fright – Feline Fright Fest

“I’m your number one fan.”

My mom says this book terrifies her, but I don’t quite understand. I’m her number one fan, and I’m sure she would love it if I took care of her and gave her a lovely room and hobbled her legs so she could never leave me.

Maybe the difference is I’m a cat and not a psychotic nurse.

Hello, everyone! This is Geralt back at work again reviewing the books The Writer makes me read. Apparently this month is supposed to be super scary for humans. I don’t want my mom to be scared, so I make sure I fall asleep on her face so she can’t read the scary words in the stories.

She just doesn’t appreciate everything I do for her, just like Paul isn’t grateful enough for all Annie Wilkes is willing to do for him.

…

The Writer is giving me a weird look.

Anyways, I’m going to review Stephen King’s Misery, a 1987 horror and psychological thriller that continues to terrify audiences. It was one of King’s only books to not incorporate fantastical elements (such as pyrokinesis or telepathy), and also became one of his only great film adaptations.

So, what do I think of it?

Quite a lot.

The Plot

The plot is an excellent example of a contained story with few locations. In Misery, the protagonist is Paul Sheldon, an author who has been restricted by his own popularity. He feels smothered by a character he created, Misery Chastain, and is unable to branch out to other endeavors because his cheesy, trashy romances pay the bills.

Sheldon is an alcoholic and decides, during one of his binges, to try and drive to Los Angeles instead of return to New York. He crashes while trapped in a snowstorm in Colorado, and wakes up injured in the home of former nurse Annie Wilkes.

The story rapidly goes downhill from there. Wilkes is unstable, fanatically obsessed with Misery and Sheldon, and drugging the writer to keep him compliant and addicted so he doesn’t leave. When she discovers her favorite character has been killed off in the final novel of the Misery Chastain series, she flies into a psychotic rage and abandons Sheldon for two days without food, water, or his painkillers.

To make matters worse, many of the keys stop working on the typewriter. The horror!

What happens next is a modern Scheherazade tale full of nightmare fuel. Sheldon must write a new book that brings Misery back to life while being tormented by Wilkes’ whims. He cannot escape, and any resistance is met with harsh punishments, including a truly gruesome hobbling and the loss of his thumb to an electric knife.

The only way Sheldon can win is by outsmarting Wilkes and using her own obsession against her – but not without losing pieces of himself physically and metaphorically.

Also, there were no cats in this book. Shame. There is a pig named Misery though, so that’s something.

The Review

The Writer considers this to be one of the scariest stories she ever read, and it’s easy to see why. Annie Wilkes is a classic example of a character who is deeply disturbed. From her first appearance, it is clear there is something just off about her. Once she doesn’t get her way, her rage and psychotic episodes become obvious.

However, while Wilkes might be the greatest villain King ever wrote, Misery really stands out for its metaphors and writing style. Paul Sheldon is addicted – to painkillers, to alcohol, and to writing. He must battle his addiction to make it out alive, and many of the events and passages in the book were taken from King’s own experiences trying to get clean.

The writing is linear but includes many passages from Sheldon’s own novels, as well as his numerous asides and memories. What the reader knows of Wilkes and the world outside is limited to only what Sheldon knows, meaning we have the same anxiety and fear as the poor trapped man.

While some parts of the book can drag and Annie seems to be a cornucopia of mental illness with no real diagnosis, this is one horror volume that will leave readers at the edges of their seats.

The only downside is you might need a trash can nearby when you read the hobbling scene. If you can make it without vomiting, you can survive the rest of the book.

Plus, the movie is stellar.

I never knew Kathy Bates would haunt my nightmares for years.

Overall, I give misery 5/5 Paws.

While there are no cats, there are plenty of feline frights to be had. Just don’t read this book if you are an amateur writer. You will be afraid to ever publish anything again.

The Black Cat

The Plot

The story is simple. The narrator was married and possessed a beloved black cat named Pluto, whom he loved dearly. Unfortunately, he started drinking and became consumed by the alcohol.

As one often does, the narrator became irritable and violent, attacking his wife and cat. One night, while drunk, he thinks Pluto is avoiding him. Pluto runs when the narrator tries to grab him. Enraged, the narrator picks Pluto up and stabs out his eye with a pen knife.

Bastard.

Although at first filled with remorse, the narrator soon despises Pluto for avoiding him. One day, he catches the cat and hangs it from a tree, killing it. That night, the house catches fire and the narrator, his wife, and all of his servants must flee.

Things go downhill from here. The narrator returns to his burned home only to find an imprint of a cat hanging from a noose left in the ashes. He runs away once more and lives in his new home, his guilt growing. One day, at the bar, he finds a cat that looks just like Pluto, even missing an eye. The only difference is the white patch on its chest.

Since this is a Poe story, you can watch as the man descends into madness, overwhelmed by his own guilt. Over time, he becomes convinced the cat is haunting him and begins to see the white patch on the new cat’s chest as a set of gallows. Eventually, he tries to kill the cat with an ax, only to be stopped by his wife, whom he murders in a fit of rage.

He walls up his wife in the basement and accidentally also traps the cat inside. The feline’s yowling leads to his crime being discovered, and the man being tried for murder.

The Review

This story is classic Poe, and is another which once again features a cat as the manifestation of a human’s guilt. It is shocking, lurid, and gory. Although it tries to be psychological, it’s hard to feel any compassion for the narrator. He beats his wife, tortures his cat, and eventually murders in cold blood.

It’s hard to admit, but I don’t consider this a good story. All it does is show humans can be bastards and addiction is a beast. While there was space to explore some interesting themes, it was left unexplored.

Though, to be fair, part of my dislike of the story could be that it’s written in the traditional style of the early 19th century, which is very dry and purple for modern audiences. Plus, I’m a cat. I don’t want to read about some poor cat being stabbed and strung up to die in the garden.

But I suppose that’s what makes it horrific.

I’m going to give The Black Cat 3/5 Paws. It’s scary for me because I don’t want to think about my human getting drunk and hurting me, but humans might find it more gratuitously violent than anything else. And this is after the Hitman cat story!

Also, if you want to read it, you can find it here!

Remember we are watching….