To this general happiness there was one exception. I remember nothing earlier than the terror of certain dreams… My bad drams were of two kinds, those about specters and those about insects. The second were, beyond comparison, the worse; to this day I would rather meet a ghost than a tarantula.
-C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p.8
This is precisely why Stephen King is scarier than H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s nightmares are typically nameless fears: The Hunter in the Dark, the dream of Cthulu. They are still creepy, but only second-hand, by their effect on people’s behavior.
Stephen King on the other hand, in describing is writing, has always said the key to horror was to take something completely normal from everyday life and tweak it just it bit. So with him we get killer cars and evil domesticated pets. A demonic dog chained up your neighbor’s back yard (Cujo) is a lot scarier than a ghostly wraith that hangs out in the swamp on the edge of town (The Moon Bog).
For the record, I am no fan of horror in either form, though I have somewhat of a soft spot of vampires. And killer robots. They don’t count.