Day 289: Danse Macabre

Sooner or later, every serious student of modern horror media has to run across Stephen King's Danse Macabre. It was written by him in the late 1970s and is based off notes he used to teach college courses. It traces back the roots of horror in literature and then dabbles in reviewing horror on the radio, television and movies.

In my favorite section, King breaks down the three types of monsters. There are vampires (as presented by Bram Stoker's Dracula), werewolves (seen in Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and "the thing without a name" (popularized by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein). Vampires are all about repressed sexuality, werewolves are all about the dark side of the human experience and the thing is about alien terror to which we cannot relate. He goes on to give pretty in depth reviews of the books in question. I have found this to be a pretty useful taxonomy when dealing with the monsters you come across in movies and books. His explanations almost explain too much but the arguments are sound.

In his autobiographical section we see where people like Lovecraft had a strong influence on his own tastes. The context of the times he grew up in also strongly influence him. If you ever wanted a Stephen King autobiography, this and some parts of On Writing are as close as you will ever get.

He also makes a convincing case for radio shows being the superior form of horror media in that they engage the imagination more than anything with a visual element. This doesn't stop him from singing the praises of shows like Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. The only part I didn't care for were his movie reviews which, ironically, just sound like some asshole with a blog writing about random horror movies...ahem.

Anyway, the book is quick and worth a read.