Editorials
‘Misery’ at 30: The Destructive Co-Dependency Between an Author and His Number One Fan
Misery ranks high among the upper echelon of Stephen King adaptations. It holds a firm spot among the top-grossing King films, captured the hearts of critics and audiences alike, and boasts a powerhouse, Oscar-winning performance by Kathy Bates as psychotic nurse Annie Wilkes. Wilkes’ iconic and chilling portrayal marked Bates’ breakout role, a virtual unknown before getting recommended to play the part by screenwriter William Goldman (Magic). Released in theaters on November 30, 1990, Misery managed to hold a respectable place at the box office, taking second place to holiday season juggernaut Home Alone. Thirty years later, Misery remains a top tier King adaptation and has been credited as a prescient dissection of modern toxic fans. However, its journey from book to screen proves a far more layered and timeless relationship with fandom.
The idea behind the novel came to King in a dream on a flight to England. It was intended to be a short story or novella, but its characters became too big to be contained, and a full-blown novel ensued. Like many King stories, Misery was a personal one. The author’s attempt to branch out of horror with the high fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon was met with contempt and backlash from fans. He was deep in the throes of alcohol and cocaine addiction and no stranger to bizarre fan behavior at this stage in his career. Then, while writing Misery with the intent to release it under the pen name Richard Bachman, a book store clerk noticed similarities between Bachman’s work and King’s, did some sleuthing, and eventually exposed King’s shadow writer identity.
The book’s title is a double entendre; Misery refers to the heroine of protagonist Paul Sheldon’s most successful book series and his state of being throughout the story. More acutely, it’s King’s state of being during its writing. At the beginning of the book, in a drug-induced fog, Paul wakes to the unnerving sight of Annie Wilkes. She’s rescued him from a car wreck caused by Paul’s drunken state of mind. Still, instead of getting him proper help, she holds him captive and proceeds to inflict psychological, emotional, and physical torture throughout the book’s pages. There’s no pretense of Annie’s psychosis here, and she acts as both the drug that feeds his addiction and the tumultuous relationship between editor and writer. On a broader scale, Annie – Paul’s number one fan- acts as a stand-in for toxic fans that demand far too much from their idols. As such, Paul may hate Annie, but he needs her to survive, both literally and figuratively.
Because Misery hit very close to home for King and that other adaptations of his work failed miserably, he became too conservative when granting rights. Misery wasn’t for sale, not until Rob Reiner put in a request. Having been pleased by Reiner’s Stand by Me, based on another profoundly personal story, King granted Castle Rock Entertainment rights on the sole condition that Reiner produce or direct.
Reiner tapped Goldman to pen the screenplay and initially intended to hand the directorial reigns over to George Roy Hill and Barry Levinson. When they backed out, Reiner decided to direct it himself and set about studying every Alfred Hitchcock and thriller movie he could get his hands on to develop the visual language.
Bringing King’s novel to life on the big screen meant changes to the story. The film removes Annie’s duality as symbolism, dropping the drug addiction component entirely to focus on the relationship between a flawed author and his intensely toxic fans. In the novel, Annie intentionally gets Paul addicted to fictional painkiller Novril, ensuring that he’s dependent upon her. In the film, Paul (James Caan) tucks his doses of Novril in his mattress to stockpile for an escape attempt.
The adaptation speeds up the ticking clock to layer in immense suspense by introducing local sheriff Buster (Richard Farnsworth) almost straightaway when Paul’s agent (Lauren Bacall) realizes he’s missing very soon after his crash. Conversely, this version of Annie isn’t nearly as vicious up front; the longer it takes for Paul to be found, the more Annie’s pleasant veneer cracks to expose her deranged, murderous side. That slow-coiling escalation, combined with Reiner’s employment of wide angles and Dutch tilts, demonstrated that the director’s in-depth study of thrillers paid dividends in mounting tension.
Played to perfection, Bates imbues Annie with far more sympathy than ever afforded the character in the novel. Her plucky simpleton and eager-to-please persona masking terrible darkness glimpsed in her violent rage every time Paul steps on a hidden landmine of her short temper. To offset her sympathetic nature, the film makes the scrapbook reveal of her serial killing ways far more nefarious- instead of giving an overview of her lifelong serial killing ways, the movie cuts right to the chase of her maternity ward baby-killing spree for brevity’s sake. It’s the lowest of lows when it comes to taboo breaking monstrosities, making it an easy choice for Reiner to convey Annie’s darkness all within the span of a single newspaper clipping.
In perhaps the most glaring departure from the novel, Reiner infuses hope. Instead of losing a limb via ax, Reiner switched it out for the infamous hobbling scene by a sledgehammer. He wanted his protagonist to make it out whole and undefeated. That’s also why Paul manages to successfully publish his first novel outside of his Misery series in the end, instead of publishing Misery Returns once he’s finally free from Annie’s clutches- the novel’s coda for Paul. The movie’s author succeeds in breaking free from fandom’s-imposed limitations, where the novel’s author finds renewed interest in his famous book series after finding more comfortable footing- pun intended- with his relationship toward the fans that fuel his career.
