October Horror 2013: 7 - Misery

Closing out Shit We Missed week is the Rob Reiner directed Misery starring James Caan and Kathy Bates, based on a story by Stephen King.  Misery is considered by many to be a classic, and I think it deserves that distinction but I am never watching this movie again.

Author Paul Sheldon (Caan) has published a series of successful romance novels centering around a woman named Misery Chastain.  He wanted to focus on more serious work so he retired to his traditional writing cabin to put together a manuscript.  Upon finishing it, he began driving down the hill in the middle of a blizzard.  Unfortunately he can't hack the weather and drives off the road, where he's rescued from the wreck of his car by Anne Wilkes (Bates), a local nurse who takes him to her home.  When he wakes up she claims to be his #1 fan, however her devotion makes Paul pretty uncomfortable.  I'm going to leave it there because this actually a very good movie and although the elements aren't really twists and are pretty easy to see coming, it's worth it to let the movie reveal things at its own pace.  One thing I will say is that when I saw the movie I thought Paul's new manuscript was the final part of the Misery series that incites the conflict, and not the recently published Misery book.  In checking wikipedia's summary, I discovered I was wrong.

Anyway, the movie really succeeds on the strength of the performance.  Specifically the stark contrast between Caan's mostly passive smile-and-nod Paul and Bates' completely manic-depressive Anne.  Woman plays a good psycho.  Most of the camera work is very good and tension building but some of it when Anne flies off the handle is a little cheesy at first.  Though it plays a major part in producing that uncomfortable feeling you get when you're stuck in a room with someone who's taking something way too far and reacting way too strongly and you don't want to contribute to the situation, but you can't leave and don't know how to make it stop.  Uncomfortable is the word of the day here because it's very hard to watch this movie.  Very worth it, though.

One more important caveat is this, like Secret Window, is very difficult to play the Stephen King drinking game to.

Week 2 begins with the first of mega-ultimate-super-classics: The Mummy.

--PXA