In Progress: Danse Macabre

July 30 (page 18): There's over forty pages of prefatory material here, so I'm actually more into this book than it would seem. Stephen King has definitely gotten more snarky with age, if the criteria is a comparison of the 2010 introduction with the original. He has some pretty weird thoughts on what constitutes a good horror movie, though I generally agree with him on what constitutes a bad one. And your fun fact for the day: Dawn of the Dead was the movie that knocked Passion of the Christ out of the top spot at the box office!

July 31 (page 50): The first chapter is all about movies. King's got some interesting theories about what is scary and how the times impact the popularity of the horror genre. Also, I have this strange desire to watch garbage AIP movies now.

August 6 (page 102): I thought it would be nice to check in after each chapter, until I noticed a later chapter is about one-third of the entire book. I'm somewhere in the "autobiographical" chapter right now, which reminds me a lot of On Writing, but somewhat less lucid. The previous chapter was on the Big Three classics of horror: Frankenstein (definitely read), Dracula (might have read), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (definitely have not read). An interesting observation: for two of these, the author is really only known for that particular work. Good work, Mr. Stevenson.

August 17 (page 300): I'll do the mature thing and blame it on a final exam, but I let the updates slip. No worries. The two chapters on horror movies were fun because many of the films discussed were so ridiculously bad, yet getting a rather serious treatment. I then turned into the slog of a chapter about horror fiction. I feel like King is trying to distance himself from the authors he was getting lumped with at the time by name-checking Faulkner & Co. as often as possible. However, two of the books he reviews admirably are by Peter Straub and Anne Rivers Siddons, which are at a more even keel as his own work.

August 21 (page 403): The book is about done. This long penultimate chapter (150 pages) is getting wearisome and should probably be called "Ten of My Favorite Books in the Past 30 Years" of which probably not all will resonate with the reader. To King's credit, his list is pretty solid. Some are of no interest to me, but I do feel more than a little shame about neglecting Harlan Ellison, and not reading more Ray Bradbury. Also of interest is King's tripartite division of fiction into "literature", "mainstream", and "pulp" and he most certainly holds to the middle category, but is happy to show he is knowledgeable in all three.

Sometimes They Come Back (1991)

We've finally made it to the end of the Night Shift mostly-awful movie marathon! While Sometimes They Come Back wasn't total dreck like Graveyard Shift and its ilk, it fell short of some of the better adaptations such as Cat's Eye. Actually, the original short story was a fair bit better than most of its companions, written around the time Carrie was published, so it straddles King's juvenilia and more professional short work. This probably made it more tempting than the others to get the movie treatment. Unfortunately, the original plan to integrate it into Cat's Eye, something I have a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around, didn't pan out and six years later it ended up on the small screen as its own movie.

The original story is a bit of a puzzler. It starts off fairly heartfelt, about dealing with loss and change and not even all that scary, like King was trying to bust out of the genre. That doesn't last as it becomes clear the old bullies are inexplicably coming back (as they sometimes do) into Jim's new classroom. So much for the non-genre story, but it moved the story more in line to what King does best. Then the story goes completely off the rails, with his wife being killed, Jim doing a deep dive into the occult, and the suffering reader chucking the book in bewilderment.

Needless to say, a straight-up adaptation of the story would be nothing short of box office tragedy, but one way or another, this one was going to get the treatment. The small screen ended up fielding it, resulting in a better-than-average TV movie for the 1990's, but another mediocre attempt overall. First off, the scenery was changed to the Kansas City area, and the town is Jim's old hometown. That way when he experiences the flashbacks everything is conveniently close by. Also, no family (wife or son) were killed in the movie, because it was primetime network television and that's not cool. Finally, the occult element is dialed way back. While there are still demons and afterlife matters, there are no real rituals (like cutting off fingers, etc.) beyond just having to reenact the past murder to push the demons officially into hell. As a quick sidebar here, I get it that "greaser" bullies like to be mean and hurt little kids, but murder? It seems a little casual for these guys.

Out of curiosity I looked at the plots for the two sequels and they are completely bonkers. Both unsurprisingly are straight-to-video gems that have nothing to do with the first movie. Number two is a similar incident, but with way more occult. Not to be outdone, the third takes place in (wait for it) Antarctica....and don't worry, the occult is still there!