Another

Kōichi Sakakibara transfers to Yomiyama Middle School and meets Mei Misaki. Soon, he is caught in a mystery involving gruesome deaths among the pupils in his class and people connected to them. That is the set-up for Another. I’ll leave the answers alone; they are exactly the sort of thing I would want to find out for myself.

For me, the unsettling part is the gap between an ordinary school day and the knowledge that someone else could die. It gives the mystery a nasty edge. The deaths sound grim, so I would put this fairly high on the scare scale, but the question of what is happening to the class is what makes it hard to set aside. Even a quiet moment would be enough to make me suspicious. I am very good at being suspicious from under a blanket.

This is one for a night when you want your horror tangled up with a mystery and can cope with the possibility of a gruesome death. Make a drink, find somewhere comfortable and give it your attention. I wouldn’t choose it as background company while sorting the washing; I’d spend the whole time wondering what I’d missed.