Misery

Category: Horror  |  Tags: horror

posted by: Roger 105 days ago          

According to Finley Peter Dunne, a fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case. In Misery, romance novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) learns this the hard, and excruciatingly painful, way.

After ploughing his car into a ravine during a heavy snow storm, Paul swims up from unconsciousness, his legs horribly mangled in the crash, to find himself in the house of his number one fan, former nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), out in the Colorado wilderness.

The phone lines are down after the storm, but as soon as they are back up, Annie assures him, she will get him to a hospital. In the meantime she’s bandaged up his legs and given him prescription painkillers from her seemingly limitless personal stock. And since he is her favourite author and the creator of her favourite fictional character, Misery Chastain, she would be very honoured to have him in the house for a few days.

Paul’s levels of enthusiasm - never very high in the first place - plummet, however, as he continues to lie in bed, day after day, helplessly watching as his number one fan begins to display increasingly erratic and violent behaviour. Especially since he’s the dirty birdy who’s killed off Misery Chastain in his latest book.

With the possible exception of The Shawshank Redemption, this is the best film adaptation of a Stephen King novel yet. But the movie will be remembered mainly for the fact that Kathy Bates won an Oscar for her very violent and very convincing portrayal of a schizophrenic psychopath.

Keep the lights on when watching this one - you don't want to see nurse Annie's shadow growing out of the darkness behind you …