In 1981, long before he started writing the study On Writing, Stephen King decided to analyze the concept of horror. Danse Macabre is nothing more than an anatomy of horror, structured in ten chapters with a solid dose of humor and examples drawn from literature and cinema; from "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" to "The Exorcist", "The Twilight Zone" and "Rosemary's Baby".

According to King, novels, movies, radio shows - even comics - that have horror as their theme always operate on two levels. At the top is the level of terror, which can be achieved with more or less artistic mastery. But on another, deeper level, the work of horror is actually a dance - a rhythmic quest.

The horror genre is not interested in the civilized "furnishing" of our lives. Such a genre traverses the rooms we have furnished one by one, with each one expressing - hopefully! - our socially acceptable and pleasantly open-minded character.