GERALD’S GAME is awkward as hell…
Stephen King is out here on every platform, kicking people in the face with horror cleats. Adaptations of The Dark Tower, The Mist, Mr. Mercedes, Gerald’s Game and It all landed this year.
You have to respect the genius of the man. To sell his properties so cheap meaning more of them get made, more of his name spoken and more of his books sold. Perhaps most importantly in the age of content, more of his work reaches a screen somewhere. Enter Gerald’s Game on Netflix.
Ole’ Gerald is played by Bruce Greenwood, who’s been in something you’ve seen. I constantly referred to him as NCIS guy to my wife although he’s never been on that show….but doesn’t he just have that look?
I’m also not ashamed to say that this dude is in serious shape. Good for you Bruce. Before your character got all rapey, I was genuinely feeling inferior watching this with my wife. Well done.
Handsome Gerald takes his Wife (played by the lovely Carla Gugino) for a weekend in a remote cabin for some handcuffs and weird sexual stuff in the vein hope it will re-kindle their romance.
Problem is, these two have very different definitions of “weird sexual stuff”. Hers, being maybe some light spanking and dirty talk. His being a total rape fantasy. Whoops. Someone should’ve consulted the communication Care Bear beforehand because none of this was discussed pre-handcuffing. Things get supremely awkward, super fast.
Like, claw your face off awkward. Don’t watch this with your parents. Ew. Why are you doing that anyway. Stop it.
The deadly cocktail of blue boner pills and embarrassment anger leads Gerald to have a heart attack and die whilst on top of Jessie. This unfortunate incident (understatement) leaves her handcuffed to the bed with no-one expected to show up for days. Meanwhile, a blood hungry dog has made his way into the cabin and literally began eating Gerald’s face. He will soon want to eat her, too. What follows is the mental breakdown of Jessie amidst her fight for survival, leading to all sorts of horror goodness for King and Director Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush) to play with.
Gerald’s Game shines because it isn’t merely a survival thriller. It takes “If a tree falls in an forest and no-one is around to hear it…..does it make a sound?” and spins it on a lonely death axis. If you die alone; Who’s to say you died of hunger and dehydration? Perhaps you died of pure fear. After all, nobody was around to see it. Anything could have happened.
Well done, ruiners of sleep and joyous thoughts.
Flanagan brings the best out of a great, small cast in Gerald’s Game. The premise is fascinating, the survival horror is interesting and the lonely death angle is ingenious and probably underused. There is an attempt to dive deeply into Jessie’s child hood trauma and give her character an extreme arc that felt derivative. I’m sure it’s important to the psychology of the story but I couldn’t help but be way more interested in what was happening real time.
Uncomfortable, fascinating, risky and scary in spots…..Gerald’s Game is one of the best Stephen King adaptations to date.
