Danse Macabre   ::   Кинг Стивен

Anyway, Phase IV did poorly at the box office because for all those people out there who are not fans, who find it hard to suspend their disbelief, not much appears to be happening.

There are no "big moments," such as Linda Blair puking pea soup on Max von Sydow in The Exorcist . . . or James Brolin dreaming that he is axing his family to death in The Amityville Horror . But as Roen points out, a person who loves the genre's genuine Waterford (and there isn't enough of it . . . but then, there never is enough of the good stuff in any field, is there?) find a great deal happening in Phase IV -that delicate ring of the real stuff is there, it can be perceived; it ranges from the music to the silent and eerie desert vistas to Bass's fluid camera and Michael Murphy's quiet, understated narration. The ear detects that true ringing sound . . . and the heart responds.

I said all of that to say this: the opposite also applies. The ear which is constantly attuned to the "fine" sound-the decorous strains of chamber music, for instance-may hear nothing but horrid cacophony when exposed to bluegrass fiddle . . . but bluegrass music is mighty fine all the same. The point is that the fan of movies in general and horror movies in particular may find it easy-too easy-to overlook the crude charms of a film like The Amityville Horror after he or she has experienced films such as Repulsion, The Haunting, Fahrenheit 451 (which may have seemed to be science fiction to some, but which is nevertheless a reader's nightmare), or Phase IV . In a real appreciation of horror films, a taste for junk food applies . . . an idea we'll take up more fully in the next chapter. For now, let it suffice to say that the fan loses his taste for junk food at his or her own peril, and when I hear by way of the grapevine that New York film audiences are laughing at a horror movie, I rush out to see it. In most cases I am disappointed, but every now and then I hear me some mighty good bluegrass fiddle, eat me some pretty good fried chicken, and get so excited that I mix me some metaphors, as I've done here.

All of which brings us around to the real watchspring of The Amityville Horror , and the reason it works as well as it does: the picture's subtext is one of economic unease, and this is a theme that director Stuart Rosenberg plays on constantly. In terms of the times-18-percent inflation, mortgage rates out of sight, gasoline selling at a cool dollar forty a gallon- The Amityville Horror , like The Exorcist , could not have come along at a more opportune moment.