Why am I no longer scared?
- Thread starter HedlessChickn
- Start date
-
This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.
.....BOO!!!!!!......
Hello Hedless Chckn - outstanding idea for a thread.
As other posters have mentioned, different things scare us at different times in our lives.
Some fears belong to childhood (and stay there - yay!)
Some fears hang around, from cradle to grave. (no matter what you do/don't do)
Some fears are have a logical basis (hello evolution)
Some fears are a reaction to life-altering events.
Some fears are imaginary (as in not real at all and thank goodness for that)
Some fears are a result of being crazier than an ****house rat.
SK has touched all these bases at some point, in everything he's written (sorry, I haven't read the Roland stuff: full disclosure here).
And because we've touched some or all of these bases too (depending on more variables than I can think of), SK reaches anyone who wants to be reached.
Yes. There will only ever be one Stand.
No.I'll never read Pet Semetary again, because my twin nephews are dearer to me than life. I couldn't read it again after they were born.
And all SK's writing that features either domestic or child abuse is hard for me to read (not impossible to read, but pffff. . live 55 years and either or both may land on your doorstep, or maybe come through your door).
Full Dark, No Stars is probably SK's most disturbing collection of novellas, because it's about the evil that men and women do.
If there's anything scarier than that, I don't want to meet it.
As other posters have mentioned, different things scare us at different times in our lives.
Some fears belong to childhood (and stay there - yay!)
Some fears hang around, from cradle to grave. (no matter what you do/don't do)
Some fears are have a logical basis (hello evolution)
Some fears are a reaction to life-altering events.
Some fears are imaginary (as in not real at all and thank goodness for that)
Some fears are a result of being crazier than an ****house rat.
SK has touched all these bases at some point, in everything he's written (sorry, I haven't read the Roland stuff: full disclosure here).
And because we've touched some or all of these bases too (depending on more variables than I can think of), SK reaches anyone who wants to be reached.
Yes. There will only ever be one Stand.
No.I'll never read Pet Semetary again, because my twin nephews are dearer to me than life. I couldn't read it again after they were born.
And all SK's writing that features either domestic or child abuse is hard for me to read (not impossible to read, but pffff. . live 55 years and either or both may land on your doorstep, or maybe come through your door).
Full Dark, No Stars is probably SK's most disturbing collection of novellas, because it's about the evil that men and women do.
If there's anything scarier than that, I don't want to meet it.
Except for spiders and snakes, real life horrors don't really scare me - they upset me and make me angry but they don't scare me y'know? Ghosts terrify me though and since SK has already written the most terrifying gothic novel ever written (The Shining), nothing written by SK or any other horror writer can top it so I don't scare as easily as I once did 
I think the book that came the closest to scaring me almost as much as The Shining was SK's Duma Key.
I think the book that came the closest to scaring me almost as much as The Shining was SK's Duma Key.
I forgot 1408. I havn't read the short story but the movie was scary scary scary
Except for spiders and snakes, real life horrors don't really scare me - they upset me and make me angry but they don't scare me y'know? Ghosts terrify me though and since SK has already written the most terrifying gothic novel ever written (The Shining), nothing written by SK or any other horror writer can top it so I don't scare as easily as I once did
Duma Key scared you? Odd what touches us.
1408 Movie was scary scary scary, agree. Must watch again.
...parts of that novel gave me the willies as well.....it had some very atmospheric sections....think, "visitor with wet footprints".....
Yes, that part. And I must say that Elizabeth and her flashbacks and sudden words were creepy at times. I stand corrected.
...oh heavens no, please be seated.....
I not scared because I know there is an afterlife. I do get scared of 'coincidences' like this morning I walked into the supermarket which plays music aimed at the demographic 35 to 60 year old shoppers, and when I walked in there was the theme music to the show 'The Twilight Zone' which I was watching yesterday. Things like that make me scared even thought they're only coincidence.
Agree with what was said about the threshold of fear rising as you age. You know what I think is scary now? Apt Pupil and the short story Cain Rose Up. The dark side of humanity is way more frightening to me than supernatural entities. The first story in Full Dark, No Stars was also pretty unsettling. That one had a visceral quality to it that really got to me.
Chicken, just try to be more 'centred' and you will enjoy life more.
Just realized that I already responded to this, ages ago.
The old brain, it's getting leaky...
The old brain, it's getting leaky...
You can get jaded from watching/reading a lot of horror. I somehow have always been able to keep that initial feel alive, but it will always be different from when you first started and it was more of a feeling of 'will I make it through this?'
Actually books never scared me, only movies.
But I don't think King lost his viciousness at all, just read something like 'In the Tall Grass'. I think in a way he's only more vicious in some of his later work (if that's what he sets his mind to or sets out to do).
For me two main things hold his books back from being all that scary: they're so long, so the tension is gonna break at a certain point because of sheer length (that's why the short stories have often been creepiest for me - mostly Night Shift and Skeleton Crew), and he puts in so much humor.
If I think of writers that have managed to scare me to a degree in books, it's mainly James Herbert that comes to mind. With books when they work for me, it's often more a feeling for me of something being creepy than rightout scary.
Actually books never scared me, only movies.
But I don't think King lost his viciousness at all, just read something like 'In the Tall Grass'. I think in a way he's only more vicious in some of his later work (if that's what he sets his mind to or sets out to do).
For me two main things hold his books back from being all that scary: they're so long, so the tension is gonna break at a certain point because of sheer length (that's why the short stories have often been creepiest for me - mostly Night Shift and Skeleton Crew), and he puts in so much humor.
If I think of writers that have managed to scare me to a degree in books, it's mainly James Herbert that comes to mind. With books when they work for me, it's often more a feeling for me of something being creepy than rightout scary.
I wonder when that shift took place (him going from fantasy-horror to more real life-horrors), it seems around the time he stopped his alcohol and drug-use. I don't know exactly when he did that or when the 'intervention' happened that was organized by his family (mainly by Tabitha I suppose).
Could it be around Gerald's Game/Dolores Claiborne? It's not like he didn't deal with a subject like domestic abuse before, but there it seems to get a more realistic tone, it doesn't take place in a haunted hotel to give it a more fantastical setting.
It's not that the more 'serious subjects' aren't in his earlier books too, but it's more like they're just only one part of the story and feel less central. From Carrie to Needful Things his work feels like 'genre work', but from Gerald's Game/Dolores Claiborne on he often crosses in to a more realistic approach of his subjects.
It feels broadly like he wrote the more fantasy/genre stuff when he was addicted (I don't know when he was full-out addicted, but at least by the time of Cujo, cause he has no memory of writing it), and the more 'serious' stuff when he had quit that.
Last edited:
I absolutely could be misremembering, but I could swear that I remember reading that the last book he wrote while in the throes of addiction was The Tommyknockers, which was quite a while before the books you mention. I think the shift came naturally with age and maturity, the same was that real life horrors have become more personal and terrifying than creepycrawlies to many of us .
I believe you're right I think it was Tommyknockers..
Tommyknockers is a bit of a mess as a book, so it was noticeable too. I wonder why Tabitha waited so long to intervene though. He says Jack Torrance is a character that's close to him because of the alcoholism, so does that mean when he wrote The Shining he was already an alcoholic?
So The Dark Half would be the first book after he quit. This period though is also where I find his work getting more mediocre - it's almost as if the alcohol and drugs also influenced the books in a positive way.
So The Dark Half would be the first book after he quit. This period though is also where I find his work getting more mediocre - it's almost as if the alcohol and drugs also influenced the books in a positive way.