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A review by thewallflower00
Danse Macabre by Stephen King
3.0
I was hesitant on reading this, worried it would be out of date. (It's as old as me!) There have been a lot of... advances? (I don't know what you'd call them) in horror that no one could have predicted in 1981: slasher franchises going mainstream (e.g. Freddy Krueger action figures), J-horror, psychological horror (like Black Swan), torture porn, home invasion films, indie horror (e.g. The Blair Witch Project), the second rise and decline of zombies. Enough time has passed that now we have meta-horror for all those tropes (e.g. "Scream" and "The Cabin in the Woods").
Nonetheless, much of it still holds up because it's really all about roots. And those roots take place in three things--films, TV, and books. It takes examples from timeless phenomenon like B-movie monsters, anthology suspense, and Lovecraft books. Each reflects the time period they were born into. And it's all delivered with Stephen King's tight and witty prose (he was still high in these days so the writing is good). It's the kind of book that might be assigned in an "Introduction to Horror" college class. Plus, it contains some of the missing biographical elements from "On Writing".
However, I don't think it's required for any horror aficionado. There's a lot of examples from the 50s-70s that maybe influenced King more that it influenced everybody. Read this if you're a fan of Stephen King's style. You get to see him put on his college professor hat. But there are more current books that do just as well.
Nonetheless, much of it still holds up because it's really all about roots. And those roots take place in three things--films, TV, and books. It takes examples from timeless phenomenon like B-movie monsters, anthology suspense, and Lovecraft books. Each reflects the time period they were born into. And it's all delivered with Stephen King's tight and witty prose (he was still high in these days so the writing is good). It's the kind of book that might be assigned in an "Introduction to Horror" college class. Plus, it contains some of the missing biographical elements from "On Writing".
However, I don't think it's required for any horror aficionado. There's a lot of examples from the 50s-70s that maybe influenced King more that it influenced everybody. Read this if you're a fan of Stephen King's style. You get to see him put on his college professor hat. But there are more current books that do just as well.