Stephen King, Danse Macabre: “Chapter VI - The Modern American Horror Movie--Text and Subtext”
- According to King, what artistic value is most frequently offered by the horror film? [137]
- King creates two broad categories for horror films--what are they? [139]
- How does the second type of horror film generate scares? [139]
- What is the “bad death?” [140]
- What does King imply about our culture, decay, and death? [140]
- What is the “text” of The Amityville horror? What is the “subtext” of The Amityville Horror? [148-153]
- According to King, how are films similar to dreams? [153]
- What two concepts generate the scares of The Thing? [155]
- “The moral was simple--such appeasement doesn’t work; you gotta cut ‘em if they stand and shoot ‘em if they run” (157). What does King say about scientists and appeasement? How was this theme influence by the second world war? [156-159]
- How and why did sci-fi films change by the 1970s? Explain. [159]
- “The hawkish ones, like The Thing, usually extol the virtues of preparedness and deplore the vices of laxness, and achieve a goodly amount of their horror by positing a society which is politically antithetical to ours…” (160) What does this mean?
- According to King, what did Kubrick know about taboo and film? [162]