The Scariest Characters Aren’t Monsters—They’re Old Men

We’ve all read stories about monsters.

The ones that crawl out of the woods with too many teeth. The ones that live under the bed. The ones with claws, wings, fangs, or fire. They make for great entertainment. They’re scary, sure. But they’re also easy to spot.

You know what really scares me?

An old man in a hospital gown who whispers your name even though you never told it to him.

A man with a foggy memory, but perfect clarity about your sins.

A man who doesn’t have to chase you… because he’s already in the room.

In The Dead of the Day, I wrote a character named Enoch Hoffmann. He’s not a monster. He’s just a confused, angry, deeply religious old man who thinks his nursing home is a cheap motel where he’s living while waiting for the floodwater to leave his house.

But the longer you spend with him, the more you start to feel it—that chill. That sense that there’s something deeply wrong, even before anything supernatural enters the picture. Because Enoch has that terrifying mix of weakness and conviction. His body is failing, but his belief in his own righteousness is stronger than ever. That’s where the danger lies.

The scariest characters in fiction, for me, are the ones who think they’re doing the right thing. Who know they’re doing the right thing, no matter the cost. Old men like that have lived too long. They’ve hardened. They’ve decided. And sometimes, they’re carrying sins so deep they’ve forgotten how to repent.

Think about some of horror’s most chilling figures:

• The grandfather in The Visit.
  
• Father Kane in Poltergeist II.
  
• Jud Crandall in Pet Sematary.
  
• The blind man in Don’t Breathe.
  

These aren’t monsters with claws. They’re men with regrets. With routines. With voices that still carry authority even when they’ve lost everything else.

They remind us of someone. A relative. A neighbor. Ourselves, maybe—if we make the wrong choices often enough.

That’s what I wanted to capture in Dead of the Day. Enoch doesn’t hiss or growl or rise from the grave in a blaze of fire. He just looks at you and says something that makes your stomach twist. And when the supernatural elements do come, they feel like a natural extension of him. Not an outside force, but something he’s been dragging behind him for years.

Monsters are fun. But old men?

They’ve seen too much. Lost too much.

And when they believe they’ve got nothing left to lose, that’s when you run.

The Dead of the Day is available to pre-order now at Amazon. It’s a slow-burn horror story about faith, family, and fear—told through the eyes of someone who may have already damned himself. It’ll be published in print and e-book on Oct. 21, 2025.

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Question for you:
What’s the most terrifying “normal” character you’ve ever read or watched?
No monsters—just people.

Drop your pick in the comments. Let’s see what kind of humans haunt us most.