MY 13TH FAVORITE MOVIE VILLAIN

Well, another Halloween has gone by. My Halloween sucked but it all paid off when my kid Brother and I went into a haunted house at an indoor go kart place. However, we're not here to talk about my Halloween, we're here to talk about my 13th favorite movie Villain…

ANNIE WILKES (KATHY BATES)


FROM "STEPHEN KING'S MISERY"

Boy do celebrities have it tough. There are fans who won't leave them alone; stalk them (Like the press); dream of them night and day; collect every material based on them; and act like them. The worst person to have for a fan is a person like Annie Wilkes. She is every celebrity’s worst nightmare of an obsessed fan. Why is she different from most fan, let's take a look.

WARNING:THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

 


Annie Wilkes obsessive’s over an author named Paul Sheldon who writes a book series called "Misery". She loves the series so much that she tries to get the first copy of a new "Misery" book; remembers all the words by heart; and even names her pet pig after the character of the book. She doesn't just love the books, she also loves the author. she knows about his history and spies on him whenever he's writing a book. She saves Paul from an accident he had during a snowstorm and takes care of him while he's in pain. She's very sweet, she's very religious, and she's luckily a nurse. So it looks like Paul is in luck and is in great care....or is he?

Annie Wilkes surprisingly appears to be a very bipolar person; anything can set her off like a rocket. It's first shown when Annie tells Paul that she doesn't like the swearing in his new book that's not yet published and do to that she spills a drop of soup on Paul's bed while she's feeding him, which causes her to yell and scream. Another example of her mood swings can be shown in the scene when Paul asks her to get different pieces of paper because the ink on his typewriter smudges on the brand she bought him. Due to that request, she starts going nuts. The scene that shows her true anger is when she finds out that Paul has killed off her favorite character, which causes her not only to yell and scream at him, but also shake his bed while he's still recovering and throw things around the room. Paul made a terrible mistake because this is what brings us to the true mentally psychotic fan that she is.

My favorite scene of her madness is the monologue she gives about going to the movies to see her favorite hero Rocketman, because it talks about why I hate cliffhangers so much. Read some of the lines in the monologue "The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset." Then she continues by telling him about the result of the cliffhanger. "And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn't cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn't what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn't fair!" Ending with one of her best lines; "HE DID NOT GET OUT OF THE COCK-A-DOODIE CAR!" That's part of the reason why I hate cliffhangers so much.

The next day, she makes Paul burn his book and has him write a new “Misery” book. She now believes that he was sent to her by god and to help him change his ways. Once we get to this part of the plot things really get thrilling. Annie doesn't just force Paul to write a new book, but also tells him how to write it instead of letting Paul create his book on his own. She doesn't just want Paul to write a new book, she also wants to keep him here with her forever. To do that, she lies to people about Paul being with her; destroys the phones so Paul won't call for help; hides the evidence about Paul's location; and locks Paul in a bedroom or in the basement, while he's still crippled. She even goes to the extreme level of keeping Paul in her house by strapping him to his bed; giving him pills to knock him out; kills the sheriff for finding him; and breaks both of his legs with a sledgehammer. When he's done writing the new book, she plans to kill Paul and herself so that they can be together forever and ever.

What really frightens me about her is you don't know when she'll go crazy, what she's thinking and what she's going to do. In the scene when she pours gas on the untitled book, she pours a little gas on the bed that Paul's in. Is it by accident or is she thinking of burning Paul with the book? Another scene that gets me thinking is the scene when she gives the Sheriff hot cocoa, she smiles, acts friendly but the Sheriff doesn't drink it. Why does Annie want him to drink could she put a sleeping pill to knock the sheriff out? You just don't know for sure what she's thinking. Annie does have a creepy back story that is found in a photo album of her career as a nurse, without giving that part let me say it's not only thrilling but basically explains her madness. When we get to the end of the film it ends on one of the most violent fights in cinema history which gives our Villain a very gruesome bloody death. In the Epilogue Paul lives and writes a new non "Misery" related book but still can't forget the hell he's been through. Sometimes he thinks he sees Annie even though it's just his imagination. He meets a waitress who kind of looks like Annie and claims that she's his number one fan. Paul nervously but casually responds "That's very Sweet of you" and the credits roll.

 Kathy Bates Won the Golden Globe and the Oscar for best Actress and is also the first woman to win an Oscar for a horror character. Her performance is also number 17 on AFI's top Villain 50 Villains list and is number 9 on Nostalgia critic's list of the "Top 11 Scariest Performances". Annie Wilkes is one of those Villains that really keeps my suspense level going throughout the film, because when I watch this film I can imagine what it would feel like to be in Paul's position which is basically the idea of the film. I pray if I become famous, I hope I don't have a fan like her. 

"And don't even think about anybody coming for you. Not the doctors, not your agent, not your family. 'Cause I never called them. Nobody knows you're here. And you better hope nothing happens to me. Because if I die... you die."-Annie Wilkes