Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 14

Part 2: Chapters 31, 32, & 33

It’s the next day, and Arnie stumbles around the house getting ready to go to Darnell’s. There’s work to do on Christine, after all. His parents ask if he knew the boy who was run down on JFK Drive. Arnie assures them that he barely knew Moochie. Michael tells Arnie that the police talked to him. It seems that a Det. Junkins think that the Welch boy had something to do with the destruction of Arnie’s car. Michael pleads with Arnie to get rid of Christine, but Arnie feels that he’s put too much into the car to sell her. Arnie knows deep down inside that he’s not talking about money, either.

Down at Darnell’s, Arnie loses himself in the flow of oldies playing on Christine’s radio. Daydreaming, he recalls the actual work he’d done on Christine — a new antenna, popped a few dents out. But where had he got the new windshield and the new seat covers? How had the damage done to Christine’s engine been fixed? And how had he really hurt his back?

Arnie’s reverie is cut short when Pennsylvania State Police Detective Rudolph Junkins appears next to him. Junkins has come to Darnell’s to talk to Arnie… and to look at Christine. With Arnie parrying all of his probing questions with pat answers, Junkins exits the interview stymied but suspicious. He knows that Arnie is lying about something.

Arnie knows he is lying about something, too. (How did you hurt your back, Arnie?) He calls Leigh, hoping that by talking to her — by confessing to her — that he can still be saved. But from what? 

How did Arnie hurt his back?

It’s a question that hagrides Arnie for much of Part Two of Christine. It could be that — à la Curt Siodmak’s novel Donovan’s Brain — the pain that courses through Arnie’s back is simply an echo of LeBay’s condition. (Ol’ Rollie wore a back brace.) Arnie’s conscience keeps asking the question, but just as his conscious self shines its headlights onto the answer, Christine causes him to swerve away from it:

“That night after he and Leigh had found Christine smashed to hell in the parking lot, sitting on four slashed tires… that night at Darnell’s, after everyone was gone…

“And he had tuned the radio in Will’s office to the oldies on WDIL… and he had… he had…

“Hurt his back somehow.

“What had he been doing to hurt his back?…

“Did he really want to know? He didn’t. In fact, there were times when he didn’t want the car at all. There were times when he felt he would be better off just… well, junking it. Not that he ever would, or could. It was just that, sometimes (in the sweaty, shaking aftermath of that dream last night, for instance), he felt that if he got rid of it, he would be… happier.

“The radio suddenly spat an almost feline burst of static.” (253)

In the Cunningham kitchen, Regina asks Arnie if he would ever buy anything from a drug-pusher. Outside, when Arnie asks his father if he wants to check his arms from needle-marks, Michael tells Arnie, “I don’t need to ask if you’re on drugs… You’re only on one I know of, and that’s enough. It’s that goddam car” (246).

Stephen King’s battles with alcoholism and drug addiction are well documented. Ever since taking his first drink at the age of eighteen, King spent much of his professional life as a writer in a haze. A mixture of booze, pills, and cocaine fueled his late-night writing spells. Is it any wonder, then, that many of  his characters are either alcoholics (like The Shining’s Jack Torrance) or are addicted to drug stand-ins (the cursed goods sold by Leland Gaunt in the novel Needful Things)?

There are times in Christine when Arnie is clearheaded enough to realize that he has a problem. The example above from Chapter 33 is just one. Those moments of clarity are few and far between. Before long Arnie finds himself running to Christine in order to sit in her and listen to the radio. Or, when reality comes too close, Arnie feels compelled to reach out and touch Christine. Dennis sees what is happening to his friend and labels it “obsession.” He could easily call it by its rightful name: addiction.

I often wonder if King was aware of what he was doing in novels like Christine or The Shining. When writing about Jack Torrance and Arnie Cunningham, did King see their actions as the consequences of his own demons or was he simply creating a problem to be overcome by his characters? Were these cries for help from King or did he see them as people with bigger problems than his own. A “There but for the grace of God go I” type of thing? I’m tempted to think it was the latter. Like Arnie and Christine, I’m sure that King’s addictions told him that everything was fine so long as you stick by me… get in, Big Boy, and let’s cruise…

I’m gonna look for a motel to stop at for the night. I think I am still run down from yesterday’s run. Speaking of runs…

“[Arnie] was running cigarettes across the state line into New York, he was running fireworks all the way over to Burlington, and twice he had run something wrapped in flat brown-paper packages into Wheeling…” (253)

A drive between Pittsburgh and Wheeling, West Virginia, is about an hour. It’s only sixty miles. Making a run across the state border into West Virginia or Ohio is no big deal.

