Happy weekend everyone! I’m back with a new edition of Friday Night Frights and boy do I have a strange one for you!
This week is another Netflix Original that was a pleasant surprise. I like when movies can make you uncomfortable and unsure of what is truly happening. I like when a horror film can mess with your head a bit. This film does a great job of making the viewer uneasy and blurs the lines of what’s real, and what’s in the main character’s head. This week I recommend you check out the film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, “Gerald’s Game”.
Starring Carla Gugino, this film is about a middle-aged couple looking to get away and spice up their sex life a bit. Immediately things start taking a turn that the main character Jessie does not expect. First, her husband Gerald handcuffs her to the bed. Now, that’s probably not too weird to most of us. We’re all adults here and it’s fair to say most of us have used, do use, or want to use handcuffs at some point. If not, I’d hate to say it, but you’re the weird one, but I digress. Once she’s handcuffed however things start to go down hill pretty quickly. Gerald begins to playout a rape fantasy and Jessie is not onboard. She gets him to stop and after some discussion and another ill-fated attempt from Gerald to still get it in, he dies. He suffers a heart attack and falls onto Jessie, all while she’s still handcuffed. I wonder if getting one last “heart-on” was worth dying for? See what I did there? I’m sorry…
Once Gerald dies, things begin to spiral deeper into the realm of “What the fuck is happening?”. Handcuffed to the bed with seemingly no way out, Jessie’s mind starts to go. The lines of reality and hallucination begin to intertwine as her dilapidated psyche crumbles more and more. I won’t dive any further into the actual story as I don’t want to give away any spoilers. All you need to know is that from this point on, this movie will make you question what’s real, and what’s not. It also makes you wonder how far Jessie will go in order to free herself, and at least for me, makes me wonder if I would be able to do the same.
Overall, I think this is a great Netflix Original that has a good amount of confusing, unsettling, scary, and outright “fuck that” moments. There is also a good reveal at the end that for me, was a bit surprising as I didn’t know anything about the story prior to the viewing. If you’re looking for something to do while you snuggle indoors on this cold December night, I highly recommend you text your friend for their Netflix log in info, and watch “Gerald’s Game”. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.