Product DescriptionDisc 1: CARRIE SPECIAL EDITION Disc 2: NEEDFUL THINGS Disc 3: THE DARK HALF Disc 4: MISERYAmazon.comMisery
Based on the chilling bestseller by Stephen King?? Misery was brought to the screen by director Rob Reiner as one of the most effective thrillers of the 1990s. From a brilliant adaptation by screenwriter William Goldman?? Reiner turned King's cautionary tale of fame and idolatry into a mainstream masterpiece of escalating suspense?? translating King's own experience with obsessive fans into a frightening tale of entrapment and psychotic behavior. Kathy Bates deservedly won an Academy Award for her performance as Annie Wilkes?? an unbalanced devotee of romance novels written by Paul Sheldon (James Caan)?? whose books provide Annie with a much-needed escape from her pathetic life and her secret?? violent past. After Annie rescues the injured Sheldon from a car accident?? she seizes the opportunity to nurse her favorite writer back to health?? but her tender loving care soon turns to terrorism as she demands that Sheldon write his latest novel accord"r wish-fulfillment fantasies. From this point forward?? Misery percolates to a boil as equal parts mystery?? thriller?? and cleverly dark comedy?? with the helpless author pitched in deadly warfare against his number one fan. While Bates carefully modulates her role from doting kindness to sympathetic loneliness and finally to horrifying ferocity?? Caan is equally superb as the celebrated author who must literally write for his life. It's essentially a two-actor film?? but Richard Farnsworth and Lauren Bacall are excellent in supporting roles as they investigate the writer's mysterious disappearance. Frightening?? funny?? and totally irresistible?? Misery was such a hit that some of Bates's dialogue entered the popular lexicon (particularly her nagging reference to Caan as "n")?? and its nail-biting thrills remain timelessly intense. --Jeff Shannon The Dark Half
Although it lacks the creepy subtleties of Stephen King's celebrated novel?? George Romero's underrated adaptation of The Dark Half ranks among the best films based on King's fiction?? with Romero taking care to honor King's central theme while serving up some gruesome gore in the film's much-criticized finale. Inspired by King's own admission that he wrote several novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman?? The Dark Half explores the duality of a writer's impulse?? ranging from literary respectability to the viscerally cathartic thrills of exploitative pulp fiction. Author and teacher Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) finds himself torn between those extremes when he "" his profitable?? pseudonymous alter ego George Stark (the bestselling "ark half" to Thad's light)?? w" then assumes an evil?? autonomous form (again played by Hutton) to lethally defend his role in Thad's creative endeavors. Forced to wrestle with this evil manifestation of his own unformed twin?? Thad must fight to protect his wife (Amy Madigan)?? their twin babies?? and his own survival as an artist. Romero skillfully develops the twin/duality theme to explore the writer's dilemma?? and Hutton is outstanding in his dual roles?? playing Stark (in subtly fiendish makeup) as a redneck rebel with a knack for slashing throats. Julie Harris adds class in a supporting role?? and horror fans will relish Romero's climactic showdown?? in which swarms of sparrows seal Stark's fate. It favors a pulp sensibility with clunky exposition to explain Stark's existence?? but The Dark Half is a laudable effort from everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon
Needful Things
Stephen King adaptations are strictly hit-or-miss propositions?? and this supernatural thriller from 1993 is definitely a "ed on one of King's lesser novels and starring Max von Sydow as the evil proprietor of a small-town antique sh