Burlington, Vermont, on the other hand, is 597 miles away. That’s a ten hour long trip. One way.

I know I am beating a dead horse, and I know that I am preaching to the choir, but… THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL THAT A 17-YEAR OLD KID IS MAKING A 20-HOUR ROUND TRIP TO DELIVER FIREWORKS OR CIGARETTES OR DRUGS OR WHATEVER IN HIS BOSS’S CAR! IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN, STEVIE!

I have the sneaking suspicion that when King had originally started writing the book that it was to be set in his native New England. Then, at some point he moved the action to Pittsburgh. It’s the only way I can attest for the wonky geography. It’s just so wrongheaded, so dumb, and so easily fixed by picking up a freaking map and looking at it. I’m so tired of mentioning it, but I can’t help myself. It drives me bonkers, and…

Okay… I think I’m gonna jump straight into the motel pool to cool off. I many or may not change out of my clothes beforehand. While I sink to the bottom of the deep end and try to get a grip on my sanity, why don’t you read Part 2: Chapters 34 & 35? Guess where we’re going tomorrow?!

That’s right! We’re going to the Monroeville Mall! Leigh and Arnie will be there to do some Christmas shopping. We’ll do a little ice skating, maybe hit Chess King and Spencer’s Gifts (and look at the naughty posters in the back corner… wink-wink!), and then after, if you’ve been good, we’re all going to McDonald’s for burgers and fries… and maybe one of those apple pies!

There’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. “Hot” doesn’t really begin to describe the molten lava-esque filling in those pies. I haven’t had one in what must be forty years, but I’m sure the roof of my mouth still bears the scars. Take it from me, let that sucker cool off for a few hours before even thinking about taking a bite. Think I’m being hyperbolic? Well, don’t listen to me and see what happens. I’m sure we’d all like to see what happens. After all… 

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 13

Part 2:

Chapters 26, 27, 28, 29, & 30

Arnie and Leigh take the bus out to the airport after school. They plan on picking up Christine, then motorvating into downtown Pittsburgh to do some Christmas shopping. Their shopping trip never happens because of what they find in the airport parking lot: Christine has been utterly demolished. Arnie vows revenge on the “shitters” in a voice that Leigh does not recognize.

That night, Arnie returns home, exhausted, a shell of his former self. (Whoever… or whatever… that was.) Regina tries to apologize, but Arnie brushes her words away. He has to get some rest, he tells her, because he is going back to Darnell’s early in the morning. He has to fix Christine. Regina demands that Arnie worry more about school. Arnie threatens to quit school if she doesn’t get off his — and Christina’s — case. Later, after he’s fallen asleep, Regina checks on him and is horrified by what she sees. In the half-light of his room, Arnie looks like an old man.

Leigh visits Dennis in the hospital. She is distraught because Arnie drifts through school like a ghost. She tells Dennis that Arnie refused to call the police or report the crime. After Michael calls the authorities in his son’s stead, Arnie refuses to say who did it.

Thanksgiving rolls around, and Arnie, bearing gifts (turkey sandwiches, a six-pack of beer, and homemade apple pie), finally pays a visit on Dennis. Arnie and Dennis enjoy their repast, and then Dennis asks his friend about Christine. Arnie claims that the damage is not nearly as bad as everyone thinks. Dennis, however, can tell that Arnie is lying. To change the subject, Arnie shows off his newest fashion accessory: a back brace. Not as old-fashioned or dirty as the one LeBay wore, but a back brace like the old man’s all the same.

Before leaving, Dennis asks Arnie to sign his cast, telling his friend that his original signature had worn off. That is not altogether true. Later, Dennis compares this new signature to Arnie’s old one, which he had saved when the doctor had cut back much of the cast on his leg. To Dennis horror, the signatures different. It is as if they were written by two different people.

