Gerald’s Game is a 2017 American psychological horror thriller drama film directed and edited by Mike Flanagan and written by Jeff Howard and Flanagan. It is based on Stephen King’s 1992 novel of the same name, long thought to be unfilmable. The film stars Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood as a married couple staying in an isolated house during a holiday. When the husband dies of a sudden heart attack, his wife, left handcuffed to the bed without the key and with little hope of rescue, must find a way to survive, all while battling her inner demons.
Married couple Jessie & Gerald leave their home for a secluded lake house in Fairhope, Alabama and plan to rekindle their sex life. Just as they are about to reach the house they see a large stray dog on the road and Jessie feeds it some meat. She & Gerald then go to their bedroom and hanges into a new night dress, placing the tag on a shelf above the bed, and practices sexy poses. Gerald takes a second Viagra and leaves his glass of water on the same shelf. He restrains Jessie with one handcuff on each wrist locked to the bedposts; she seems a bit surprised by this, but goes along. He begins to enact a stranger rape fantasy, telling her to scream for help, knowing no one will hear. She half-heartedly plays along but soon becomes uncomfortable, telling him to stop and uncuff her but Gerald is surprised that she won’t play along. Her argues with her and accuses her of not trying to make their sex life better when he clutches his heart and dies of an attack.
Jessie cries out but there is no one nearby, however the stray dog comes in through the door that they left open. and Jessie tries to scare it away, but it bites a chunk out of Gerald’s arm and eats it. As the hours pass by and night is setting Jessie has hallucinations of Gerald and herself talking to her and each other. She starts to suffer from dehydration and fatigue. Gerald and the self-assured Jessie tell things about herself and Gerald that she never had the courage to acknowledge. They trigger her to remember the glass of water above the bed, which she is able to reach but cannot bring all the way to her mouth. The hallucinations remind her of the tag she put on the shelf, which she rolls into a straw in order to reach the water. After she drinks some of the water she falls asleep but wakes up to see sees a tall, deformed, obscured figure who reveals a bag of various bones and trinkets. She closes her eyes saying, “You’re not real.” When she opens her eyes he is not there. When her hallucination of Gerald calls her mouse, it triggers a memory of her father, Tom, who affectionately referred to her as “Mouse.”
As a 12 year old while watching the solar eclipse suggests she sit on his lap, as she did when she was younger. Once on his lap, he masturbates. The handcuffed Jessie awakes to intense pain due to her circulation being cut off and cramping. She realizes, through the hallucinations of herself & Gerald, that she dealt with the pressure of keeping such a secret, and her claims that it had nothing to do with her marriage, even though she married a man just like her father. She sees a bloody footprint on the floor. After the eclipse, her father tells her he was ashamed of what he did, and manipulates her into agreeing never to tell anyone. Jessie smashes the water glass and cuts her wrist in a way that enables her to peel back the skin, allowing her bloody hand to slip through the cuff. She drags the bed to the key, unlocking her other hand. She drinks water and bandages herself, but then passes out on the floor from blood loss and fatigue. When she wakes, the “man made of moonlight” is at the end of the hall, and she gives him her wedding ring for his trinket bag. She makes it to her car and drives away, but sees the man again in the back seat. The car crashes into a tree, but people from a nearby house come out.
6 months later she writes a letter to her 12 year old self how she had pretended to have amnesia over the whole ordeal of being trapped, avoiding painful questions. She used some of Gerald’s life insurance to start a foundation for victims of sexual abuse. But each night the “man made of moonlight” still appears before her as she falls asleep. Her wedding ring was never found in the house, and she learned from the news that a man who has acromegaly, causing disfiguration of his head, is a serial killer who dug up crypts, stealing bones and jewels, and occasionally eating the faces of male corpses. This explains why he did not harm Jessie in the house and also why Gerald’s face was disfigured. Jessie arrives at court as the moonlight man is being sentenced, and calls for his attention. He quotes what she said before leaving the house, indicating that he was in fact there at the time. Seeing also Gerald’s and Tom’s face where his face is, she says “You’re so much smaller than I remember”, and walks triumphantly out into the street with the sunlight gleaming down on her.
It was long thought that to be unfilmable until Netflix came up with this movie. Gerald’s Game was released on September 29, 2017, by Netflix. It received very positive reviews from critics, who lauded Gugino’s performance; Flanagan’s direction, as well as the film’s themes and their treatment, were also singled out. I give the film an 8 outta 10!