for a "traditional" werewolf, but rather sees the character as the origin of the modern archetype that was later defined by werewolves. The evil-werewolf archetype, argues King, stems from the base and violent side of humanity. These major archetypes are then reviewed in their historical context, ranging from their original appearances to their modern-day equivalents, up to and including cartoon breakfast cereal characters such as Frankenberry and Count Chocula. The chapter "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause" begins with King's explanation for why he included the section: "I cannot divorce myself from a field in which I am mortally involved." He then offers a brief family history, discussing his abandonment by his father at the age of two, his childhood in rural eastern Maine, and then explains his childhood fixation with the imagery of terror and horror, making a comparison of his uncle successfully dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of the H.P. Lovecraft collection The Lurker in the Shadows, which had belonged to his long-since-departed father. The cover art, an illustration of a monster hiding within the recesses of a hell-like cavern beneath a tombstone, was, he writes, the moment in his life which "that interior dowsing rod responded to". King then resumes his discussion of the horror genre by making detailed commentary of horror in all forms of media, beginning with radio, then proceeding to a highly critical review of television horror, two separate chapters on horror in the motion pictures, and finally concluding with an examination of horror fiction. His critique on the radio examines such American programs as Suspense, Inner Sanctum, and Boris Karloff, and praises Arch Oboler's Lights Out. King ultimately concludes that, as a medium for horror, radio is superior to television and films, since radio's nature requires a more active use of imagination. King then turns to two separate chapters of horror in the motion pictures. In "The Modern American Horror Movie—Text and Subtext," the "subtext" he refers to consists of unspoken social commentary he sees in the films. The 1951 film The Thing from Another World implies commentary on the threat of communism, "the quick, no-nonsense destruction of their favorite geopolitical villain, the dastardly Russians," King writes. The popular 1973 film The Exorcist