A week after Thanksgiving, Moochie Welch is making his way back home from the Jackson Browne concert. Hitchhiking to Libertyville, Moochie is dropped off on JFK Drive. While walking to the gas station where Buddy and his friends work and hang out, Moochie sees Christine. Worse, Christine sees Moochie. After running him over multiple times, Christine heads back to Darnell’s. The dents that Moochie’s body made in Christine’s magically disappear as she pulls into her parking space at the garage. No one exits the car…

I’ve brought up the issue of Arnie’s and LeBay’s connection to Christine before. (I’ll bring it up again and again as we go on.) Given how close the points of that particular lover’s triangle are to one another, I wonder why Arnie was not aware in some preternatural way of what was happening to Christine at the hands of The Buddy Repperton Glee Club. It is obvious from his reaction that he did not know what had happened. I’m trying to figure out if this is a blind spot on his part or if Christine took the beating knowing how Arnie would react and that it would bring them closer together — and drag him further away from Leigh and his parents.

During the conversation between Dennis and Leigh, he recalls an overheard comment his father made about Arnie’s parents:

“The final triumph, Dennis’s father had said once, standing at the window and watching Regina lead Arnie by the hand down the Guilders’ walk to whee Michael waited behind the wheel of the car. Arnie and Dennis had been perhaps seven then. Momism supreme. I wonder if she’ll make the poor slob wait in the car when Arnie gets married…” (222)(Emphasis mine)

Momism?

Say what now?

“Momism,” according to Merriam-Webster, is “an excessive popular adoration and oversentimentalizing of mothers that is held to be oedipal in nature and that is thought to allow overprotective or clinging mothers unconsciously to deny their offspring emotional emancipation and thus to set up psychoneuroses.” Man, if that don’t nail the Regina-Arnie relationship right on the head, I don’t know what does.

For as controlling as Regina can be (and thus far in this novel, she hasn’t been painted in the most sympathetic light), I really feel for her. As Arnie drags himself into the house after spending the day with Chrsitine, Regina knows that every decision she’s made up to that point concerning her son and his car has been the wrong one. She is unable to really make amends. She simply is not wired that way.

On top of that, she feels her son slipping further and further away from her. He is in her eyes (and the reader’s) becoming a person so different from her “good boy” that she does not — cannot - recognize him:

“A stranger… my son is a stranger to me. Is this really my fault? Is it? Because I only wanted what was best for him? Can that be? Please, God, make this a nightmare I’ll wake up from with tears on my cheeks because it was so real.” (217)

The nightmare, unfortunately for Regina, is only too real and is one that she may never wake up from.

I mentioned that the day Arnie and Dennis ate lunch on the bleachers together felt like the last good day of their friendship. Well, the Thanksgiving scene at the hospital gives that earlier scene a run for its money. Dennis really feels the passage of time as he and Arnie talk about their shared past. I think this is King at his best, when he is talking about friendship and love and how both change as time moves on. Maybe the best example of this is from his 1986 novel IT when…

…all of the surviving members of the Losers Club begin to forget each other in the wake of Pennywise’s defeat. Talk about heartbreaking!

Stephen King must have been a Wonder Bread freak as a kid, because he mentions it in several stories. I don’t think I ever ate the stuff growing up. My mom, like Arnie and Dennis’s mothers, made me eat whole wheat. (How dare she care about my nutritional health and listen to our family doctor!)

Created by the Taggert Baking Company in 1921, Wonder Bread’s overly processed, bleached white appearance was originally seen as a sign of its purity. At the time, people had a lot more faith in industrial factory foods. Wonder Bread was so processed that by the time it came out the other end of the factory all of its vitamins and nutrients had been removed. Believe it or not, the FDA saw this as a bad thing. These important nutritional elements had to be reintroduced to the dough later, which is where the term “enriched bread” comes from. Wonder Bread’s long shelf life was also seen as a boon to post-WWII moms. Unfortunately, this was due mainly to the amount of sugar that Wonder Bread contained.

These days, most consumers see Wonder Bread as a symbol of everything wrong with the American diet. The local, artisan bakeries, whose so-called “unhealthy” and “impure” practices  were supposed to have been surpassed by Wonder Bread’s industrial manufacturing processes, have gotten the last laugh, it would seem. Maybe Wonder Bread could stand to learn a little something about selling enriched bread? It’s all about putting more stock into specialty bread. You just can’t rely on your sweetdoughs anymore, don’cha know! 

