The Haunting Hour - Chills in the Dead of Night

The Haunting Hour is a collection of ten short horror stories by R. L. Stine, published in this Parachute Press and Collins printing of 153 pages, ISBN 9780007131266, dated 2001.

The stories are written for children and are meant to be read quickly. A babysitter takes pleasure in frightening the child she has been left in charge of; a boy climbs inside a mummy case far older than the museum that owns it; two boys set out to arrange the scariest Halloween they can. Stine introduces the collection in his own voice, explaining that some stories are too frightening to tell and that these are the ones he has been keeping to himself. The pieces are short, and each of them begins in an ordinary situation before it goes wrong, in houses and schools where nothing supernatural is expected. The collection is arranged so that every story can be finished before the reader loses their nerve.