Whereas the central, antagonistic relationship between Paul and Annie in King’s source material offers layers of meaning, Reiner cuts straight to the chase with a thrilling examination of the co-dependency between fans and creators. The director hit it out of the park, and King has often cited Misery to be among his favorite film adaptations of his work.
In the social media age, where fan access to creators is easier than ever before, it’s easy to refer back to Misery as a predictive commentary on where fandom was headed. The truth is that fans had always taken ownership of their most beloved stories, well before King came along. The novel is as much about the author’s lack of control, thanks to addiction, as it is about his very personal experiences with fandom. Even when the book was published in 1987, he faced a backlash from fans over its vicious takedown of fandom’s darkest impulses. Never mind that Paul Sheldon was no prize himself, or that he needed Annie just as much.
Reiner honed in on that co-dependency and crafted a gripping, award-winning thriller around it. Where there’s an ugliness to both characters from the novel’s beginning, the film treats them with humanity and empathy. There’s a timelessness to the central theme. It’s bolstered by the thought and care put into every facet of the adaptation. From the writing to Reiner’s direction and smart changes to the casting choices that introduced the world to Kathy Bates, Misery firmly holds its own as one of the best King adaptations. As the mutual need between fans and storytellers only speeds up and grows louder in the digital age, Misery holds just as much relevancy now as it did thirty years ago. Perhaps even more.
Can you believe it’s already been fifteen years since 2009? I feel older than Jason’s mother’s head. But never mind all that. We’re going to look into the past in celebratory fashion today and take a month-to-month look at what the world of horror looked like back in 2009.
The dreaded month of January kicked things off in usual January fashion with a forgettable title, The Unborn. A David S. Goyer picture that’s not very memorable but managed to be the sixth most successful horror film of 2009 domestically, raking in over $42 million at the box office.
Right behind it on the calendar was Patrick Lussier’s My Bloody Valentine 3D starring “Supernatural” actor Jensen Ackles. This slasher remake took the idea of January horror and embraced it, making a silly and gory slasher that was the world’s first R-rated film to ever use Real3D technology. Anyone looking for legitimate scares was probably pissed (the film has a 44% Rotten “Audience” rating) but genre fans had fun with it to the tune of over $51 million at the box office (on a $14 million budget).
Next up, releasing on January 30 was the sleepy PG-13 horror flick The Uninvited. For the life of me, I’ll never understand the choice to release a movie called The Uninvited two weeks after a movie called The Unborn; to be fair, most of us are unable to remember much about either of them.
The reboot of Friday the 13th was served up to us for Valentine’s Day Weekend 2009. A slasher movie that made a ton of money and had fans begging for a sequel… that never came. The Platinum Dunes reboot may not be universally beloved, but I know a fair share of fans (myself included) who thought the new Jason, Derek Mears, and team made a film that was both fun and brutal. And it was juicy enough to come in as the number three most successful domestic horror film in 2009 to the tune of over $65 million. Friday the 13th ’09 was nowhere near perfect but it was a damn fun time with some underrated Jason Voorhees moments and a sleek plan to tell Jason’s origin story quickly via flashbacks that some superhero franchises could learn from. Oh yeah, and it starred the other “Supernatural” bro, Jared Padalecki. I’m sensing a pattern here.
‘Last House on the Left’
Next up, yet another remake of a classic horror film: The Last House on the Left. Wes Craven wanted to see what his low-budget horror film would look like with a little walking around money and the results were that we, the audience, got to see a dude get his head microwaved. The critics weren’t huge fans but let’s be honest, it could have been a lot worse given the subject matter and lack of nuance in the 2000s. Last House went on to land itself in the top ten horror box office returns of the year.
March would also feature one of the many notches in Kyle Gallner’s horror belt, The Haunting in Connecticut, a movie with maybe too many generic possession genre moments to make a major dent in the status quo but enough to make it memorable. I’d take it over many of The Conjuring franchise spinoffs of today, personally. Though, they’re all very much alike.
April Horror would conjure nothing for audiences but Sam Raimi would bring the loud, scary, and funny back to the genre with Drag Me to Hell on May 29. This film that was somehow still PG-13 even with a cat murder, flying old lady eyeball, and mouth-to-mouth puke action was a blast to experience in the theater. Audiences agreed as the film ranked #7 on the horror box office of the year, cashing out at $42 million thanks to a loveable lead in Alison Lohman, the forever horror victim Justin Long, and some good old-fashioned, Evil Dead II-type fun.
‘Drag Me to Hell’
July would shock horror fans in a completely different way with adoption horror flick Orphan. The ending may have had all of us feeling super uncomfortable and shocked but the movie itself had adoption groups majorly upset at how the film depicted the dangers of adoption. So much so that the studio had to add a pro-adoption message to the film’s DVD. No matter, the performance of Isabelle Fuhrman would carry the film to a $41 million box office run and later spawn a decent prequel in 2022.