Let’s go back to a discussion we started to have about a week ago about Stephen King’s idea of the “myth-pool.” In his history of horror, Danse Macabre (which, really, I can’t recommend highly enough — if you have any interest in horror, it’s as good an overview of the genre up until 1980 as there is out there), King identifies the myth-pool as “that body of fictive literature in which all of us, even the nonreaders and those who do not go to films, have communally bathed” (50). So even if you’ve never read Bram Stoker’s Dracula (and you should!) and if you’ve never seen a vampire movie, because Dracula has been absorbed into the universal consciousness, so to speak, you would still understand the power of that image. We pinpointed three (maybe four) members of the horror myth-pool: The Vampire (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), The Werewolf (Robert Louis Stevenson’s  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), and The Thing Without a Name (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein).

(The Ghost is also part of the myth-pool but, according to King, there is no single ghost story that really nails down that trope in our minds — although he does give an honorable mention to the Henry James story “The Turn of the Screw.”)

What even is this cover?!

I promised to let you know when we reached the point in Christine when King dips his toe into the myth-pool. When Dennis gets Arnie to re-sign his cast then compares the two signatures, King tips his hand as to which “modern myth” he is referring to. It is a text that he returns to again and again throughout his career, though it isn’t one that many people are familiar with nowadays: Curt Siodmak’s 1942 science fiction-horror novel Donovan’s Brain.

Dr. Patrick Cory, in time-honored “Mad Doctor” fashion, experiments with keeping brains alive after death. W.H. Donovan is a meglomaniac millionaire (is there any other kind?) under investigation for tax evasion and other criminal activities. Lucky or unlucky for both men (we will leave that up to the reader), Donovan’s private plane goes down near Cory’s home. The good doctor is unable to save Donovan’s life, but — waste not, want not — he is able to remove his brain and place it into a glass tank filled with an electrically charged, oxygenated saline solution (patent pending).

According to the machines to which the tank is hooked up, Donovan’s brain is still active. One night, Dr. Cory finally receives unconscious commands from the brain. (“Change my saline solution!” being one of them presumably.) Cory jots the commands down in a handwriting that is distinctly not his own.

(Now where have we heard that one before?)

Soon, Donovan’s will completely overpowers the doctor’s. Cory is a mere vessel for Donovan as the magnate continues his criminal activities. Cory is taken over — both mentally and physically by Donovan: he project’s Donovan’s paranoia and takes on Donovan’s limp.

(Sound familiar?)

Donovan conspires to kill a young girl who stands in the way of his plans. Cory, fed up with being Madame to Donovan’s Wayland Flowers, draws the line at murder. He fears that soon he will have no will of his own and that Donovan may usurp him in his own body. The doctor’s lab assistant, Dr. Schratt, comes up with a plan to destroy the brain when it is “resting.” (It seems that even a brain in a jar needs a good eight hours of sleep per night.) Donovan attempts to take over Schratt, but the lab assistant is able to fend off the brain’s hypnotic attacks by repeating the phrase “Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.” The glass tank is destroyed, but before he finally dies, Donovan commands Schratt’s heart to stop.

Any of King’s Constant Readers will recognize the influence of Siodmak’s story on his work. Lifelong stutterer Bill Denborough in IT uses the phrase “He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts” to ward off Pennywise. Mark Petrie uses another rhyme — Bitter Betty bought some butter; “But,” said she, “this butter's bitter!” — to ward off the hypnotic commands of Danny Glick, Kid Vamp. These are just little touches that King uses here and there. With Christine, I think King goes full Donovan’s Brain.

Arnie’s personality is slowly undergoing a sea change. Everyone — his mother and father, his girlfriend, his best friend — sees it happening. The use of the word “shitter,” the back brace, the old-fashioned haircut, his very signature — everything about Arnie is different. It’s as though he were turning into someone else entirely. Like Dr. Cory in Siodmak’s novel, he seems unable to get out from under the will of LeBay. How long is it before Arnie is gone for good? And if LeBay is Donovan, is Christine the glass tank filled with an electrically charged, oxygenated saline solution (patent pending) that houses the old man’s “brain?” Can Dennis take an ax to her and save Arnie?

