Published in 1980, this informative and entertaining survey of the horror genre in popular culture is an invaluable guide for fans. King—himself a master of the genre—focuses on the thirty-year period from 1950-1980 and meticulously explains horror’s appeal within the context of each segment of this era. Without waxing pedantic, King traces the evolution of the genre, especially its characteristic tropes, throughout various media. However, his assessment of television as the basest of all media desperately needs a revision, considering the tremendous progress TV has made in terms of quality.
This one is for hardcore fans of horror. And as a member of that community, I would respectfully like to request of Mr. King a Volume II!
Danse Macabre
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 968 ratings
Price: 19.68
Last update: 12-23-2024
About this item
NOW AVAILABLE ON AUDIO!
Before he gave us the “one of a kind classic” (The Wall Street Journal) memoir On Writing, Stephen King wrote a nonfiction masterpiece in Danse Macabre, “one of the best books on American popular culture” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
From the author of dozens of #1 New York Times bestsellers and the creator of many unforgettable movies comes a vivid, intelligent, and nostalgic journey through three decades of horror as experienced through the eyes of the most popular writer in the genre. In 1981, years before he sat down to tackle On Writing, Stephen King decided to address the topic of what makes horror horrifying and what makes terror terrifying. Here, in ten brilliantly written chapters, King delivers one colorful observation after another about the great stories, books, and films that comprise the horror genre—from Frankenstein and Dracula to The Exorcist, The Twilight Zone, and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.
With the insight and good humor his fans appreciated in On Writing, Danse Macabre is an enjoyably entertaining tour through Stephen King’s beloved world of horror.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Top reviews from the United States
James R. Gilligan5.0 out of 5 stars
A Non-fiction Classic—in need of a Volume II!
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2024
jason5.0 out of 5 stars
Its Nonfiction
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2024
Thought it was fiction. Read it cover to cover. It's a nonfiction book though. Gives great insight into the things King considers relevant influence for his writing. I'd say it's a comprehensive way to understand how he was influenced. Definitely recommened read.
Terrance Aldon Shaw4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, informative, eye-opening...
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2017
Stephen King was thirty-three when he wrote ‘Damse Macabre’ in 1980. At that point he had published only five major novels: ‘Carrie’ (1974), ‘Salem’s Lot’ (1975), ‘The Shining’ (1977), ‘The Stand’ (1978), and ‘The Dead Zone’ (1979). While these were the novels that cemented his early reputation, many of his most famous books would come later: ‘Firestarter’ (1980); ‘Cujo’ (1981); ‘The Running Man’ and ‘The Gunslinger’ (first book in the long-running ‘Dark Tower’ series) (1982); ‘Christine’ and ‘Pet Sematary’ (1983); ‘It’ (1986); ‘Misery’ and ‘The Tommyknockers’ (1987); ‘The Dark Half’ (1989) and so on into the 1990s and beyond. So, when SK cited his own books to illustrate concepts in Danse Macabre, he had only those first five to draw on. We can probably come up with many more—sometimes much better—examples from his later work. For instance, when SK talks about the idea of The Bad Place (haunted houses etc.) in horror fiction and film, you and I, gifted as we are with nearly forty years of hindsight. might immediately think of the Native-American burial ground in ‘Pet Sematary’ or the hellish sewer in ‘It’.
‘Danse Macabre’ is very much a product of its time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still informative and a great deal of fun to read. SK’s ideas about what makes horror “tick” are still eye-opening today; his analysis of some of the great horror novels and stories is often right on the money, and the personal anecdotes he shares along the way are nothing short of wonderful—such as in Chapter 4 when he recalls his colorful down-east character of an uncle trying to douse a new well with an applewood bough.
