Stephen King’s R-Rated, Erotic Netflix Thriller Will Awaken Your Darkest Demons

By Robert Scucci
| Published 12 seconds ago

Have you ever wanted to book a romantic weekend with your better half just to get away from it all and rediscover the magical feelings that brought you together in the first place? If you’re smart, you’ll get a nice hotel within walking distance of the beach and all your favorite restaurants. That’s the safest bet.

Otherwise, you could end up like Jessie (Carla Gugino) in Gerald’s Game (2017), handcuffed to a bed in a remote cabin where nobody can hear you scream. Your husband has died of a heart attack after taking too much viagra, he’s getting eaten by the stray dog you fed earlier that found its way inside, and you’re hallucinating a demon known as the Moonlight Man, who stands just outside your field of vision and taunts you. You’re about one cup of water away from dying of dehydration because you can’t reach the keys, and by the time anybody finds you, it will be far too late.

What I’m trying to say here is that Gerald’s Game is a beyond solid psychological thriller, but not the kind of scenario you’d want to live through when you’re just trying to reignite the spark in your marriage. For that, just hire a babysitter and go bowling.

Not Exactly Going Out In A Blaze Of Glory

Gerald’s Game starts out innocently enough, but since it’s a Stephen King adaptation, you should expect the usual dark turns. Jessie and Gerald’s (Bruce Greenwood) trip to remote Alabama was never supposed to turn into a tragedy, but fate wasn’t on their side that evening. In an ideal world, the couple would live out their wildest sexual fantasies, cook some steaks, drink some wine, and head home with their marriage successfully rejuvenated.

Instead, Gerald dies of a heart attack after taking viagra and pushing his fantasy a little too far, upsetting Jessie, who didn’t want to take part in the kind of role-playing he was into. Handcuffed to her bed and unable to reach her phone or the keys, Jessie is completely alone, and things are about to get dark, both literally and figuratively.

The stray dog Jessie fed a cut of Gerald’s expensive steak to earlier finds its way into the house because Gerald left the door open. Hungry and looking for more food, the dog realizes that Gerald’s fresh corpse will provide all the sustenance it needs for the next couple of days. Fearing she’ll suffer a similar fate if she dehydrates before freeing herself, Jessie panics, which sends her spiraling in the worst way.

Not only is the prospect of Jessie dying handcuffed to her bed very real, but the dog also comes and goes as it pleases and will probably turn on her once it finishes with Gerald. To make matters worse, Jessie becomes delirious from lack of food and water, causing her to hallucinate a living Gerald who taunts and belittles her. Even worse, she sees a boogeyman lurking in the darkest corners of the bedroom, calling himself the Moonlight Man, who is either a figment of her imagination or an actual intruder.

This One Will Mess You Up For A Minute

Since we’re seeing everything from Jessie’s perspective in Gerald’s Game, the waters are muddied by her anxiety, her trauma, and her lack of sustenance. In so many words, Jessie is an unreliable protagonist, but there’s something else going on here that elevates this above your typical psychological thriller. Jessie is a strong-willed woman stuck in an unthinkably horrific situation. She’s not your typical damsel in distress, which makes her breakdown all the more effective.

Jessie’s predicament stirs up a whirlwind of emotions tied to her past, having been mistreated by her father as a little girl in ways that mirror Gerald’s fantasies before he died. What’s more, Jessie may not be as unreliable as you think when you consider the shots that play out from a more objective, almost omniscient perspective. She’s dealing with serious trauma, that goes without saying, but something else is happening just beneath the surface that will make your skin crawl when you realize what may actually be at play.

She’s rightfully in a heightened state due to her life-or-death conditions, and it’s implied that she normally has her wits about her when she’s not trapped in this very specific set of circumstances. Her anxieties are valid here, and her regression into her past traumas is triggered by what’s specifically happening to her in the present. It all makes for a rich character study that only the best psychological thrillers understand how to lay out for the audience.

Gerald’s Game is not for the faint of heart, but if you have the stomach for it, it’s one of the best psychological thrillers streaming on Netflix today.