This article is a listicle from Collider in which the author picks ten horror novels whose opening ten pages immediately signalled they would become masterpieces. It spans decades and styles, from recent bestsellers to classic literary works, arguing that a strong hook is especially vital in horror, a genre built on grabbing readers with excitement or dread and refusing to let go.

Featured titles include Josh Malerman's "Bird Box" (2014), whose opening establishes a mother fleeing shelter with her children amid a mysterious phenomenon that drives people to suicide; Nick Cutter's "The Troop" (2014), a body-horror tale of Boy Scouts battling mutated parasites on a remote island; and Henry James's gothic novella "The Turn of the Screw", about a governess encountering strange events while caring for two orphans. The article text provided is incomplete and covers only these three of the ten entries in full detail.