“The Dead Smile” (1899)

F. Marion Crawford didn’t write even a dozen horror short stories, but they tend to be among the best from the fertile turn of the 20th century. This one features a corpse that keeps escaping from its coffin in the family mausoleum—beheaded, too, and the head self-mobile, harbinger of Crawford’s “Screaming Skull,” still to come just a few years later. “The Dead Smile” riffs on “rictus sardonicus,” a term not used in the story but an apt tag on the internet—an exaggerated involuntary grin. The condition generally comes of tetanus but can also suggest strychnine or hemlock poisoning. Ray Russell put it to good use in his 1961 story, “Sardonicus.” In this story, the unnerving grin is associated most with a bitter old man who harbors family secrets. “He smiled, stretching pale lips across discolored teeth in an expression of profound self-satisfaction, blended with the most unforgiving hatred and contempt.” What’s more, and probably the best effect here, whenever he flashes this grin everyone else in the room starts to grin the same way. It’s the source of the story’s title, with interesting multiple meanings. In the spooky family crypt most of the dead are wrapped in shrouds, except the one that climbs out of its coffin and is usually found leaning against a wall with its head rolled up at its feet. This is all great scene-setting, especially when everyone starts to grin in unison. It’s good, because the story can be unfortunately a little lame and obvious. The terrible old man with the big grin wants to forbid a marriage between his son and his niece but won’t say why (it’s not hard to guess as the story goes along). I note that the marriage of first cousins made me uneasy, but not anyone else here. “The Dead Smile” largely overcomes its flaws by its strange air and details. As it happens, the point of the story, its big revelation, doesn’t have much to do with either the escaping corpse or the rictus sardonicus. There’s also a banshee on hand (in Irish legend, a female spirit whose wailing warns of an impending death), equally beside the point and perhaps the least interesting element of the story. “The Dead Smile” may not be Crawford’s best, but it holds its own.

65 Great Spine Chillers, ed. Mary Danby (out of print)
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