Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

1993 • 992 pages

Ratings62

Average rating3.8

15

Stephen King explains that he believes Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, and Nightmares & Dreamscapes to all be one trilogy of his shorts. The latter of which consisting of some shorts he didn't think were entirely ready on the same level as the other two collections at first. 

- Crouch End (Lovecraftian horror)
- Suffer the Little Children (feels Clive Barkerian)
- Sorry Right Number (Hitchcock would've loved this Twilight Zone style ep)
- Popsy (the recent Abigail movie definitely read this)
- Chattery Teeth (feels like parallel to The Monkey)
- The Night Flier (Nightmare at 20,000 Feet if the plane also landed)
- 10 O'clock People (King's They Live)
- Rainy Season (Shirley Jackson's The Summer People meet The Nest)
- The End of the Whole Mess (could be a Twilight Zone ep)
- Ummey's Last Case (great Barton Finkish concept that should be adapted)
- Home Delivery (small island community zombie short)
- The Moving Finger (guy loses his mind locked in his apartment type beat)
- Dolan's Cadillac (might be the most screen adaptation potential, which it does have one)
- Doctor's Case (King's jab at Sherlock & Watson)
- The Fifth Quarter
- It Grows on You
- My Pretty Pony (feels like a brief flashback of a bigger story)
- Sneakers (incredibly underwhelming given the potential)
- You Know They've got a Hell of a Band (bland despite the premise)
- Dedication (as usual, King is rather odd when writing Black characters, and this is an entire Black narrative here)
- The House on Maple Street (forgot it instantly)
- The Beggar and the Diamond (not a King story, but added in)

I don't count the poem Brooklyn August, or Head Down, as that was King sitting about his son's real baseball game. 

August 12, 2024