‘Danse Macabre’ was written at a time when SK was still heavily into alcohol—at one point he casually talks about putting away fourteen beers in a single night, saying that he’d taken it “pretty easy” that night; elsewhere, he makes several matter-of-fact references to “getting pleasantly loaded…” Whether because of the booze or not, he occasionally goes off on broad, rambling tangents, which, entertaining as they can be, really seem to wander away from points that could have been made more quickly and with much greater precision. Not that there isn’t a lot of fascinating trivia and kick-ass storytelling along the detours, but I do think some of his opinions should probably be taken with a mighty grain of salt, especially when he talks about “classic” horror movies. For example, while it’s OK for a low-budget B movie from the early 1960s, I can’t see that ‘Dimentia-13’ is anywhere near as good as SK seems to remember—maybe it’s his own youthful nostalgia at play? He complains at some length about production values in the original 1942 version of Val Lewton’s ‘Cat People’ (NOT to be confused with the forgettable, exploitative re-make from 1982), but most people seeing this classic B movie for the first time probably wouldn’t notice the things that drive SK up the wall. (The original ‘Cat People’ was made during World War II, and it would have been impractical to shoot a night scene on location in a blacked-out New York City.)
Also, in 1980, SK thought very little of the films of Wes Craven, based on things like ‘Last House on the Left’, ‘The Hills Have Eyes’, and ‘The People Under the Stairs’. But in his forenotes to later editions of ‘Danse Macabre’, SK, while still mostly dismissive of ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and, particularly, the rather dull franchise it becane, does offer some grudging respect for Craven’s ‘Scream’ movies, and he practically raves about Dennis Illiadis’ 2009 re-make of ‘Last House on the Left’.
All this is to say that, if you can stay with it, ‘Danse Macabre’ is a pretty rewarding read, informative, often entertaining. and well worth the effort. SK includes two appendices in the back listing 100 horror novels, as well as all the movies cited in the text. Enough to keep any healthily curious fan busy for a long time.
‘Danse Macabre’ is very much a product of its time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still informative and a great deal of fun to read. SK’s ideas about what makes horror “tick” are still eye-opening today; his analysis of some of the great horror novels and stories is often right on the money, and the personal anecdotes he shares along the way are nothing short of wonderful—such as in Chapter 4 when he recalls his colorful down-east character of an uncle trying to douse a new well with an applewood bough.
‘Danse Macabre’ was written at a time when SK was still heavily into alcohol—at one point he casually talks about putting away fourteen beers in a single night, saying that he’d taken it “pretty easy” that night; elsewhere, he makes several matter-of-fact references to “getting pleasantly loaded…” Whether because of the booze or not, he occasionally goes off on broad, rambling tangents, which, entertaining as they can be, really seem to wander away from points that could have been made more quickly and with much greater precision. Not that there isn’t a lot of fascinating trivia and kick-ass storytelling along the detours, but I do think some of his opinions should probably be taken with a mighty grain of salt, especially when he talks about “classic” horror movies. For example, while it’s OK for a low-budget B movie from the early 1960s, I can’t see that ‘Dimentia-13’ is anywhere near as good as SK seems to remember—maybe it’s his own youthful nostalgia at play? He complains at some length about production values in the original 1942 version of Val Lewton’s ‘Cat People’ (NOT to be confused with the forgettable, exploitative re-make from 1982), but most people seeing this classic B movie for the first time probably wouldn’t notice the things that drive SK up the wall. (The original ‘Cat People’ was made during World War II, and it would have been impractical to shoot a night scene on location in a blacked-out New York City.)
Also, in 1980, SK thought very little of the films of Wes Craven, based on things like ‘Last House on the Left’, ‘The Hills Have Eyes’, and ‘The People Under the Stairs’. But in his forenotes to later editions of ‘Danse Macabre’, SK, while still mostly dismissive of ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and, particularly, the rather dull franchise it becane, does offer some grudging respect for Craven’s ‘Scream’ movies, and he practically raves about Dennis Illiadis’ 2009 re-make of ‘Last House on the Left’.
All this is to say that, if you can stay with it, ‘Danse Macabre’ is a pretty rewarding read, informative, often entertaining. and well worth the effort. SK includes two appendices in the back listing 100 horror novels, as well as all the movies cited in the text. Enough to keep any healthily curious fan busy for a long time.
Kendall Giles5.0 out of 5 stars
Stephen King: the ultimate guide to horror and the macabre!
