Stephen King sure does know what scares us. Cars like Christine, great big dogs, telekinetic prom queens, clairvoyant kids, clowns. Was there a movie about a cat? I was never that much into Stephen King. But I like how he takes the everyday things that scare us and blows them up into these huge scary supernatural things.

"Christine" was a good movie, basically a love story. Except with a car. A car that killed people. A lot.

I don't know what Stephen King is writing about now. I haven't really kept up with him. But I know there's plenty out there to be scared of. What about conspiracies and aliens? Supermodels, mall Santas, and former child stars?

He could make a movie about Gary Coleman and right before he starts killing people he could say "What YOU talkin' bout....WILLIS?!??!"

Or a movie about a normal average guy who dates a supermodel, and then...well, something psycho happens, like maybe he starts turning into a supermodel, too. That's good. He starts walking around with no shirt on and talking about how he really wants to be an actor. And, o yeah, then he starts killing people.

There could be a movie about a woman's, um, time of the month. You know, how like the girls who need those pad things are never near as excited about them as the ones on the commercials seem to be? On second thought, that's more a Jeckyll-and-Hyde thing. It's been done to death.

I like how these movies all start off simple and idyllic and then get progressively weirder and weirder, until finally things are blowing up and people are dying all over the place. It's kind of like the first year of marriage.

"It" was really good and kind of different. "Firestarter" is my favorite Stephen King book even though the movie sucked. It was kind of like a superhero movie, except no costumes.

If I had superpowers, I think my life would be more like a Stephen King book than a superhero movie. I can say that with relative certainty because even without superpowers my life sometimes isn't that far off from a Stephen King book. There are no clowns or thinking cars trying to kill me, but I'm not a billionaire with a high-tech hideout in my basement, either.

I think a good break in the Stephen King formula would be for a story to make something scary that wasn't scary. Like a toy baloon. I mean like, say people started dying and every time they did a toy baloon floated by with a smiley face on it. That would be kind of creepy. Or a kitten or a bunny rabbit that was killing people.

I guess I never really got it, this attraction people had to things that scare them. Some folks just like being scared I guess, and it's easier to read a book than to go skydiving. But that doesn't explain why people like things that are disgusting, or get obsessed with things like death and hell and murder. Maybe they're glad it's not them. I know death is a reality, I just think it's going to get everybody sooner or later and there's no sense getting worked up about it.

Alfred Hitchcock said that fear is in anticipating. Anyway that's the gist of what he said, I don't know what the exact quote is. In the old days, there would be a werewolf on the loose and a shadow would pass across the screen and kids would pee their pants. You couldn't get away with that nowadays, except maybe on a McDonald's commercial.

On the other hand, "The Blair Witch Project" was really scary and there was no blood or gore in that. You would think lots of folks would have tried to copy it, especially since it cost nothing to make, but I don't think that anyone has.

Note To Stephen King: If you read this, and you want to use any of my ideas, feel free. We'll work out the royalties later.