Creators in the genre are always trying to get to the top of the worst villain, scariest monster, or most creative kill lists in the viewers’ eyes. I’m sure there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing the first preteen dress up in the costume of your deranged character. How an author names their terror matters. It’s no surprise, then, that horror titles tend to fall into similar patterns much the same way titles in other genres do too. There are whole lists devoted to similar sounding titles for that very reason. How many courts of something and something fill the fantasy genre? How many women and girls grace the title pages of thrillers, looking out windows and riding on trains? What sticks sticks; there’s no helping that. In horror and thrillers, you also have what I’m calling the blank men of horror. Candyman, The Bloody Man, The Crooked Man, and those are just movies! The literature side of the horror community has even more blank men. While there are many blank men in horror novels, there weren’t many women or people of color writing them. So, to give you a bit of variety and maybe even something you haven’t been recommended 100 times before, like another H.G. Wells or Stephen King novel, I added a few thrillers to round it out. I think the ones included have just as good scares and scary villains you so adore in your horror. So, without further ado, here are eight blank men in horror and thrillers, but there are many, many more! In the mood for more scares? Check out these found footage horror novels or these bone-chilling horror thrillers!
