5 Sinister Boarding Schools to Give You the Back-to-School Creeps

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
This The Death House read-alike is a given on this list. It has a similar emphasis on character over plot, with genre elements taking a back seat to character relationships. Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel follows Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy through their years at Halisham, an odd school that seems to focus on artwork and inter-student relationships over the usual curriculum, with all their work displayed in a gallery run by the “Madame.” It soon becomes clear that something else is going on, something that has far-reaching implications for every student at Halisham. While the reveal has been spoiled by everything from the reviews, to the cover copy, to trailers for the film adaptation (the Library of Congress Catalog System spoiled it for me), its creeping charms are best discovered rather than openly stated.

Down a Dark Hall, by Lois Duncan
Lois Duncan’s gothic horror tale takes place at a prestigious boarding school with only four students. Kit Gordy is a young woman left at Blackwood Hall while her parents head off on an extended trip to Europe. While the staff is intelligent, the buildings are gorgeous, and the food is gourmet, the headmistress seems to have dark plans for her small student body. Kit and her friends must find a way to escape before the faculty puts their bodies to use as vessels for long-dead artists, musicians, and other famous luminaries. There’s a certain ludicrous touch to the proceedings, but Duncan manages to create a creepy atmosphere that beautifully overrides the fridge logic.

Shadowland, by Peter Straub
As a lot of “magic school” books could fit on this list, I decided to go with one that isn’t as well-known today. While it starts with a creepy power outage at a prep school and a dread-inducing magic show, the real sinister school is the titular Shadowland, a New England estate where Tom Flanagan and his friend Del Nightingale study magic with Nightingale’s eccentric uncle, Coleman Collins. It’s clear from the start that there isn’t a single natural scientific law that holds weight at Shadowland, but as the story proceeds, it’s also evident Coleman has plans for the boys that go far beyond teaching them magic. The dreamlike prose and bizarre plot twists at times evoke David Lynch.

The Wizard Heir, by Cinda Williams Chima
The followup to The Warrior Heir features a walking disaster of a wizard named Seph McCauley, sent to a boarding school in Maine called The Havens to manage his powers. Unfortunately for Seph, The Havens wants to bind his soul in its service, and will torment and kill anyone who would stand against it. Or anyone non-magical student unwittingly sent there to study. The world of the Heir Chronicles is a little frightening anyway, but the Wizards cement themselves as the nastiest members of the underground magical community through their sheer ruthlessness and willingness to exploit whoever happens to be at hand, come what may.

The Moth Diaries, by Rachel Klein
This one only begins at an isolated boarding school. As the unnamed narrator records intimate thoughts about her creepy school and her best friend Lucy, it quickly becomes clear she’s emotionally disturbed. Things get worse when a new student, Ernessa, enters the picture, a mysterious and dark-eyed girl who the narrator thinks might be a vampire. A series of odd accidents occur, pushing the narrator deeper and deeper into insanity, and as Ernessa seems to exercise supernatural control over Lucy, the story becomes more warped and disturbing. This isn’t a book for the faint of heart, especially given some graphic imagery and a recurring suicide motif, but it will satisfy anyone lusting for a frightening novel of psychological horror featuring throwbacks to the Victorian Gothic.
What books get you in that “I never want to go back to school” mood?