Paul Sheldon is a best selling novelist and he is on his way home from his hideaway in Colorado after completing his latest book. Due to the blizzard his car crashes and he just happens to be saved by his number one fan Annie Wilkes. She doesn't tell anyone taking him back to her house . . .
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This is one of those films that I probably already knew quite a bit about, considering Kathy Bates won Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance and the basic plot. Although in all honesty the plot doesn't really have a massive amount going on for it, but it doesn't actually need that much extra considering it is very intense and downright creepy.
For about the first ten minutes I felt sorry for Annie Wilkes as she seemed genuine enough and just a little bit well special if I can put it like that. After that initial ten minutes I changed my mind and realised she is a complete psycho. Like seriously Glenn Close's character Alex in Fatal Attraction seems completely normal compared to this, yes really that includes her bunny boiler moment! Kathy Bates is phenomenal in the role and in all honesty at times I was wondering how much James Caan was acting considering he probably had no idea the way she was going to act in the different scenes, had to be creepy watching her behave like that!
The intensity you feel for Paul is real and you keep wondering what it is going to take for someone to find him or for him to escape. Although considering the state of his legs and then the part where she ensures he won't be moving for even longer. I have since been told that it is a lot more graphic in the book than they transferred to the screen. I mean come on poor Annie was not happy when she found out that Paul had killed of her heroine in the novels?
Come on though when everything unfolds should people have not thought about Annie sooner with Paul's very sudden disappearance when he was due to arrive home? I guess if that was the case though we would not have really had many scenes going on in the film. I thought Richard Farnsworth as Buster was impressive as well, although fell into the trap that so many characters do in this type of film. Call for back up first?!?! It was lovely to see Lauren Bacall in the film as well all be it in a very small role.
Very pleased to have caught up with this one though as everything just works so well for it, from the performances to the music and intensity with the run time being 1 hour 47 minutes it did not feel long at all. Moves at a good pace, starting with the build up and then exploding when it needed to which for me worked out very well. Rated 18 in the UK it has made me wonder if it would still receive that rating today?
