Misery

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Horror	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1990	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	105 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Menu
Region	4	Director	Rob Reiner
Distributor	Polygram	Starring	James Caan Kathy Bates Frances Sternhagen Richard Farnsworth Lauren Bacall
RRP	$34.95	Music	Marc Shaiman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	None	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) German (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
Macrovision	?
Subtitles	English German Spanish

    This is where things start to go wrong. Paul's new book does not meet with Annie's approval - too much "cock-a-dandy" swearing for her tastes. However, Annie also gets hold of Paul's latest Misery book, and things are good again for a while...until Annie finds out that Misery dies. Then, things really go wrong for Paul as he realizes that he is being kept a prisoner and it is unlikely that he will ever be found.

    Misery is a great movie, with brilliant acting by James Caan and Kathy Bates. Kathy Bates, in particular, plays her character superbly, alternating between charming and evil. The story is finely crafted, and moves through suspenseful moment to suspenseful moment, with a number of twists along the way. At least one scene, involving a block of wood, will make you cringe, and is one of the most shocking scenes I have ever seen on film (this is praise, not criticism).

    The supporting cast consists of the cynical, wise-cracking local Sheriff, Buster (Richard Farnsworth) and his equally cynical and cheeky wife, Virginia (Frances Sternhagen), and a cameo appearance by Lauren Bacall as Paul's literary agent, Marcia Sindell.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (4:3). It appeared to be a Full Frame transfer rather than a Pan & Scan transfer. As always, I would have preferred a widescreen matted presentation, however, we are unlikely to see this any time soon. I note that the Region 1 version is a dual-format disc.

    The transfer was quite sharp and clear, with good shadow detail, and no low level noise. It wasn't quite up to current generation transfers, but was certainly acceptable. Comparing it to the Laserdisc, the DVD was significantly sharper and had much deeper and better looking blacks given the absence of low level noise on the DVD.

    The colours were nicely rendered in this transfer, and I was very happy with them. Overall, they are well-saturated, more so than the Laserdisc, with no colour bleeding at all.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen.

    Film-to-video artefacts were a problem with this transfer, with frequent aliasing present on a number of scenes. In particular, any scene shot in the snow was a problem, and any scene involving a car was a problem. The usual problematic venetian blinds also caused some aliasing, but not badly so. The added sharpness of DVD makes these aliasing artefacts more noticeable compared with the softer Laserdisc image.

    Film artefacts were surprisingly few and far between.

Audio

    Dialogue was completely clear all of the time, important for a movie such as this one.

    The music complemented the on-screen action without standing out particularly.

     The surround channel was used frequently for music and also to add some ambience, such as during thunderstorms. The soundtrack was reasonably enveloping, but more could certainly have been done with the sound to make it even more enveloping.

    The .1 channel was not specifically used, however my surround sound processor sent some signal to the subwoofer, mainly music. It never needed to work hard at all, except here and there.

Menu

    The video quality is of generally good quality, but did suffer quite marked aliasing problems at times, making this overall a just barely acceptable transfer.

    The audio quality is of reasonable quality, and in particular has very clearly recorded dialogue.

    The extras are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras	nil
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
11th January 1999