When we think of Stephen King adaptations, and there are a lot of them, a great many winners and duds come to mind. Misery, I would imagine, was kind of a surprise hit seeing as how nearly the entire film takes place in one house.
I actually read this book a bit before the film was made. I blame this on the fact that my parents would take us (force us) to spend a few days a week in the library (thanks for that mom and dad, even though I didn't appreciate it at the time.) Misery was a gripping novel, and a terrifying movie.
The story is about a famous romance author named Paul Sheldon (James Caan) who after a car accident ends up in the care of Annie Wilks (Kathy Bates) who happens to be a local nurse. One other side-effect of her finding him is that she also happens to be a massive fan of his series of books, but she doesn't realize that he actually intends to transition to more serious writing and has the manuscript of his latest book in the car with him.
Upon reading the draft, Annie becomes enraged that Paul Sheldon is killing off her favorite character named Misery Chastain in the book that is yet to be published. She tells Paul that no one knows where he is, forces him to burn the manuscript, and get working on another one where her favorite character doesn't die.
Like most of my write-ups, I am not doing a great job of making this movie sound captivating. Well, it is and you should definitely see it. It is very highly regarded in the horror genre and despite the fact that Stephen King is responsible for both The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, this is the only Academy Award that has ever been given to any King film. Kathy Bates received the Best Actress award in 1990 for her chilling portrayal of Annie Wilkes.
I am not going to spoil anything, but for those of you out there that have already seen the film, the "Hobbling" scene is currently ranked as the 12th most terrifying moment in horror films, ever.
Overall I would say that this movie does take a bit of patience, because it takes about 30 minutes for any action to take place in the movie. However, like most things in life that are nice, it is worth waiting for. They somehow managed to spend $20 million making this, presumably on salaries for the most part. They ended up tripling their money at the box office.