Hello out there all you horror enthusiasts! It’s Slick Dungeon back once again to review a Stephen King adaptation. This one is directed by Mike Flanagan and stars Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood. Gerald’s Game is a tense psychological thriller with a good touch of horror. But just a word of warning on this one, the plot of the film does involve some pretty heavy stuff. If you have any sensitivity around depictions of sexual abuse, domestic abuse or incest, it’s best not to watch this one, or even read this review. If this does not apply to you, and you can handle a pretty strong film full of really intense situations, I highly recommend it. And as with most Mike Flanagan horror projects, he knocks this one out of the park.

Gerald’s Game background

There was a time when the novel Gerald’s Game, written by Stephen King was thought to be unfilmable. Not only does the story center around some very heavy topics but also the majority of the action is about a woman handcuffed to a bed for nearly two days. While the novel provides a strong narrative about what is happening in the woman’s head, translating this to film was no easy task.

Thankfully this ended up in Mike Flanagan’s capable hands and not only did he make this watchable, Carla Gugino puts on an incredibly impressive performance. This subject matter could have been treated in a much less respectful way but, Flanagan, like King, knew how to walk a tightrope to make a truly memorable story. And Bruce Greenwood and Henry Thomas both provide strong supporting characters. There’s a reason this trio of actors is featured in more than one Flanagan project. They are all incredible when on screen and in this movie, they all shine. But Gugino shines the most as the main character.

So how did an unfilmable novel become an unforgettable Netflix smash? Let’s take a look at the story and find out.

Gerald’s Game

Once again, just a content warning, soon after the film starts, majorly dark themes are featured. If you need to step away from this movie or this review, please prioritize your own mental health first. Now, onto the review.

Jessie and Gerald Burlingame have been married for quite some time. They take a vacation to an isolated house in Fairhope, Alabama. The vacation starts off innocently enough. Jessie finds a stray dog. She wants to shelter it but Gerald is against the idea. Once the couple arrive at the house, Gerald takes Viagra. Jessie, cuts up some prime Kobe steak and tries to entice the stray dog. Gerald is angry about this but lets her leave out the treat.

The couple go back in the house, leaving the door open. Jessie changes into a slip and Gerald decides to spice things up in their relationship by handcuffing Jessie to the bed. While Jessie sort of plays along here, it’s obvious she’s not entirely comfortable. And, the handcuffs Gerald uses are not some cheap plastic toy. These are real, metal handcuffs, that require a key to open. This is Gerald’s game.

The whole time, up to this point, it’s been apparent there are some problems in this marriage. But after Jessie is handcuffed, the extent of these issues becomes shockingly clear. Jessie argues with Gerald and demands he uncuff her. But, in the heat of the argument, Gerald has a cardiac arrest and dies. His body falls right on top of Jessie who is now not only handcuffed but pinned down.

The struggle begins

From here on out, this is a movie of survival. Jessie is in a horrible situation. She’s physically restrained, her husband is dead, and she has no way to call anyone for help. One side note here is that if Jessie had something voice activated like Alexa, for example, she could have gotten help. But she doesn’t have anything like that here.

Jessie does manage to get Gerald off of her and his body hits the floor. A few hours pass with Jessie calling out for help and looking around the room for any way to get out of the restraints. And then the stray dog shows up. The dog bites right into Gerald’s body.

Gerald stands up. Jessie looks on the floor to see Gerald’s body is still there. Jessie is hallucinating. Gerald taunts Jessie, says things to insult her, and make her feel guilty about their marriage. He also tells her she’s suffering from dehydration and fatigue.

While this version of Gerald isn’t nice to Jessie, most of what he says is true. Especially when he’s talking about the situation Jessie is currently in.

You can only rely on one person

To combat this version of Gerald, Jessie hallucinates a more confident version of herself. At this point in the movie Carla Gugino is acting against Bruce Greenwood, a stray dog, and herself. It sounds complicated but Gugino does such a good job it’s always believable.

