31 Days of Halloween: Misery (1990)

Hello, Bloggers, here is my second review of the day. For this review, I will discuss another Stephen King adaptation. That adaptation is the 1990 classic film Misery.
 
                              Story:
                       Misery is about a writer named Paul Sheldon (James Caan) who is driving during a snowstorm, only for his car to crash. But, he is then rescued by a kindly woman named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) who just happens to be his number one fan. Once she reads a manuscript for his latest novel, she then goes ballistic and decides to go through extreme ways for him to rewrite his novel and she tries to make sure that he never leaves.

                       What I Didn't Like About It:
                      What I liked the most about this film was the performance by Kathy Bates. She is just amazing as this woman who acts sweet and delicate yet is very calculating and malicious. Plus, the fact that she acts very sweet is what makes her more frightening to watch, and I am quite happy that Bates won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance. James Caan is also very good and I enjoyed watching them play off each other as their on-screen feud was not just horrific but even darkly comedic as well. Another thing I liked was how the film has an isolated setting. Most of the film takes place in an isolated cabin caught up in the snow, and in the bedroom as well. To me, limiting the setting to the bedroom gives it a rather claustrophobic feel for our main hero who is bound to a bed and seems to have no way out.
          
                       Now, what I feel makes this film so frightening is that it shows how there are fans out there who really obsess over their idols and it gets to an extreme degree. Whenever we see horror movie boogeymen like Freddy, Jason, and Michael, we get scared by them, but we realize that they are fiction. But Annie could be a real person and a really obsessive fan, so that's what makes her terrifying, and possibly even more terrifying than those three. This movie probably makes artists, from authors to musicians, fear the words "I'm your number one fan" once they watch it.

                     What I Didn't Like About It:
                     Nothing.

                     Consensus:
                   Overall, Misery is a superbly done and claustrophobic psychological chiller that makes artists fear the words "I'm your number one fan". Of course, even if your aren't an author or musician or anything like that, this movie will still struck a chord with you, thanks to Kathy Bates' magnificent performance.

Rating: 4.5/5