
Stephanie – Twitter, Instagram, Youtube
Rachel – Twitter, Instagram, Youtube
Books in the Freezer 
One thought