This new version of herself and the hallucination of Gerald remind Jessie there is a glass of water on the headboard. Jessie uses the tag from her brand new slip to fashion a straw to reach the water.

Jessie falls asleep but she’s woken when the dog gets startled. She sees a dark figure, deformed but human, holding a bag of bones and trinkets. She doesn’t believe the figure is real but something definitely startled the dog so something happened.

Mouse

The hallucination of Gerald starts to refer to Jessie as Mouse. She remembers this was a childhood nickname her father used to call her. Then she remembers an eclipse she watched with her father. I won’t go into graphic detail but he does things with her no father ever should. And then, like a lot of abusers, he convinces to feel guilty about it, and keep it secret.

It’s a horrendously disturbing role but played masterfully by Henry Thomas.

The hallucination of Gerald brings up the fact that Jessie never shared this memory with him. And both Gerald and Jessie’s other self tell her she married a man just like her father. This revelation is almost as disturbing as the precarious position Jessie is in.

More danger

Jessie falls asleep again and wakes to the dog licking her foot. At first she thought it was the man in the moonlight who she saw earlier. But Gerald points out two things to Jessie. First, the dog is going to get tired of eating his corpse and move on to eating her. Second, there is a bloody footprint on the floor. Someone was indeed there.

Another childhood memory unlocks for Jessie and she thinks of the dinner after the eclipse when she was 12. In the incident, she cuts her hand on a glass and blood drips everywhere. Her father helps her clean it up but Jessie remembers that blood, before it clots is a fantastic lubricant. The scene is visceral and painful to watch.

In present day, Jessie manages to break the glass and use it to cut her wrist and free herself from the handcuffs. She does her best to bandage it up and goes to leave the apartment. But the man made of moonlight is there. Jessie takes off her wedding ring and gives it to him for his bag of trinkets.

Escape and recovery

Jessie makes it to the car outside. But she’s so delirious she hits a tree nearby. She hallucinates the deformed man once again and he whispers, “Mouse” in her ear. Jessie does live.

She starts a foundation for survivors of sexual abuse with the money from Gerald’s life insurance. But at night she still dreams of the man made of moonlight. No one ever found her wedding ring at the lake house either.

It turns out the man made of moonlight was real. He was serial killer with a rare condition that caused his deformity. This man only mutilated men, although he did kill several women. But for some reason, he did not kill Jessie.

She goes to the arraignment of this man to look him in the eye. She sees him as he is, she sees him as Gerald, and she sees him as her father. And when she gets close enough for this man to hear her, she says, “You’re so much smaller than I remember.”

Why Gerald’s Game is so enduring

This film is, on the surface, about survival. Jessie is in a physically precarious position with the real possibility of death looming over her. But unlike other survival films, such as 127 Hours, Cast Away, or The Revenant, this film dives deep into the psychology of the character.

And the whole story functions as a metaphor for more than just horror but for surviving sexual trauma and other types of abuse. At the end, when Jessie says, “You’re so much smaller than I remember.” she is talking not just to the terrifying man who threatened her life, not just to the man who married her and wanted to control her, not just to her father who abused and humiliated her. She’s talking to all of them but she is also empowering herself.

One does not get the sense in this film that Jessie’s trauma is permanently over, no one could truly get over what she endured, but she’s found a new side of herself. One that can look in a monster’s face and call him small.

There were so many ways this film could have gone wrong. Carla Gugino even thought it might kill her career. But this subject matter was handled so perfectly there is no denying how impactful it is. There are certainly some slow moments and I’m not sure the makeup holds up for the man made of moonlight but that’s never the point of this film.

The point is finding the strength to survive, to overcome past trauma, and to endure. And this film does that brilliantly.

Survivingly yours,

Slick Dungeon

Want More?

Want to see some of my other King reviews? Take a look here!

Looking for a good King read? Check out this one!