It’s a most delicious challenge that Carl hosts annually. The R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge.

And since I’m already B.I.P., it only makes sense that I’d join in with the R.I.P.ness, right?

So that’s the plan. I’m eyeing Peril the First (4 books), Short Story Peril, and Peril on the Screen.

Book-wise, I’m considering some Daphne du Maurier fiction, beginning with her collection The Birds.

I haven’t read much of her work (only Rebecca and Frenchman’s Creek) but I have the idea that she’s delightfully creepy. Besides her short stories, I’m considering Flight of the Falcon and House on the Strand. Creepy enough?

And I also want to finally read Dracula, so I’ve gathered up an annotated edition that looks irresistible.
(But I also have a commuter-friendly pocketbook at hand as well.)

As for short stories, I’ve got gaps where my Poe and LeFanu and M.R. James reading should be.

And Mr. B.I.P. and I always watch 13 scary films (at least) in October, so that won’t be challenging exactly, but it will definitely be fun!

We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
H.P. Lovecraft

Completed October 31, 2010

Peril the First (Books)
Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds (1952)
Daphne du Maurier’s Flight of the Falcon (1965)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)
Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer (1996)
Giles Blunt’s Blackfly Season (2005)
Giles Blunt’s By the Time You Read This (2006)
Giles Blunt’s Crime Machine (2010)
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead (2005-2010)
Kidlit
Virginia Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear (1968)
Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Running out of Time (1995)

Short Story Peril
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842)
Edgar Allan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” (1839)
M.R. James’ short story “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (1904)
Edith Wharton’s Miss Mary Pask (1925)

Peril on the Screen
.Le Manoir Du Diable (1896) (Apparitions, Trickery) (This is 3 minutes long: you can watch it online!)
.Another Man’s Poison (1951) (Murder, Sinister close-ups, Dark country roads)
.House of Wax (1953) (Mortality, Disappearance, Mystery, Masks)
.The Crazies (1973) (Slow-moving zombies, Disease caused by science-gone-wrong and government-gone-bad)
.Poltergeist (1982) (Hauntings, Suburbia gone wrong, Dangers of television)
.Dracula (1992) (Blood, Erotic, Castle, Transformation)
.Dawn of the Dead (2004) (Fast-moving zombies, Seriously scary, Consumerism-gone-wrong)
.Shaun of the Dead (2004) (Fun-moving zombies, Seriously hilarious, Pub-crawls-gone-wrong)
.The Crazies (2007) (Survival, Disease caused by powerful body that remains appropriately vague to avoid lawsuits)
.Trick r Treat (2007) Four interconnected stories of Hallowe’en festivities, some deliciously unpredictable)
.Martyrs (2008) (Obsession, Blood, Abuse, Torture, Devotion)
.Repo: The Genetic Opera (2008) (Bodily cavities, Bizarrely beautiful).Drag Me to Hell (2009) (Curses, Dark spirits)
.Shutter Island (2010) (Madness, Isolation, Haunting, Deception, Death)