by Wallace, Amy
SARAH LANGAN’S TOP TEN STUPIDEST
HORROR MOVIE DECISIONS QUIZ
Sarah Langan is the author of the New York Times Editor’s Choice first novel, The Keeper (2006) and its sequel The Missing (2007), which won a Bram Stroker Award and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Langan’s stories are forthcoming from Cemetery Dance, Shivers, and Darkness on the Edge: Stories Inspired by Springsteen Songs. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University, and is pursuing her master of science in environmental toxicology. She lives in Brooklyn, where she is trying to teach her rabbit how to fetch while writing her third novel, Audrey’s Door.
Name the Film in Which the Following Things Happen
10. Befriending a Nazi monkey.
9. Hanging out in the Antarctic with Wilford Brimley.
8. Having sex, smoking pot, and generally enjoying adolescence.
7. Falling asleep while these pods are growing all over your house, and everybody keeps making pig sounds, especially if you’re married to a dork, when you could be making the nookie with Donald Sutherland.
6. Giving the taxidermist next door a peep show, you tramp.
5. Going to the prom with Bobby, when you know he’s only going to pour pig’s blood on your new dress.
4. Letting your shipmate out of quarantine, even though he’s got a bony intergalactic space-vagina stuck to his face. . . . Because in space, no one can hear you scream!
3. Eating that chocolate mousse that tastes like chalk, and makes you dream you’re having sex with Satan, and now carrying his love child. Especially if you’re married to an out-of-work actor.
2. Playing with a Ouija board, especially when it’s named Captain Howdy.
1. Not figuring out he’s calling from inside the house, Carol Kane.
Answers
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Half point for Monkey Shines (1988)
9. The Thing (1982)
8. Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th, (1980), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and all their progeny, from Scream (1996) to Hostel (2006)
7. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
6. Psycho (1960)
5. Carrie (1976)
4. Alien (1979)
3. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
2. The Exorcist (1973)
Half point deducted for any mention of Dee Snider’s craptacular Strangeland (1998)
1. When a Stranger Calls (1979)
FOUR HORROR WRITERS ON THE FILM
ADAPTATIONS OF THEIR WORK
1. Stephen King on Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptaion of The Shining (1980): “There’s a lot to like about it. But it’s a great big beautiful Cadillac with no motor inside. You can sit in it, and you can enjoy the smell of the leather upholstery—the only thing you can’t do is drive it anywhere. So I would do everything different. The real problem is that Kubrick set out to make a horror picture with no apparent understanding of the genre. Everything about it screams that from beginning to end, from plot decision to that final scene—which had been used before on The Twilight Zone” (quoted in Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, by Vincent LoBrutto).
2. Colin Wilson on Lifeforce (1985), the film adaptation of The Space Vampires, directed by Tobe Hooper: “John Fowles once told me that the film of The Magus was the worst movie ever made. After seeing Lifeforce I sent him a postcard telling him that I had gone one better” (from Dreaming to Some Purpose, by Colin Wilson).
3. F. Paul Wilson on Michael Mann’s film adaptation of The Keep (1983): “Michael Mann, who seems to have a great visual sense, had no sense at all of this type of story and how to tell it. He doesn’t seem to have much sense of how a story is constructed. He just wanted to do what he wanted to do, and he did not want any mention of a vampire in the movie. Even though a vampire is just a red herring in the book, he wanted no mention of it at all. So if you do that, you take away the very reason that the book is set in the Transylvanian Alps (which is to highlight this red herring). As a result, things start to crumble” (from an interview with the author on http://www.the-keep.ath.cx/ default_en.htm).
4. William Peter Blatty on William Friedkin’s film adaptation of The Exorcist (1973): “With the film, the people were just getting the rollercoaster ride. Let’s face it—the message was adroitly snipped out of the film. It wasn’t there. On the most basic level, the film argues for some kind of transcendence: if there are demons, why not angels? Why not God? And one religion, the Catholic Church—if not others as well—seems to have power to command the evil spirit, which seems a validation of religious belief. But the real point of the book is nowhere to be found in the film” (from an interview with the author in Faces of Fear, by Douglas E. Winter).