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2011
Some of us love stories that leave us listening fearfully for shuffling footsteps in the dark, or movies that make us spray our popcorn about the room when the bogeyman leaps from the shadows, on reflection, we may wonder just what it is about scary stories that causes such fearful reactions. Those who scoff at the horror genre, who flinch at any mention of anything bad happening in a story and whose entertainment choices revolve around TV shows like American Idol, may wonder what all the excitement over the horror genre is about. The balm for both these groups is Stephen King's Danse Macabre, an homage, exploration, and critical analysis of the horror genre during the period 1950-1980, a period that experienced the cultivation and development of the scary story form through radio, TV, movie, and book formats.
Lest the very idea of a thirty-year overview of the horror genre conjure up fears of a stale, academic, and tedious exposition, rest assured that this tour through the spooky and macabre is conducted by the perfect guide-King is an award-winning author of more than 49 horror novels and short stories with many movie and TV adaptations. In Danse Macabre he approaches his task as someone who loves and lives the genre, not as the critic, who dissects and pontificates as an outsider. This book is an insider's tour delivered in King's pouncey-bouncy writing style, a conversational one that both entertains and educates.
There are three main contributions in this book. First, there is the dutiful comb-through of the horror highlights of the radio, TV, movie, and book formats. But though it is interesting to hear about mid-1950s radio broadcasts, such as Suspense or Orson Wells's War of the Worlds, I suspect that most people today, in an era of streaming Internet movies, may have difficulty relating to (horror) radio broadcasts. Nevertheless, the inclusion of radio makes the overview of the horror genre complete, and it reinforces the fact that telling a scary story is not limited by technological channels--an entire world was frightened by Orson Wells intoning over just a radio microphone.
In discussing horror movies and TV shows, rather than heavy analysis King focuses simply on which pieces speak most to our fears, whether they be universal, political, social, or cultural, along with mentioning those films and shows which are just plain entertaining to watch. Again, the tone is light and informational. While we learn how the movie The Amityville Horror can be seen as playing on our economic fears, we also gain insights into how this movie, though it was not critically acclaimed, nevertheless struck a resonant chord with the viewing audience. There are pages to this discussion, touching on many tangents and related movies, such as The Exorcist, Fahrenheit 451, and Them!, but King also sums up his point succinctly with this nugget: "As horror goes, Amityville is pretty pedestrian. So's beer, but you can get drunk on it." Time and again in Danse Macabre King similarly illuminates as well as he entertains.
For novels, King discusses ten books that represent the best of the horror genre as both literature and entertainment, such as Peter Straub's Ghost Story and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. As with his discussion of radio, movie, and TV shows, King careens through the entire literary corpus with tangents, anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes commentary, such as entertaining stories about what happened when Harlan Ellison, an author with some notoriety, was invited to work on the script for the first Star Trek movie.
Beyond just overviewing the horror genre, King more interestingly takes a step back and looks at the elements of the horror story--what scares us and why. He proposes three iconic monsters for the horror genre, and details especially the horror stories those monsters are known for: the thing, (in Frankenstein), the vampire (in Dracula), and the werewolf (in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide). He also shows three levels of emotion horror stories can target within us: terror, horror, and revulsion. The finest and most primal emotional level reached by a scary story is terror, and we are terrified when stories allow our own minds to fill in the details about the baddies around the corner. So in stories that evoke terror-judged to be the most effective at being scary-we are actually not allowed to see the monster behind the closed door. A slightly more coarse emotion, but still scary enough, is that of horror. Here, the door is opened and we see the monster, lurching. If a story can't achieve the effect of terror or horror, then it can at least cause revulsion--you see the monster, slurping the victim's entrails like pasta in a wine-dark marinara sauce.
The third and perhaps most important contribution of Danse Macabre is that this book is an homage to the horror genre. King shows us why horror matters and why people who like horror stories aren't psychopaths. On the contrary, horror can help us understand our deepest fears by showing us a side of life that we don't often experience directly, lifting the lid of the casket, so to speak. By looking inside, we can learn the truth about ourselves.
