In this non-fiction book Stephen King examines the horror genre, primarily between the years 1950-1980, although with a quick look at the roots of the genre with Frankenstein, Dracula and Jekyll and Hyde.
King doesnt' really offer any amazing new insights into the genre, but this is a readable enough work, enlivened by odd moments of autobiographical details. Strangely for a writer King focuses as much on movies as novels, though it's interesting to read his various takes on Kubrick's version of 'The Shining' (King maligns it once, then praises Kubrick on other occasions, before indicating the film as a personal favourite in the index!).
The book as a whole can get rather repetetive, as most of it seems to consist of King running through various book/film plots, but at worst this can be seen as a primer for the horror genre, and I suspect most readers will come out of this on the lookout for a handful of books and films that they had not previously experienced.