Ask JKM a Question #43: Carrie, Jodie Foster, and Ghost Story?

A reader from Europe named Mario writes:

“Hi, I came across this reflection, Ghost Story: “House of Evil” and wonder if you think there is a connection between the Judy character and Carrie...”

“...And did I miss a cult classic like The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane on your site or do you ignore it, or do you think everything is said about it already? 

Hi Mario, thanks for writing.

I have just finished watching all of Ghost Story/Circle of Fear (1972 -1973) at this point, and it’s my opinion that the relatively unknown TV series is actually a major source of inspiration for Stephen King. 

He writes about the series in Danse Macabre (though under the wrong name) and praises it very strongly.

It’s a bit of a tangled chain of custody, but let me explain.  In the chapter, “The Glass Teat,” on page 249, Mr. King praises an obscure TV series called Quinn Martin’s Tales of the Unexpected (1977), particularly an episode in which a “murderer sees his victim rise from the dead on his television set.” 

The only problem is that no such episode exists in that short-lived series catalog, which consists of only eight programs. 

But the description fits “The Dead We Leave Behind,” an episode of Ghost Story, perfectly.  It stars Jason Robards as a murderer who buries his cheating wife in a garden shed, and sees her rise from the dead on his TV set.

 It’s easy to see how King might have made such a mistake, because Ghost Story (1973) and Tales of the Unexpected (1977) were virtual contemporaries.  It’s like mistaking a Twilight Zone episode for an Outer Limits or Thriller episode.  It’s not hard to do.

Again and again, while watching Ghost Story/Circle of Fear episodes, I’ve been struck by elements which seem to forecast King’s popular horror novels.

“The Dead We Leave Behind” features elements in common with Pet Sematary, for instance.  It involves a local legend -- spelled out explicitly in the dialogue -- about burying corpses before winter comes.  If they aren’t buried in time, they come back to life wrong, possessed of “both life and death.”

The episode “Doorway to Death” features some familiar elements later seen in The Shining, particularly a killer “ghost” in a haunted building.  That ghost has axe-murdered his wife in that edifice.  Snow plays a part in the episode too.   

The episode “Ghost of Potter’s Field,” meanwhile, involves a writer and his sinister doppelganger, which is reminiscent of King’s later The Dark Half. 

Finally, a vampire-like “eternal” named Barlow (David Soul) plays a role in the last episode “The Phantom of Herald Square,” forecasting Salem’s Lot.

I’m adamantly not asserting plagiarism or theft here, by the way, just noting that Ghost Story/Circle of Fear appears to have had at least some creative impact on the King of Horror in the early 1970s.  An intrepid writer could no doubt pen a very meaningful thesis, actually, on the connections between the various series episodes and multiple Stephen King’s novels.  Your question suggests another.

Why has no one else mentioned this connection yet?  Well, Ghost Story/Circle of Fear only became available on DVD months ago, for the first time in thirty-five years or so.  And I daresay I'm the first (or one of the first, anyway), to blog the whole series. 

Of course, the point is that King’s popular and beloved stories bristle with the author’s individual style and taste, and are in no way rip-offs.  

When I created my web series, The House Between, for example, I was inspired stylistically and content-wise by Sapphire and Steel, The Prisoner, Space: 1999, The Outer Limits and One Step Beyond, and sought to convert those inspirations into something new and original.  It’s what writers and creators do.  They build, naturally, on past traditions and, yes, specific works.

All that established, I did not see or notice the connection, until you mentioned it, between Carrie and the character played by Jodie Foster in the episode “House of Evil.”  Both girls seem to possess burgeoning mental abilities, for instance, and are outsiders in their own households.  A more interesting connection, perhaps, in terms of Carrie, involves a One Step Beyond episode called “The Burning Girl.”  I'd recommend watching that one.

I’m actually quite a big fan of The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, by the way, and I’ll review it here on the blog before too long.  I’m definitely not ignoring it…I promise.

Don’t forget to send me your questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com