Horror stories have the power to transport us back to when we were young and the world was ominous and life was to be relished, and King generously shares his encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm for the genre in Danse Macabre. The book makes us want to be scared, to want to go investigate that strange sound, and King cheerfully leads the way for us down into the dark and dank catacomb. With his insights and recommendations we can crawl as far into the tunnels as we dare in seeking the creepy, guided by Stephen King in the role of our inner child.
Lest the very idea of a thirty-year overview of the horror genre conjure up fears of a stale, academic, and tedious exposition, rest assured that this tour through the spooky and macabre is conducted by the perfect guide-King is an award-winning author of more than 49 horror novels and short stories with many movie and TV adaptations. In Danse Macabre he approaches his task as someone who loves and lives the genre, not as the critic, who dissects and pontificates as an outsider. This book is an insider's tour delivered in King's pouncey-bouncy writing style, a conversational one that both entertains and educates.
There are three main contributions in this book. First, there is the dutiful comb-through of the horror highlights of the radio, TV, movie, and book formats. But though it is interesting to hear about mid-1950s radio broadcasts, such as Suspense or Orson Wells's War of the Worlds, I suspect that most people today, in an era of streaming Internet movies, may have difficulty relating to (horror) radio broadcasts. Nevertheless, the inclusion of radio makes the overview of the horror genre complete, and it reinforces the fact that telling a scary story is not limited by technological channels--an entire world was frightened by Orson Wells intoning over just a radio microphone.
In discussing horror movies and TV shows, rather than heavy analysis King focuses simply on which pieces speak most to our fears, whether they be universal, political, social, or cultural, along with mentioning those films and shows which are just plain entertaining to watch. Again, the tone is light and informational. While we learn how the movie The Amityville Horror can be seen as playing on our economic fears, we also gain insights into how this movie, though it was not critically acclaimed, nevertheless struck a resonant chord with the viewing audience. There are pages to this discussion, touching on many tangents and related movies, such as The Exorcist, Fahrenheit 451, and Them!, but King also sums up his point succinctly with this nugget: "As horror goes, Amityville is pretty pedestrian. So's beer, but you can get drunk on it." Time and again in Danse Macabre King similarly illuminates as well as he entertains.
For novels, King discusses ten books that represent the best of the horror genre as both literature and entertainment, such as Peter Straub's Ghost Story and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. As with his discussion of radio, movie, and TV shows, King careens through the entire literary corpus with tangents, anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes commentary, such as entertaining stories about what happened when Harlan Ellison, an author with some notoriety, was invited to work on the script for the first Star Trek movie.
Beyond just overviewing the horror genre, King more interestingly takes a step back and looks at the elements of the horror story--what scares us and why. He proposes three iconic monsters for the horror genre, and details especially the horror stories those monsters are known for: the thing, (in Frankenstein), the vampire (in Dracula), and the werewolf (in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide). He also shows three levels of emotion horror stories can target within us: terror, horror, and revulsion. The finest and most primal emotional level reached by a scary story is terror, and we are terrified when stories allow our own minds to fill in the details about the baddies around the corner. So in stories that evoke terror-judged to be the most effective at being scary-we are actually not allowed to see the monster behind the closed door. A slightly more coarse emotion, but still scary enough, is that of horror. Here, the door is opened and we see the monster, lurching. If a story can't achieve the effect of terror or horror, then it can at least cause revulsion--you see the monster, slurping the victim's entrails like pasta in a wine-dark marinara sauce.
The third and perhaps most important contribution of Danse Macabre is that this book is an homage to the horror genre. King shows us why horror matters and why people who like horror stories aren't psychopaths. On the contrary, horror can help us understand our deepest fears by showing us a side of life that we don't often experience directly, lifting the lid of the casket, so to speak. By looking inside, we can learn the truth about ourselves.
Horror stories have the power to transport us back to when we were young and the world was ominous and life was to be relished, and King generously shares his encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm for the genre in Danse Macabre. The book makes us want to be scared, to want to go investigate that strange sound, and King cheerfully leads the way for us down into the dark and dank catacomb. With his insights and recommendations we can crawl as far into the tunnels as we dare in seeking the creepy, guided by Stephen King in the role of our inner child.