Gerald’s Game
Widely considered unfilmable, Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game is a novel in which the main character spends the majority of the book alone in a room, handcuffed to a bed. Horror director Mike Flanagan – known for The Haunting of Hill House and other projects – incessantly puzzled over how to transform the premise into an engaging film since his college days.
In the 2017 film, Jessie (Carla Gugino) and her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) head to their lake house in an effort to spice up their marriage, but they’re role-playing quickly takes a dark turn when Gerald perishes of a heart attack shortly after (somewhat unwillingly) handcuffing Jessie to the bed. Left alone in the house and with no one around for miles, Jessie must somehow survive, even while her predicament forces her to confront childhood traumas and the truth of her relationship with her late husband.
Gerald’s Game is a scathing, uncomfortable film, and even if the psychological horrors don’t get to you, one of the gruesome actions Jessie must perform in order to escape her predicament certainly will.
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