Horror Film (2020) Review #7

Gerald's Game is based on a Stephen King novel published in 1992 that was initial meant to be a companion piece to
 Dolores Claibourne  as both stories are connected by women caught in crisis  in the path of an eclipse.

Directed and written screenplay was by Mike Flanagan, who three years prior had released Hush, the widely popular home invasion thriller on Netflix. With Gerald's Game, Flanagan shares a co-writing screenplay credit with Jeff Howard who has worked with Mike being a writer on the Netflix series  The Haunting of Hill House. Gerald's Game is one of three films Mike Flanagan has adapted from a Stephen King novel, the most recent would be Doctor Sleep with Ewan McGregor.

                                                     
The Premise Jessie played by Carla Gugino travels to a secluded lake house in Western Maine with her Husband Gerald. Gerald is a successful and aggressive lawyer played by Canadian Actor Bruce Greenwood.    The story is about Jessie handcuffed to a bed as her Husband dies on top of her from a heart attack, followed by the subsequent realization that she is trapped with no hope of rescue for at least a whole week,

The film takes form at the sight of a stray dog mauling at her husband's copse at the foot of the bed, which causes Jessie to experience trauma induced hallucinations that plague her mind which serves to help her cope in her new reality. It serves similar to the understanding of having an angel and devil on your shoulder that talks to you conveying your decision making process.  In the period of the film we as the audience are beside Jessie as the event unlocks buried traumatic events of her childhood that connects to her relationship and marriage to Gerald. There is a horrific figure that presents itself to Jessie at night, unsure if its real or imaginary Jessie only knows she must escape before falling victim to it or the dog who will desire fresh meat once it tires of her Husband's dead body.

Gerald's Game is an intense psychological drama, and a showcasing of a woman's internal strength and resilience to an extreme situation(s). This film shares a couple of scares but it relies heavily on presenting an atmosphere of entrapment and seclusion as it offers travels down memory lane to showcase the tools one needs to survive as it faces hard difficult truths. How it presents itself and what it reveals is slow and not entirely clear, so the visual representations of the moon and the use of red is very important to keep the viewers attention.
As a recommended follow up, there is a Stephen King novel that became a 2 part Television movie on A&E called Bag of Bones (2011), which has no direct relation to this story, but shares a plethora of similarities in characters, settings, and storylines to Gerald's Game.