Publishers Weekly calls Campbell "a horror writer's horror writer," adding, "His control of mood and atmosphere is unsurpassed." Doug Winter, the noted scholar and critic, says Campbell has written "some of the most original and compelling fiction of our time, [works that dare] the precipice of reason, the human dilemma of knowing and not knowing, believing and disbelieving."

With the original publication of Scared Stiff, Campbell almost single-handedly created the genre of erotic horror. Never had sex and death been so mesmerizingly entwined. For this new edition, Campbell has added three new stories that have never before appeared in book form.