In his 1981 treatise on the horror genre, Danse Macabre, Stephen King argued that the schlocky '70s haunted house flick, The Amityville Horror, was popular in its day because it was really about the terrifying financial insecurity that so many middle-class families were experiencing at the time. In fact, if memory serves, I believe King called it the first economic horror story.

Well, it may have been the first, but it certainly wasn't the last or the best; any number of good ones have come along in the years since. And Kevin Drum has found one of the most unsettling you're likely to chance upon in a month of Sundays here.