Written by Old Bluffer 19th Mar 2008

Kindly submitted by Damien, A Alcott, Grifster and several others

Paul Sheldon is a best selling romantic novelist, but experiences a life-changing ordeal of sheer horror when he gets caught in a blizzard and crashes his car. He is "rescued" by a local woman who is an ex-nurse, which seems like good luck, but at numerous points of the film one imagines he wishes he'd simply died in the snow.

At first, everything is OK. Annie seems eccentric, perhaps even addled in the head, but everyone has their quirks, right?

Sheldon's first mistake is to reveal his identity. It turns out that Annie is his "Number One Fan!" He doesn't register the Extreme Peril he is in when he hears this though, and naively agrees to let her read the soon-to-be-published manuscript of the latest in his "Misery Chastain" romance series. This must go down as one of cinema's biggest mistakes, on par with Mac speaking English to a German in the Great Escape!

Sheldon you see, has decided to kill off his leading heroine and end the Misery series with this, the last in the series. He doesn't tell Annie this of course, so when she reaches the awful realisation that her favourite character is no more, she flies into a psychopathic rage that is terrifying to behold.

So, with Annie revealed to be madder than a bag of ferrets, she locks the helpless author up and forces him to do a major rewrite - she is after, his "Number One Fan!"

Now bear in mind that poor old Sheldon is still banged up from his car accident, so he really is at the mercy of this crazy old bat. Still, as her mind games become ever creepier, he does make numerous shows of defiance, tries to escape and even tries to kill her, by means of poison and a large kitchen knife. As each of these desperate plans fail, Annie disciplines him further, culminating in the infamous scene where she "hobbles" him in the middle of the night, with a large lump hammer, and no anaesthetic. This is, quite understandably, one of the most disturbing things many people have ever seen in a film, made so much worse by James Caan's screams...

Now wheelchair-bound and utterly helpless, all Sheldon can do is rewrite his novel as Annie demands, and try and mollify her anger by being nice to her - in many ways an even more horrific thing to be forced to do.

His hope is briefly ignited when the local sheriff calls at the house to investigate the missing author's whereabouts, but Annie blasts him with a shotgun. She then tells him that she has loaded two bullets in her handgun, one for him and the other for herself, so that they can die together.

It is now transparently clear to Sheldon that drastic, desperate action is needed if he is to stand any chance of escaping with his life. He persuades her that they need to wait until the novel is finished, so the world can find out what happened to Misery - which is of course the perfect argument to use on Annie.

When the time finally comes and the manuscript is finished, Annie obliges him with a match, a cigarette, and a glass, so that he may have one smoke and one glass of wine, as is his custom after finishing a book. Sheldon tells her to get another glass for herself, and while she is out of the room, he douses the manuscript with lighter fluid. When Annie returns, he lights the match and destroys the manuscript she is so desperate to read. Horrified, she tries to put out the fire, and Sheldon finally sees his opportunity, hitting her over the head hard with his typewriter.

An extremely violent struggle ensues, with Sheldon hitting his head upon the window and getting shot in the shoulder, and Annie having the burning paper shoved in her mouth and her eyes nearly gouged out. Finally, Sheldon trips her, and she lands, smashing her head open on the typewriter.

Figuring her to be dead, Sheldon crawls into the hallway... only to have her re-emerge, still very much alive, behind him. Sheldon tries desperately to grasp the nearest blunt object, a small cast metal sculpture of a pig, that Annie uses as a doorstop (and has named after the Misery heroine). Finally, he gets a hold of it, and with one final blow to the forehead, Annie collapses, dead once and for all.

Paul therefore survives his ordeal at the hands of a Mad Woman - but he has post-traumatic stress syndrome (seeing visions of Annie) and is of course hobbled for life. So, it's probably a safe bet that he won't be attending many fan conventions or book signings in future...

Old Bluffer's Thoughts

Misery is a quintessential horror movie, and succeeds in being far scarier than any number of creature features or serial killer flicks. This is mainly due to the sheer normality of the setting, contrasted shockingly with Kathy Bates' terrifying performance as a psychopath. One might fancy their chances against say, Jack Nicholson in The Shining - but against Crazy Misery Lady when you're weak and vulnerable? Now that is frightening...

It's almost a shame then, that the film as a whole is somewhat overshadowed by the effect of That Scene. Like the shower stabbing in Psycho, it has become so well known and parodied that the original shock factor isn't so easy to remember.

For me then, this is definitely a contender to be in my Top 10 Genuinely Scary Movies.