You will just have to keep reading to find out, Blog-o-weeners!

There’s a motel just over the next hill, and I for one am looking forward to a little shuteye. I am pretty pooped from all of today’s gabbing. Before we wrap up today’s trip, however, I’d like to talk a bit about Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena.

The concert that Moochie goes to — Jackson Browne — takes place at what King calls the “Civic Center,” but it’s really the good old Civic Arena. Built in 1961 (and called the Civic Auditorium at the time), the Civic Arena was originally the home of Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera. Later, in 1967, it became the home of the National Hockey League team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was the first major sport venue with a retractable roof. My mom said that when she saw Liberace there (no judgment!) they opened the roof. I myself saw The Beach Boys in the 1980s when they did the same. It was pretty cool.

I saw many great concerts at the Civic Arena during the 1980s — Triumph (my first ever concert), Rush, Iron Maiden, Dio, Journey, Heart, Ratt, Bon Jovi, Frank Sinatra (!). I wish they had opened the roof at most of those shows because things ended up getting a little “smoky” in the Igloo… if you know what I mean… and I think you do.

There was no show scheduled a week after Thanksgiving in 1978. Jackson Browne last played the Civic Arena in August of 1977 and wouldn’t return until 1980. Post-Thanksgiving, Moochie could have enjoyed Neil Diamond on 8 December. If he had, then he might have welcomed Christine dancing the Mashed Potato on his head on his way home.

I kid! I kid!

Whew! That was a haul, was it not, Blog-o-weeners? Five chapters! And we didn’t get to half of them. That’s okay. You can’t win ‘em all.

There’s no rest for the wicked, however. If Christine keeps truckin’, then so do we. For tomorrow, read Part 2: Chapters 31, 32, & 33. We’ll meet Lieutenant Rudolph Junkins, Pennsylvania State Police, Detective Division. He has some questions for Arnie. Ol’ Rudy seems to suspect something about Arnie’s girl… and I don’t mean Leigh. Junkins sees a line running straight from Buddy Repperton to Moochie Welch back to Christine. Look out, Arnie! He doesn’t seem like your average donut-eating cop.

In addition to all the concerts, I sat through quite a few indoor soccer games at the Civic Arena. The Pittsburgh Spirit were not a great team, but they were always entertaining, and I loved ‘em. I remember my dad taking me on my birthday to see the Spirit play the best team in the Major Indoor Soccer League, the San Diego Sockers. My dad was the guy who always wanted to leave the sporting event when there was still plenty of time on the clock, so he could beat the traffic heading home. The Spirit were down 3-0, and I could feel my dad getting antsy. I begged him to let us stay until the bitter end — it was my birthday, after all. We did, and the Spirit came from behind to win in overtime with a goal from my favorite player, Helmut Dudek. I was ecstatic! My dad… not so much. It took us what felt like hours to get out of Pittsburgh and back home.

I’m sure now he laughs about it, but at the time he must have felt like an object lesson for other parents in why you should put your foot down with your kids. “Study this moment well,” he’d tell his fellow fathers, “because…

Blog-o-ween 2024: Day 17

Lots of ‘Salem’s Lot

Part Two

Chapter 10: The Lot (III)

Sections 8-13

Sunrise: 7:00 AM

Sunset: 6:15 PM

Corey Bryant gets caught in Bonnie Sawyer’s bed by her husband, Reggie. Corey is shown the door — and Reggie’s shotgun. As Corey walks back to his truck, he meets up with Barlow, who is beginning to look younger. Must be something in the Lot’s water, no?

Susan calls Ben with terrifying news. Floyd Tibbits has died, and Mike Ryerson’s body has gone missing from the morgue. Later, attendants will discover the bodies of Floyd Tibbits and Randy McDougall are also missing.

Later, Mark Petrie hears something…or someone…tap-tap-tapping on his bedroom window. His second-floor bedroom window. It is Danny Glick, who has finally shown up at Mark’s house to play. Better late than never.

Before we dive into today’s action, let’s take a moment to offer my favorite vampire novel a hearty and happy anniversary. It was on this date in 1975 that Doubleday published ‘Salem’s Lot. With its publication, in the words of writer Jeffery Deaver, Stephen King

“singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since John D. MacDonald, brought reality to genre novels. He's often remarked that Salem's Lot was Peyton Place meets Dracula, and so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampires and make them fresh again.”

‘Salem’s Lot may have changed the landscape of the popular novel in America, but it didn’t change him. Not one bit.

While the scene that is cemented in the minds of ‘Salem’s Lot fans is still to come, the scene of Reggie Sawyer finding someone else in his marital bed is one that always sticks in my mind. This is mainly due to it being featured in Tobe Hooper’s 1979 made-for-tv movie. Fred Willard (as Larry Crockett not Corey Bryant) in his red satin undies. Sweaty George Dzundza (as Cully Sawyer) holding a double-barreled shotgun to Fred’s face, cocking the hammers back, and then pulling the triggers…on empty barrels.

Whew! What a scene.

Here, the scene plays out in almost exactly the same way. Except Corey Bryant, with a load in his pants thanks to the scare he receives at the wrong end of Reggie’s empty gun, is told to leave the Lot and never come back. As he walks back to his truck, dejected, he is met by Barlow. As Barlow’s eyes go to work on Corey’s will, his words do much to explain why he chose to come to the “Land of the Free” in general and the small town of Jerusalem’s Lot in particular:

“They have never know hunger or want, the people of this country. It has been two generations since they knew anything close to it, and even then it was like a voice in a distant room. They think they have known sadness, but their sadness is that of a child who has spilled his ice cream on the grass at a birthday party… 

“The country is an amazing paradox. In other lands, when a man eats to his fullest day after day, that man becomes fat…sleepy…piggish. But in this land…it seems the more you have the more aggressive you become… 

“So I have come here, to a town which was first told of to me by a most brilliant man, a former townsman himself, now lamentably deceased. The folk here are still rich and full-blooded, folk who are stuffed with the aggression and darkness so necessary to…there is no English for it. Pokol; vurderlak; eyalik… 

“The people here have not cut off the vitality which flows from their mother, the earth, with a shell of concrete and cement. Their hands are plunged into the very waters of life. They have ripped the life from the earth, whole and beating!”

That last paragraph, with its focus on the connection between the blood of the people and the land, would not be out of place in some right-wing demagogue’s stump speech. It isn’t just the blood of the people that brought the wolf Barlow amongst the sheep of the Lot. All the ugliness we have been shown — the secrets the townsfolk keep buried in their hearts — this, too, is food for the vampire. The prejudices of Small Town, U.S.A., are easily manipulated and used — whether by a power-hungry politician or a bloodthirsty vampire.

I won’t dwell on it, but Susan is doing her Scully bit again on the phone with Ben. Dammit, Susan! Get with the program!

Don’t you roll your eyes at me!

Okay. Now let’s talk Mark Petrie and Danny Glick.

I’ve described this scene as the one that most people think of when they think of ‘Salem’s Lot. That’s not 100% accurate. (Sue me.) The scene that most people think of is one that doesn’t occur in the novel but is one helluva set-piece in the aforementioned Tobe Hooper made-for-tv movie. That scene is of Ralphie Glick’s visit to his brother Danny. We’ll talk more about that scene in one of our upcoming free days. This scene in Section 12 between Mark and Danny, however, covers much the same ground and gives off much the same uncanny vibe.

Danny’s appearance at Mark’s window is startling:

“…Danny Glick was staring in at him through the glass, his skin grave-pale, his eyes reddish and feral. Some dark substance was smeared about his lips and shin, and when he saw Mark looking at him, he smiled and showed teeth grown hideously long and sharp. 

“‘Let me in,’ the voice whispered, and Mark was not sure if the words had crossed dark air or were only in his mind… 

“There was nothing for that hideous entity outside the window to hold on to; his room was on the second floor and there was no ledge. Yet somehow it hung suspended in space…or perhaps it was clinging to the outside shingles like some dark insect.”

