I considered "Yellow Wall Paper" horror.

Richard Matheson's Hell House held up pretty well, and was surprisingly scary in a really disturbing way, too.

Ooh, yeah. Another formative horror experience for me.

Now is not the time for moderation, Jilli. Own your crazy! Teppy and ita did.

Dude, when do I NOT own my crazy? I fully admit that JilliLand only shares a border with reality.

But be aware it is heavy on mother-issues so... you might not want to give it a try right now.

Oh. Yeah, then I'm going to wait on it. Thank you for letting me know.

Richard Matheson's Hell House held up pretty well, and was surprisingly scary in a really disturbing way, too.

Oooh, I need to re-read that. But first, Salem's Lot!

I have Kelly Link's Magic For Beginners, which I haven't read yet, and I think she's a dark fantasist. Or a fantasist at any rate, if not dark.

I LOVE Kelly Link! Amy, have you read anything else by her? I have a hard time putting her into any one category, possibly because she's often considered a major writer in the slipstream genre, which is the context in which I first heard of her. ("Slipstream" seems to be a fairly catchall term for fiction with sf/f leanings that embraces strangeness and surreality and blurs the line between realism and fantasy, as well as other genres: mystery, horror, fairy tale, etc.) I've never loved the term, but I do find it useful, since I like a lot of what I've encountered in the genre.

Dear Stephen King, please write an updated version of Danse Macabre. The horror genre needs a new overview.

OMG, yes. I used DM as the basis for a 7th grade paper I wrote on King (back in 1979--early days for his career), along with The Stand and Carrie.

And "The Yellow Wallpaper" is most definitely horror.

I haven't, Kate! I forget where I saw her recommended, but it was someone I really admired, so I picked up the short stories. It's on the huge TBR pile now ...

I re-read Danse Macabre last year and one of the strange things about it is that he wrote it before the video era really became common. So he talks about certain cult horror movies as if nobody would have seen them. He specifically cites the original edit of Freaks as a lost movie (it's been since restored), and refers to Tourneur's Cat People as something more legendary than actually seen. I think he also cites Eyes Without a Face as something only a hardcore horror fan would be familiar with.

On the scary Stephen King list, I'd like to put in a word for The Tommyknockers. Mainly because it all starts so innocently, with a woman tripping over something while taking her dog for a walk. She decides to see what it is, and....

And it isn't like she did anything wrong. It all seems completely random.

I walked into the used bookstore downtown, and found a vintage but perfect condition copy of Danse Macabre! And mine is falling apart, so.

Also was reminded of Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home. He gets justifiable praise for The Other but Harvest Home is the one that really stayed with me. Gorgeous writing, slow, creeping pace that builds beautifully, and real *horror* when you get to the end.

"Freaks" is like, well, you can't claim you're a crip activist worth a damn if you haven't seen it. Of course, Stephen King wouldn't know that.