A Nightmare on COVID-19 Street
Hard to believe how much the world has changed in just a couple of months. I’m not going to bother with an essay or a review, and I’m not going to spend any time analyzing world events since COVID-19 took over. There’s been plenty of that already.
I think we’ll resume more thoughtful content in the next episode, but for now a short update and some stray thoughts will serve fine.
Today I finished Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1985). Having been around a while, with a number of thoughtful reviews already performed, I’ll dispense with the in-depth analysis. I would, however, like to mention a handful of stories that struck me as particularly moving.
King opens this anthology with “The Mist,” which first appeared in Dark Forces as edited by Kirby McCauley in 1980, and what a wonderfully time-appropriate story it is! It is because of this that I will conclude this entry with a thought on the story that opened his.
Anecdotally, I’ve noted that “The Jaunt” is often cited as one of King’s scarier shorts, which first appeared in Twilight Zone magazine in 1981. The story was okay, but not otherwise remarkable. Similarly with “The Raft” (Gallery magazine, 1982), a story of high repute by fellow Constant Readers. I note these stories only so that I may not note them; I’ve read them, they’re okay, fan favorites, but not mine. Let’s move on.
Two notables that I have not heard much about: “Gramma” (Weird Book magazine, 1984), and “The Reach” (as “Do the Dead Sing?” Yankee magazine, 1981). Both were sublime. “Gramma” really did have it all: secretive family ghosts, the supernatural, witches, and a dark ending. “The Reach” had much the same—strong backstory, fantastic character development, supernatural elements—but the ending was sweet. Peaceful, in its own way. King at his best.
As this is not a review of “Skeleton Crew,” I’ll move on to other matters.
As a child I’d seen bits and pieces of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I don’t remember much of it, except that it terrified me, and was responsible for nightmares innumerable. I decided to watch it last night in full for the first time. Not sure why, but I guess I was long overdue in putting that demon to rest.
Good Christ, what a shit movie. The acting and plot, such as they were, aren’t worth another word. It’s regarded pretty well on IMDB however, and if it hadn’t done so well then it wouldn’t have inspired so many copycats and sequels. My poor opinion of it will probably piss off movie buffs, who will rightly point out my ignorance of 1980’s horror and the innovation of Wes Craven, and to that I offer no defense. It’s a good thing I don’t regard myself a reputable film critic. I’m sure if I showed it to my kids now though (with the oldest being fourteen!), it would absolutely terrify them, as it did me.
Perhaps that’s the best and only review that kind of story really needs: at one point in my life, it did the job of scaring the absolute shit out of me for years to come.
Oh, one of those stray thoughts I promised: I heard from a couple of pro markets that they want to hold two different stories of mine. Nothing sold yet, but there are rumblings, and that’s encouraging.
I recently completed a short (coming in right under 1,000 words) that I feel a little wrong about. I was inspired by another person’s grief over a terrible loss to write something awful. I’m not sure if that says anything about me, other than I got a story into my head, and it wouldn’t stop nagging at me until I wrote it down. I also get pissed at my dog when she chews on my socks, but not too pissed. She is, after all, a dog.
Now, “The Mist.” A grocery store becomes isolated and the people shut-in as a mist envelopes the area. Lurking within are horrible monsters that devour any who attempt to escape. No one understand what is happening of course, and it’s not long before cliques inside the grocery store are formed. With no alternate avenues of hope or explanation of their situation, a handful turn to doomsday prophecy and fall to the feet of a crazed and dangerous old woman.
As we’re all wondering what the end of COVID-19 might be, when life may return to normal, I’m reminded by how King ended “The Mist”:
But you mustn’t expect some neat conclusion. There is no And they escaped from the mist into the good sunshine of a new day; or When we awoke the National Guard had finally arrived; or even that great old standby: It was all a dream.
It is, I suppose, what my father always frowningly called “an Alfred Hitchcock ending,” by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they were “cheap shots.”