Compiled by S.B.
CHAPTER 2
“For the Love of God, Montresor!”
THE LITERATURE OF DREAD
TWENTY GREAT OPENINGS IN HORROR FICTION
1. “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderlay again.”
—Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier.
2. “This is what happened.”
—“The Mist,” by Stephen King.
3. “This morning I put ground glass in my wife’s eyes. She didn’t mind. She didn’t make a sound. She never does.”
—“The Dead Line,” by Dennis Etchison.
4. “What was the worst thing you’ve ever done? I won’t tell you that, but I’ll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me . . . the most dreadful thing.”
—Ghost Story, by Peter Straub.
5. “Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.”
—The Shining, by Stephen King.
6. “You think you know about pain?”
—The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum.
7. “It was the last morning the four of them would ever be together: the man and his wife, his daughter and his son.”
—Testament, by David Morrell.
8. “‘I see,’ said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window.”
—Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice.
9. “Sometimes a man grows tired of carrying everything the world heaps upon his head.”
—Exquisite Corpse, by Poppy Z. Brite.
10. “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood-red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price, who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn’t seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, ‘Be My Baby’ on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.”
—American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis.
11. “Fetish? You name it. All I know is that I’ve always had to have it with me . . .”
—The Scarf, by Robert Bloch.
12. “Egnaro is a secret known to everyone but yourself.”
—“Egnaro,” by M. John Harrison.
13. “When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
—The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham.
14. “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
—“The Call of Cthulhu,” by H. P. Lovecraft.
15. “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
—The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson.
16. “There was something large and wet and dead in the middle of the road.”
—Animals, by John Skipp and Craig Spector.
17. “See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves.”
—Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy.
18. “Kenny Dorchester was a fat man.”
—“The Monkey Treatment,” by George R. R. Martin.
19. “My first experience? My first experience was far more of a test than anything that has ever happened to me since in that same line.”
—“The Swords,” by Robert Aickman.
20. “‘Whatever are you doing?’ demanded the first Mrs. Henry Ridout, being surprised to find her husband easing her over the side of the boat.”
—“The Love of a Good Woman,” by William Trevor.
— Compiled by A.W. and S.B.
THE FIFTY-SIX BESTSELLING HORROR BOOKS SINCE 1900
In order to compile this list, we examined each year’s national hardcover bestsellers as determined by Publishers Weekly and pulled not only horror books, but also books that changed horror and horror writing in some way.
Below are the years in which each book appeared on the bestseller list, and its ranking on the list for the year.
1902 #7— Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes’s only real foray into horror and probably the most enduring of his tales.
1923 #1— Black Oxen, by Gertrude Atherton: A tale of youth rejuvenated.
1934 #10—Seven Gothic Tales, by Isak Dineson: The consummate storyteller.
1938 #4— Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier: The ultimate Gothic novel.
1939 #3— Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier: She’s still here!
1946 #10—The Snake Pit, by Mary Jane Ward: The first big “real-life” horror story. A precursor, in many ways, to Stephen King’s tales of horror in modern life.
1952 #5— Steamboat Gothic, by Frances Parkinson Keyes: Not horror by any stretch of the imagination, but true Gothic. A lifestyle vanishing.
1957 #8— On the Beach, by Nevil Shute: A frightening futuristic vision of the horror that the atomic age might bring.
1967 #7— Rosemary’s Baby, by Ira Levin: Contemporary horror rears its ugly head again. Vietnam is in full swing and the devil made me do it.
1969 #10—The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier: Thirty years later and she can still write a spooky tale for the masses.
1971 #2— The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty: Everything is different from here on out.
#9— The Other, by Thomas Tryon: Completed a year that messed with our minds and turned our focus away from the headlines.
1974 #3— Jaws, by Peter Benchley: Proved that horror didn’t have to be supernatural. Just when you thought it was safe to read another book.
1979 #6— The Dead Zone, by Stephen King: The beginning of the most incredible reign of horror ever!
1980 #5— Firestarter, by Stephen King: Mind-play in horror. King loved doing that.
