Oh hey look, another Stephen King novel turned into a film. This one is from 1990 and stars James Caan plays Paul Sheldon an author who crashes his car on a snowy road and is saved by his number one fan, Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) who doesn't necessarily have Caan's best interests in mind. The film is directed by Rob Reiner while Robert Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride) wrote the screenplay. Also co-starring is Frances Sternhagen, Richard Farnsworth, and Lauren Bacall.
This one is about as good as a Stephen King novel turned film can get. Caan is great as the victim to Bates' psychopathic mood swings. One minute she loves him and the next moment she is breaking his legs with a sledgehammer. The "hobbling" scene is still one of the hardest scenes for me to watch that has ever put on screen. Bates would go on to win an Oscar for the Best Supporting Actress category. Yes, a Stephen King movie actually won an Oscar. What can you say about her performance? Bates was an unknown talent before the movie came out so this left us all with quite a first impression.
The film remained very faithfully to the novel and all of the tension and suspense from the novel actually transferred over exceptionally well. Reiner took the screenplay, that he worked very closely with during the adaption, and got exactly what he wanted from his actors. When I was writing about this it surprised me that Barry Sonnenfeld was the cinematographer of the movie. When I think of his name I think of the Men In Black movies as well as The Addams Family movies. Of course I also think of him as a director not as a cinematographer so that explains some of the breathtaking shots that are featured throughout the film. The Horror Honey and I both give the film 4 COCK - A - DOODIE CARS out of 5. My Auntie Grizelda was with us for this one and she gives this one 3 and a half which is big for her considering she actually likes this one.
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