Outdoor Horror as an Indoor Person
Summer is here, and Mother Nature calls us to be outdoors, breathing in her sweet air, lounging beneath the canopy of her foliage, and soaking up the glorious sun's rays. But Mother Nature can sometimes feel hostile to the few of us who prefer air conditioning over humidity and sunburn. It’s not that we don’t love a scenic mountain hike or camping trip. It’s that we "indoor-folk" know our strengths, and battling swarms of mosquitoes is definitely not one of them. As for me, you won't catch me looking to survive the great outdoors without Wi-Fi and an iced coffee. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep…” with my couch, a good book, and a glass of wine. The alternative would be those "lovely" woods literally eating me alive!
Alright, so I'm being a bit dramatic. But my anxiety about the outdoors is one of many reasons why nature serving as the backdrop in horror fiction is so effective. The wilderness in scary stories offers themes of isolation, survival, the unknown, human intrusion, untamed domains, lawlessness, and a vulnerability brought on when one is outside the comfy confines of civilization. Sure, it's the perfect dwelling place for the folkloric monsters we conjure — shapeshifting spirits, ancient demons, cryptid creatures, devious trolls — but Mother Nature herself can often be the "monster" man fears most because man can never truly control her. We are at her mercy. That's a great horror story (...or a "good for her" happily-ever-after depending on your perspective).
So here are a few survival horror books set in the vast wilds of mountains, islands, forests, and jungles. Bring them along on your summer camping trip if you’re brave enough. But don’t be surprised if such books trigger that voice in your head that whispers: “You should have stayed home.”
8 Wilderness Horror Book Recs
THIS WRETCHED VALLEY by Jenny Kiefer starts with a group of rock climbers discovering an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness. They hope to be the first to climb it and share their success on social media. But later, three of them are found dead and the fourth in the group is missing, leaving many to speculate whether foul play was involved or perhaps something more supernaturally sinister.
THE EXTRA by Annie Neugebauer is a super fun and unnerving novella about ten people who go hiking in the woods, but it's noticed that eleven people set up camp. No matter how many heads are counted, there is an extra among them. But everyone knows everyone else. So who is this mysterious extra?
THE TROOP by Nick Cutter is one of those books I’ll never stop recommending even though it is the most traumatic thing I’ve ever read! It follows a group of boy scouts and their scoutmaster as they learn they’ve been exposed to a terrifying bioengineered threat and are trapped on the island they’ve been camping on. Told from multiple character perspectives, articles, and log entries from scientific experiments, readers will be thrown into an unpleasant, dark fight for survival similar to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Eli Roth’s horror film Cabin Fever. An excellent book that tackles the turbulent road of male adolescence as well as the well-intentioned but consequential effects of scientific progression. This book still haunts me.
THE LAWS OF THE SKIES by Grégoire Courtois is about a group of school children on a camping field trip with their teachers. Everyone dies (not a spoiler), you are simply witness to the horror. This very quick, very horrifying story is about how life sometimes truly is brutal, and the wilderness can be a harsh, hostile place. This one is messed up, y’all!
THE NIGHT WILL FIND US by Matthew Lyons also centers a camping trip gone wrong when six teenagers are hoping to enjoy the start of summer in the wilderness. After an argument, something ghastly happens, and the teenagers find themselves unable to leave the million-acre forest because something ancient won’t let them go.
THE ROOT WITCH by Debra Castaneda is about two people — a forest ranger and a TV producer — whose lives converge on Halloween after reports of disappearances in the woods and the sighting of a legend called the Root Witch lead to a mystery! Yay haunted forests!!!!
THE RUINS by Scott Smith follows two American couples vacationing in Cancun, Mexico, when they are roped into helping another tourist find his missing brother in the jungle. Using nothing for navigation but a hand-drawn map, the large group sets out on the search when they happen upon ruins in the jungle and a hidden path that leads to danger in the form of carnivorous plants.
THE RITUAL by Adam Nevill features four former university friends who get lost in the Scandinavian wilderness while on a hiking trip. Hungry and irate, the hikers are forced to rely on little knowledge of their wilderness survival skills, and the stakes rise when they come across pagan ruins and fresh corpses!
Wander Deeper into Wilderness Horror
Need more wilderness horror to binge this summer? Here are some honorable mentions in both fiction and film:
Wilderness Horror in Fiction
Wilderness Horror in Film
—Christina James is a Readers' Services Assistant at Lawrence Public Library.
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