1981 #3— Cujo, by Stephen King: Man’s best friend as enemy.
1982 #7— Different Seasons, by Stephen King: The first horror collection to make it into the year’s top ten since Isak Dineson’s, in 1934.
1983 #3— Pet Sematary, by Stephen King: Children, animals, and dead things. What more could you want?
#5— Christine, by Stephen King: Two in one year. Another record.
1984 #1— The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub: With the help of Peter Straub, King gets his first yearly #1.
1985 #5— Skeleton Crew, by Stephen King: His second collection to climb the charts.
1986 #1— It, by Stephen King: #1 on his own. The eighties belong to King.
1987 #1— The Tommyknockers, by Stephen King: UFOs?
#4— Misery, by Stephen King: Disguised autobiography?
#10—Eyes of the Dragon, by Stephen King: Three in one year, and twelve in nine years. Another record.
1988 #7— Queen of the Damned, by Anne Rice: Bet you thought it would be her other book, eh? This came twenty years after the previous female author made it.
1989 #2— The Dark Half, by Stephen King: He’s back and he isn’t finished yet!
1990 #2— Four Past Midnight, by Stephen King: Yet another collection!
#7— The Stand, by Stephen King: Expanded and resold.
#9— The Witching Hour, by Anne Rice: A shift from writing about vampires.
1991 #3— Needful Things, by Stephen King: Another book the size of a brick.
1992 #1— Dolores Claiborne, by Stephen King: Another #1!
#3— Gerald’s Game, by Stephen King: They say sex sells, even if it’s dead.
#7— The Tale of the Body Thief, by Anne Rice: Back to the vampires.
1993 #5— Nightmares and Dreamscapes, by Stephen King: And yet another short story collection! Where does this guy get his ideas?
#7— Lasher, by Anne Rice: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
1994 #5— Insomnia, by Stephen King: No wonder he can’t sleep. He’s up all night writing!
1995 #7— Rose Madder, by Stephen King: The third lady rears her head.
1996 #3— Desperation, by Stephen King: A novel point of view.
#5— The Regulators, by Richard Bachman: Why does this seem so much like Desperation?
1998 #3— Bag of Bones, by Stephen King: The nineties go to him as well.
1999 #2— Hannibal, by Thomas Harris: The controversial return of Hannibal the Cannibal beats out King.
#3— Assassins, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye: Religious horror scares the masses.
#6— Hearts in Atlantis, by Stephen King: Hannibal plays the lead in the film version!
#7— Apollyon, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye: If you’re not with us, you’re against us!
2000 #2— The Mark, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye: The Beast rules the world.
#4— The Indwelling, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye: The Beast takes possession.
2001 #1— Desecration, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye: Morality is scary!
#4— Dreamcatcher, by Stephen King: Aliens or gods or us?
#6— Black House, by Stephen King and Peter Straub: Missed #1 this time.
2002 #4— The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold: The dead solve their own murder from the grave.
#9— Everything’s Eventual, by Stephen King: Like another bestseller.
2003 #5— Armageddon, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye: The end is near.
#9— The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold: That pesky dead person just won’t go away.
2004 #4— Glorious Appearance, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye: It’s about time he got here!
2005 #8— The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova: In search of Dracula.
—D.H. (source: Publishers Weekly)
STEPHEN KING’S TEN FAVORITE
HORROR NOVELS OR SHORT STORIES
Stephen King is the most popular writer of horror fiction in the history of literature. His numerous bestsellers include Carrie, The Shining, Cujo, The Dead Zone, the Dark Tower series, Misery, Pet Sematary, and The Green Mile; he also wrote the novellas on which the films Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Mist are based. He penned the screenplay for Creepshow, and wrote and directed Maximum Overdrive. His nonfiction includes a history of the horror genre called Danse Macabre, and the autobiographical On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. King was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2007, and won the O. Henry Prize for his short story “The Man in the Black Suit.” Among his recent works are The Colorado Kid, Cell, Lisey’s Story, and Duma Key.
1. Ghost Story, by Peter Straub
2. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
3. The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
> 4. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson