“House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski is the strangest, artsiest, most convoluted and most irritatingly pseudo-intellectual horror novel I have ever read. It is also the scariest. I don't know how Danielewski pulled that off, considering that his massive avant-garde horror epic has so many pretentious qualities, from its hundreds of footnotes to its secret codes to its story-within-a-story plot structure. But it's true. The book is just permeated with raw fear. I read it, was irritated by it, kept reading it, and was in awe of it.

House of Leaves will probably never be made into a mainstream Hollywood horror movie, but it does still have a place in the history of horror cinema. First, because it's all about a fictional documentary film called the Navidson Record, which tracks the investigation and exploration of a house that is vastly, vastly larger on the inside than the outside. Second, because fans have put a lot of effort into making homemade versions of the Navidson Record and putting them up on Youtube.

I'm not saying these fan movies are all that great, but it is pretty fun when you think about it. It's like the film-making equivalent of folk song, with different permutations and interpretations spreading as fast as new would-be film-makers read the book and get inspired. I'm not sure it would be a good idea for Hollywood to ever make a movie out of this unique and terrifying book, but who knows? If they did it right (however unlikely) it would really be something.