30 Years Ago: Misery
Today in 1990, Rob Reiner released his adaptation of the Stephen King novel
On a recent episode of Eli Roth’s History of Horror, Stephen King was asked what is the scariest Stephen King movie? Not known to play favorites, King surprisingly answered the question. Can you guess which of his filmic offspring he deemed most terrifying? You can probably predict it wasn’t The Shining, as he famously loathed Kubrick’s adaptation. How about that freakshow clown in It? Carrie torching the gymnasium? Malachai and Isaac spewing the bible verses in Children of the Corn? Nope, nope, and nope. King’s answer was... Misery, released 30 years ago today.
It is not the obvious choice. Misery contains only two graphic sequences, the fight scene at the end and the famous hobbling scene, which people often remember as gruesome, but shows nearly nothing. (The horror, as they say, is psychological. The worst kind, wah-ha-ha.)
You know the plot: A romance novelist is held captive by his “No. 1 fan,” who forces him to write a novel that resurrects her favorite character, Misery Chastain. I have always wondered if Misery was influenced by the story of overzealous Sherlock Holmes fans who demanded that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle resurrect the detective after Moriarty killed him off in “The Final Problem.” Like the novelist in Misery, Doyle tried offing his famous protagonist so that he could quit genre fiction and become a serious writer. No doubt Stephen King has entertained the thought himself.
Anyway, Kathy Bates won an Oscar for Best Actress for her flawless portrait of the fanatical captor. Director Rob Reiner wasn’t nominated for anything, which hardly seems fair. Shouldn’t you at least win an honorary award when Stephen King says you made the scariest Stephen King movie?
MORE ANNIVERSARIES
80 Years Ago Today: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz got hitched.
120 Years Ago Today: Oscar Wilde died, impoverished and exiled in Paris. A few days later, he would be buried at Bagneux Cemetery, but in 1909, his remains were moved to a tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery.