Stephen King knows what idle thoughts spiral into nightmares and lurch out of the darkness to terrorize when you’re alone. This skill, and its visceral scares are made manifest in Mike Flanagan‘s sensational adaptation of “Gerald’s Game.”
Based on King’s 1992 suspense novel, the film stars Bruce Greenwood and Carla Gugino as Gerald and Jessie Burlingame, a married couple trying to reignite their relationship with a weekend away at a remote lake house. There, Gerald convinces Jessie to let him dabble in BDSM by handcuffing her to the bed. It’s a scenario that quickly goes from sexy to scary, first when Gerald gets rough against Jessie’s consent, then when the resulting argument incites a heart attack. Gerald keels over dead, and Jessie is left handcuffed to a bed, out of reach of a phone, no one else around for miles. From there, “Gerald’s Game” becomes a psychological thriller about trauma and survival. As the grim reality of her situation sinks in, Jessie attempts to escape into her mind, creating doppelgangers of herself and her late husband who in turn taunt and instruct her. But things grow darker as she falls into disturbing childhood flashbacks. Then as darkness comes, a new and terrifying ghoul emerges from the shadows.
Flanagan has built his name on slickly scary yet poignant horror hits like “Oculus” and “Ouija: Origin of Evil.” But here he ups his game, relying not on creepy MacGuffins and jump scares, but instead brewing a seductive tension, electric with sex appeal and threat. 61-year-old Greenwood strides around bare-chested, muscular, and attractive yet intimidating. As Jessie is helpless on the bed, his ghostly doppelganger torments her with doubts, needles her about the ways this situation could lead to her “hard” death. When her cooler more confident doppelganger appears to snap back with him, “Gerald’s Game” risks becoming a chamber play, too much talking with too little that’s cinematic. But the cast makes the dialogue magnetic, and Flanagan never falters. Playing with the cut, he throws these figures around the room, disorienting the audience, and embedding us in Jessie’s dazed and frightened mindset. As she regards the room, the cinematography is often POV, leaving mystery to corners, and uncertainty to the experience. We are trapped with her. And Gugino grounds all of this with a tour-de-force performance.
Some will immediately sniff at a film whose central point is watching a woman in a negligee suffer on a bed for 103 minutes. But such a dismissal misses the point of “Gerald’s Game.” Jessie’s shackling becomes a metaphor that steers this movie away from torture porn or regressive horror schlock, toward something more challenging and sophisticated. And no one who sees Gugino’s performance could possibly ignore its power.
As Jessie, she is demure, a caring wife eager to make her marriage work, even if it means experimenting in kinks that make her uncomfortable. Immediately, we like her, but worry for her. Red flags flap all around her in this isolated location, with a strangely cold man and a starving stray dog the only signs of company. As her torment begins, this connection is a knife in our bellies that will turn with each new complication. As Jessie’s doppelganger, she’s the radiant and strong Gugino we recognize from films like “Sin City.” And as the latter urges the former into her final escape attempt, we witness nerve reborn, spirit reignited, our hearts in our throats. From start to finish, Gugino is phenomenal, riveting, and fearless. This is the role her fans have been waiting for.
Ultimately, “Gerald’s Game” is a symphony of suspense and scares, spiked with just the right amount of gruesome gore. Flanagan’s long had a gift for building pathos, and here he twists that to churn our stomach’s in empathy and fear. I can’t think of the last time a movie made me nauseous from tension. But “Gerald’s Game” not only managed that, it also caused me to scream the whole way through the grisly climax that transformed Fantastic Fest audiences, where the film premiered, into a chorus of terror.
It’s the total package. As you watch “Gerald’s Game,” you are forced into a submission of bone rattling fear. And after it’s over, the imagery will linger – twitching in your hands, forcing your eyes to the dark corners of your bedroom, looking for things that creep in the night. [A]