Luckily, as we’ve noted before, Mark Petrie is one of us; he is a Monster Kid. His love of all things horror — the movies, the magazines, the model kits — have prepared him for this moment. Still, it is almost not enough. Danny’s voice and eyes begin to break through Mark’s defenses. Luckily, Mark is a Stephen King hero, and not only is he armed with pop cultural references, but he also has a few tongue twisters and phonetic exercises at his disposal:

“Mark began to walk toward the window again. There was no help for it. There was no possible way to deny that voice. As he drew closer to the glass, the evil little boy’s face on the other side began to twitch and grimace with eagerness. Fingernails, black with earth, scratched at the windowpane. 

“Think of something. Quick! Quick! 

“‘The rain,’ he whispered hoarsely. “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. In vain he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.’ 

“Danny Glick hissed at him. 

“‘Mark! Open the window!’ 

“‘Betty Bitter bought some butter—’ 

“‘The window, Mark, he commands it!’ 

“‘—but, says Betty, this butter’s bitter.’”

This device is used by King in other books. Bill Denbrough is given the phrase “He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts” by his mother to help with his stutter, but he also uses it as protection from Pennywise. This is something that King borrows from one of his favorite novels, Donovan’s Brain by Curt Siodmak.

In this novel, the titular brain belongs to a megalomaniac who is trying to take over the mind of the doctor who saved its life. Donovan’s brain uses telepathy to control Dr. Cory. Cory’s only way of fighting against the brain’s power is to use the rhyme “Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.”

The best only steal from the best, baby!

Let’s call it a day there, Blog-o-weeners. Tomorrow, we will be talking Part 2, Chapter 11: Ben (IV), Sections 1-7. Our little troop of Fearless Vampire Killers is beginning to grow, and they are making plans to take the fight to Barlow and his growing legions.

If, as you drift off to sleep tonight, you happen to hear some tapping at your bedroom window, don’t be in such a rush to open it. But if you do, just…

Blog-o-ween 2022: Suspense

On July 22, 1940, the Columbia Broadcasting System aired an episode of Forecast, which was used by CBS to test new show ideas. On this particular evening, Forecast brought its listening audience a thriller directed by Hollywood's newest resident, Alfred Hitchcock. The play Hitchcock chose was an adaptation of one of his early films, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927). Hitchcock's take on the Jack the Ripper story was a big hit, and it set the tone for the radio show that CBS developed afterwards.

Suspense became one of the most successful programs of the Golden Age of Radio and its twenty-two year run is testimony to that. Subtitled "Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills," Suspense drew an impressive array of talent to its microphone over the the years. In addition to Alfred Hitchcock, listeners heard the talents of Cary Grant, Lucille Ball, Rita Hayworth, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, Charles Laughton, Loretta Young, Lillian Gish, Gene Kelly, Alan Ladd, Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, Orson Welles, James Stewart, and many, many more! Many of these talented people were attracted to Suspense because it allowed them to play against type. Where else could you hear Jack Benny and Eve Arden play scheming killers?

While Suspense had many sponsors over the years, I think most old time radio fans tend to associate Roma Wines with the program. From 1943 to 1948, the Fresno, CA-based wine company hawked its wares to Suspense's audience by assuring listeners that Roma Wine was “America’s largest selling wine” and was “Made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.”

Today, we have three episodes of Suspense's more horror-centric stories. First up is "Fugue in C Minor," written by Lucille Fletcher and starring Vincent Price and Ida Lupino. Ol' Vinnie plays a widower looking to make Ms. Lupino his new wife. Good news: Price owns a very large house. Bad news: said house is built around a enormous pipe organ. Worse news: Price's children tell Lupino that they think their father murdered their mother and the woman's ghost inhabits the organ!

Next is a two-parter -- "Donovan's Brain," based on the Kurt Siodmak novel and starring Orson Welles. Welles portrays Dr. Patrick Cory, who has been experimenting recently on keeping the brains of dead monkeys alive. A nearby plane crash brings the ruthless robber baron, William Donovan, into Cory's life and his lab. Cory succeeds in keeping the industrialist's brain alive, but Donovan doesn't let the fact that he doesn't have a body stop him from taking over Cory's mind.

Last, we have what an early entry into the found-footage genre: "Ghost Hunt." Ralph Edwards plays Smiley Smith, a radio deejay who records his night in a house where four people are known to have committed suicide.