Movie Review: Gerald’s Game (2017)

Directed by Mike Flanagan (quickly becoming one of my favourite directors, after Hush, Before I Wake and Oculus, to name a few), Gerald’s Game is a 2017 horror/thriller, and an adaption of Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) and Jess (Carla Gugino) head to an isolated cabin to rekindle their loveless marriage, but Gerald passes out and dies soon after handcuffing Jess to the bed, leaving Jess alone with the voices in her head. Gerald’s Game was released onto Netflix in mid-2017.

+ both Gugino and Greenwood are incredibly compelling, and they have such negative chemistry – in a good way, that is, in that I genuinely felt they just did not care for each other anymore. Their back and forth jibes are fantastic to watch. And frankly, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to have Carla Gugino handcuffed in bed
+ this was at times very difficult to watch, with very realistic (and painful) blood and gore. I’m a big gore lover, but there was one moment in particular which had me almost looking through my hands
+ some genuinely gorgeous scenery in between the horrors, which is seemingly a staple of Flanagan’s direction. The recurring motif of an eclipse has a heavy part to play, and when the scenes are baked in a red glow, they take on a supernatural feel

– for the most part, the alterations from the novel are done well. I understand that having disembodied voices may not have worked as well in the movie, but I admit it was a bit jarring to lose some of the finer details from the novel in order for Greenwood and Gugino to have more screen time

> My sister has a yellow rubber ducky, which travels around the world whenever her friends go on holidays, and his name is Gerald. This has no bearing to anything in the movie, it just made me laugh

Should you see this film: I read this book a long time ago, roughly the time I discovered that books could be ‘horror books’, and I loved the atmosphere of it. That same feeling is captured here, and you will certainly feel for Gugino’s character by the end of it, and you find yourself looking away from the dark corners of your bedroom at night.