JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 160 из 359It's fortunate if you happen to be stuck in a boring situation; you can use your sixth sense to plan the next day's work, to wonder what life might be like if you won the grand prize in the state lottery or the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes, or to speculate on what that sexy Miss Hepplewaite does-or doesn't- wear under those tight dresses of hers. On the other hand, the brain's constant function can be a mixed blessing. Ask anyone who is a victim of chronic insomnia.
I tell people who say that horror movies don't scare them to make this simple experiment.
Go see a film like Night of the Living Dead all alone (have you ever noticed how many people go to horror movies, not just in pairs or groups, but in actual packs ?). Afterwards, get in your car, drive to an old, deserted, crumbling house-every town has at least one (except maybe Stepford, Connecticut, but they have their own problems there). Let yourself in. Mount to the attic. Sit down up there. Listen to the house groan and creak around you. Notice how much those creaks sound like someone-or some thing -mounting the stairs. Smell the must. The rot. The decay. Think about the film you have just seen. Consider it as you sit there in the dark, unable to see what might be creeping up . . . what might be just about to place its dirty, twisted claw on your shoulder . . . or around your neck . . . This sort of thing can prove, by its very darkness, to be an enlightening experience.
Fear of the dark is the most childlike fear. Tales of terror are customarily told "around the campfire" or at least after sundown, because what is laughable in the sunshine is often tougher to smile at by starlight. This is a fact that every maker of horror films and writer of horror tales recognizes and uses-it is one of those unfailing pressure points where the grip of horror fiction is surest. * This is particularly true of the filmmakers, of course, and of all the tools that the filmmaker can bring to bear, it is perhaps this fear of the dark that seems the most natural, since movies must, by their very nature, be viewed in the dark.
It was Michael Cantalupo, an assistant editor at Everest House (whose imprint you will find on the spine of this very volume) who reminded me of a gimmick used in the first-run engagements of Wait Until Dark , and in this context it bears an affectionate mention. The last fifteen or twenty minutes of that film are utterly terrifying, partially due to virtuoso performances turned in by Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin (and in my view, Arkin's performance as Harry Roat, Jr., from Scarsdale may be the greatest evocation of screen villainy ever, rivalling and perhaps surpassing Peter Lorre's in M ), partially due to the brilliant gimmick on which Frederick Knott's story turns.
Hepburn, in a final desperate effort to save her life, breaks every damned lightbulb in the apartment and hallway, so that she and the sighted Arkin will be on even terms.
I tell people who say that horror movies don't scare them to make this simple experiment.
Go see a film like Night of the Living Dead all alone (have you ever noticed how many people go to horror movies, not just in pairs or groups, but in actual packs ?). Afterwards, get in your car, drive to an old, deserted, crumbling house-every town has at least one (except maybe Stepford, Connecticut, but they have their own problems there). Let yourself in. Mount to the attic. Sit down up there. Listen to the house groan and creak around you. Notice how much those creaks sound like someone-or some thing -mounting the stairs. Smell the must. The rot. The decay. Think about the film you have just seen. Consider it as you sit there in the dark, unable to see what might be creeping up . . . what might be just about to place its dirty, twisted claw on your shoulder . . . or around your neck . . . This sort of thing can prove, by its very darkness, to be an enlightening experience.
Fear of the dark is the most childlike fear. Tales of terror are customarily told "around the campfire" or at least after sundown, because what is laughable in the sunshine is often tougher to smile at by starlight. This is a fact that every maker of horror films and writer of horror tales recognizes and uses-it is one of those unfailing pressure points where the grip of horror fiction is surest. * This is particularly true of the filmmakers, of course, and of all the tools that the filmmaker can bring to bear, it is perhaps this fear of the dark that seems the most natural, since movies must, by their very nature, be viewed in the dark.
It was Michael Cantalupo, an assistant editor at Everest House (whose imprint you will find on the spine of this very volume) who reminded me of a gimmick used in the first-run engagements of Wait Until Dark , and in this context it bears an affectionate mention. The last fifteen or twenty minutes of that film are utterly terrifying, partially due to virtuoso performances turned in by Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin (and in my view, Arkin's performance as Harry Roat, Jr., from Scarsdale may be the greatest evocation of screen villainy ever, rivalling and perhaps surpassing Peter Lorre's in M ), partially due to the brilliant gimmick on which Frederick Knott's story turns.
Hepburn, in a final desperate effort to save her life, breaks every damned lightbulb in the apartment and hallway, so that she and the sighted Arkin will be on even terms.