King - Danse macabre

S tephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are Under the Dome, the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everythings Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Liseys Story, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book On Writing was also a bestseller. He was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Maine with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

I n July of 1977, my wife and I hosted a gathering of my wifes entire familya giant collection of sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and millions of kids. My wife spent most of that week cooking and of course what always happens at family gatherings happened at this one: everybody brought a casserole. Much food was eaten on the shores of Long Lake that sunny summer day; many cans of beer were consumed. And when the crowd of Spruces and Atwoods and LaBrees and Graveses and everyone else had departed, we were left with enough food to feed an army regiment.

So we ate leftovers.

Day in, day out, we ate leftovers. And when Tabby brought out the remains of the turkey for the fifth or sixth time (we had eaten turkey soup, turkey surprise, and turkey with noodles; this day it was something simpler, nice, nourishing turkey sandwiches), my son Joe, who was then five, looked at it and screamed: Do we have to eat this shit again ?

I didnt know whether to laugh or clout him upside the head. As I recall, I did both.

I told you that story because people who have read a lot of my work will realize that they have eaten a few leftovers here. I have used material from my introduction to Night Shift, from my introduction to the New American Librarys omnibus edition of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, from an article entitled The Fright Report originally published in Oui magazine, from an article called The Third Eye in The Writer; much of the material on Ramsey Campbell originally appeared in Stuart Schiffs Whispers magazine.

Now before you decide to clout me upside the head or to scream Do we have to eat this shit again? let me point out to you what my wife pointed out to my son on the day of the turkey sandwiches: there are hundreds of different recipes for turkey, but they all taste like turkey. And coupled with that, she said, it is a shame to waste good things.

This is not to say that my article in Oui was so paralyzingly great or that my thoughts on Ramsey Campbell were so deathless that they deserved to be preserved in a book; it is only to say that, while my thoughts and feelings on the genre Ive spent most of my life working in may have evolved or shifted somewhat in perspective, they havent really changed. That change may come, but since there has only been a passage of four years since I originally stated many of my feelings about horror and terror in the Night Shift introduction, it would be surprisingeven suspectif I were to suddenly deny everything I had written previous to this book.

In my own defense, Ill add that Danse Macabre gave me the space to develop some of these ideas in more detail than I had ever been given before, and for that I must thank Bill Thompson and Everest House. In no case did I simply reheat something I had written before; I tried as hard as I could to develop each idea as fully as possible without beating it into the ground. In some cases, I may have done just that, though, and all I can do in such cases is to beg your indulgence.

And I think that really is the end. Thank you again for coming with me, and rest you well. But, being who I am and what I am, I cannot find it in my heart to wish you pleasant dreams....

B elow is a list of roughly one hundred fantasy/horror films tied together by their time and their excellence. All were released during the period 19501980, and all of them seem to me to be particularly interesting in one way or another; if I may say so without sounding like an Academy Awards presenter, all of them have contributed something of value to the genre. You will find my own personal favorites marked with an asterisk (*). Special thanks are due to Kirby McCauley, who provided invaluable help with the list.