Misery Tagged Articles at Cinematical

We've all been there, that incredibly awkward, deeply painful moment when your beloved looks into your eyes and says: "We need to talk." That translates into: "It's over." / "I've found somebody else." / "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." / "I'm getting married. No, not to you." / "Actually, I'm straight."

No one likes to be spurned, and with Valentine's Day arriving this year the day after the new Friday the 13th will be released, the deadly combo of horror and romance made me think about movies in which someone goes nutty after being dropped or dismissed, or is left feeling unloved. Should we count our blessings that Jason Voorhees never got dumped by his girlfriend?

1. Fatal Attraction

"I'm not going to be ignored, Dan!" The movie that was single-handedly responsible for scaring all married men away from cheating on their wives in 1987 features my top pick for a spurned psycho. Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) looks like a perfectly responsible, attractively mature lady, but she has a naughty side that flares up when Dan (Michael Douglas) dares to treat their one-night stand as, well, a one-night stand. Rabbit, anyone?

2. Carrie

Poor Carrie (Sissy Spacek). She might have been fine if everyone had just left her alone. But, no, her mother berates her and the kids at school tease and ridicule her. Then Tommy (William Katt) insists on taking her to the prom and even kisses her! Maybe everything will be OK! Nope. When she's bathed in blood and everyone laughs, she knows she's been set up -- Tommy must be in on it too! -- and takes care of business as only a spurned telekinetic psycho can do.

As something of a minor expert in the field of Stephen King cinema, I do have a few of my very favorites. On the dramatic side I'm a big fan of Dolores Claiborne, Apt Pupil and (of course) The Shawshank Redemption. But when it comes to the spooky stuff, the ones I always come back to are The Shining, Christine and Pet Sematary. Interestingly enough (to me, anyway) my #1 King flick manages to straddle that line between poignant drama and effective horror -- and that's David Cronenberg's The Dead Zone. See that one again soon.

Another one of the really cool creepy ones is Rob Reiner's Misery. The director was coming off of a five-movie run that still amazes me to this day: This Is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally. But when the former meathead decided to tackle one of King's most psychologically unpleasant novels, even hardcore fans like me were pretty skeptical. We needn't have worried. Bolstered by the Oscar-winning performance of Kathy Bates, some really excellent work from James Caan, and a sterling adaptation by William Goldman, Reiner delivered one of the best King flicks of all time. And I still think that designation stands, although your opinions may vary. Obviously.

Anyway, guess what? A brand-new special edition of Misery is on the way! Yep, and here's what it'll offer: two separate audio commentaries (one with Reiner and the other with Goldman), seven (!) featurettes covering everything from the score to the characters to "real life" stalkers, and even a few little goodies in the trailer department. Obviously this is a huge step up from the bare-bones Misery disc that's presently residing on my DVD shelf, but I'll be making the upgrade on October 2. Oh, and what good timing: That's the same date we'll see John Cusack go nuts on the 1408 DVD. Cool.

Wow, this is going to be hard for two reasons. On one hand I'll find it tough to rank my very favorite Stephen King movies because the ones I love ... I really love. On the other hand there's been a whole LOT of rotten King flicks churned out over the years -- and I actually like some of those, too! But as a lifelong King kook I think I'm able to separate the wheat from the chaff -- even if, yes it's true, I actually sort of enjoyed Tobe Hooper's The Mangler. (It's just so enjoyably stupid!) So with that I bring you my own personal picks for the best Stephen King adaptations yet (not counting TV shows, mini-series or short films).

Christine (1983) -- Yes, the book is better and sure, a few important things were monkeyed with on the way from page to screen, but there's so much I do like about John Carpenter's adaptation that it makes the speed bumps a lot easier to handle. From the filmmaker's creepy score to an excellent lead performance by Keith Gordon, the flick's just got an admirably bad-ass attitude. Stripped down to its essence, Christine is not much more than another "geek fights back" revenge-centric horror flick, but Carpenter makes the movie his own with a solid production design, a few excellent set pieces and a pace that moves at an appreciable clip. Plus that car is just so damn cool.

Pet Sematary (1989) -- Just about every hardcore horror geek I know holds Pet Sematary in pretty high regard, and just one visit with this bleak and unflinching piece of pulp horror will explain why. It's a remarkably grim and unapologetic tale of dead cats, cute kids and a patch of land that, well, it resurrects dead tissue is what it does. And if you've read even one "back from the dead" story, then you know they never end well. (Pet Sematary, both the book and the movie, packs one doozy of a dark denouement.) OK, so maybe Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby aren't exactly the rock-solid thespians you'd want for a screenplay this devilishly mean-spirited, but the pair do what they can, plus they've got good ol' Fred Gwynne supplying background color by the bucketful. (And don't forget about poor sickly Zelda! Yuck.)

Carrie (1976) -- The very first (and arguably one of the very best) of the Stephen King movies, Carrie hit the screens courtesy of a young Brian De Palma, and the director pulled out a big bag of Hitchcockian tricks to bring the story to the silver screen. It's about a socially bankrupt young girl who tries to cobble together a normal social life ... much to the chagrin of some snotty she-bullies and a resoundingly devout lunatic of a mother. Some might say the flick takes a long while to get where it's going, but between the prom night finale and the graveside stinger, Carrie more than delivers its share of grisly goods. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie make it watchable all by themselves, but De Palma is the real star here. (OK, De Palma and a young, evil John Travolta.)