Speaking of collecting, The Collector was also released in July 2009 and was a pleasant surprise featuring a shitload of originality and some scares to boot. Yet another horror success that would make $10 million on a $3 million budget and spawn a sequel. We’re still waiting on third installment, which abruptly stopped shooting several years back under strange circumstances.
The fourth Final Destination film graced us with its predestined presence in 2009 as well with The Final Destination; the 3D one with the race car track opening. The film was (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) a financial success, raking in over $186 million (worldwide) on a $40 million budget.
Rob Zombie went Rob Zombie’ing as hard as he’s ever Rob Zombie’d with Halloween II later that month. He’d Rob Zombie so hard that we wouldn’t see Halloween on the big screen again until almost ten years later with Halloween 2018. And nothing controversial ever happened in the franchise again. *Shuts book* Stop trying to open it! NO! NOOOOOOOO!
‘Halloween II’
Another remake in Sorority Row was the first film to follow Rob Zombie’s divisive stab-a-thon with a schlocky Scream-esque slasher flick that had a good enough time and even boasted a few neat kills. Critics weren’t fans of this one but if you were? You’ll be happy to hear that writer Josh Stolberg just announced he’s working on the follow-up!
Sexy Horror September continued a week later with Jennifer’s Body and an all-new, emo kind of Kyle Gallner. Jennifer’s Body didn’t exactly crush it for the critics or the box office but has success in its own right and is considered somewhat of a cult classic thanks to some hilarious writing and leading performances from Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. Also, shout out to Adam Brody’s band Low Shoulder. Machine Gun Kelly could never.
Part of the low box office for Jennifer’s Body could have had something to do with what came next as Paranormal Activity would rock the horror world a week later. The genius marketing of the low-budget film would feature clips of audiences on night vision cameras losing their minds. Whether it scared you to death or you found the entire concept ridiculous, you had to see it for yourself. Paranormal Activity would bring in almost $200 million worldwide on a 15 THOUSAND dollar budget. I’m no mathematician but I’m pretty sure that’s good. The horror game changer may just be the most remembered of all the 2009 films and it’s one every studio in the world wanted to replicate.
‘Paranormal Activity’
One film’s game changer is another film’s flop as Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster’s space horror Pandorum had the unfortunate scheduling of lining up against Paranormal Activity on that fateful day and in turn, being mostly forgotten.
Spooky Season 2009 kicked off with the beloved horror-comedy Zombieland in October, complete with Jesse Eisenberg’s meta-rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse, Bill Murray, and Woody Harrelson who just wanted a fuckin’ Twinkie. There’s nothing like a good horror comedy and Zombieland proved that all the way to the bank, making $74 million domestically en route to a second film that brought back the entire cast.
It’s only been twelve seconds since I said the word remake, so let’s fix that. The Stepfather remake would follow a week later and be met by an audience getting a little sick of them. Unlike some of the other spirited remakes that surrounded this era in horror (not that they ever stopped), The Stepfather felt like an uninspired retread of the understated but completely messed up 1987 Terry O’Quinn horror cult classic. It’s largely been forgotten over the years.
“Who am I here?” Oh yeah, it’s October in the 2000, there’s bound to be a Saw movie around here somewhere. Saw VI would be released on the 23rd of October and continue the story of Detective Hoffman while adjusting the rates of some shady insurance adjustors. Saw VI would also fall victim to a little bit of Paranormal Activity mania with the film being bested by the continued rollout of its predecessor. Things were looking a little bleak for the franchise at this point. Probably none of us would have imagined that fifteen years later we’d be talking about the same director (Kevin Greutert) returning for the eleventh movie in the franchise.
‘The House of the Devil’
After all these humongous box office successes, sequels, and remakes it would be three memorable indie flicks that would round out October of 2009; the ultra fucked up Willem Dafoe, Lars von Trier sex/horror flick Antichrist, followed by Ti West’s ’70s haunter The House of the Devil and rounded out with some Australian torture horror in Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones. All three movies each make their mark in their own special ways. What a way to end October.
But it was November that would bring the movie that scared me more than any other on this list: The Fourth Kind. A lot of you are assuredly rolling your eyes right now but this one messed me up on a cellular level despite it being a complete and total fake. The Fourth Kind decided to meld a traditional horror film with the stylings of The Blair Witch Project in an opening designed to make you believe it was based on a true story. An embarrassing attempt but the film itself had me afraid to sleep near windows at night after seeing those found footage abductions. It still messes with me, to be honest. WHY ARE THEIR MOUTHS STRETCHING SO MUCH?!?!
December was too busy doing Avatar and Alvin and the Chipmunks-type family affairs for any horror movies but even without it, 2009 was quite a year for horror. I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some other memorable films that were released either straight to video, limited or overseas that year including Case 39 (that oven opening!), Exam, Daybreakers, Splice, Dead Snow, The Hills Run Red, The Descent 2, Blood Creek, Cabin Fever 2 and [REC] 2.
What were your horror favorites from 2009? Comment below and let us know!
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