Netflix Review: Gerald's Game (2017)

"A room, a dog, some handcuffs, and a haunted past make up the terror of Gerald's Game."

(aka Kink Gone Wrong.)
Release Date: September 29th.
Country: USA.
Rating: TV-MA.
Written by: Stephen King and Mike Flanagan.
Directed by: Mike Flanagan.
Starring: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Henry Thomas, and Chiara Aurelia.

With a resume that boasts movies like Oculus (review HERE), Ouija: Origin of Evil (review HERE), and Hush (review HERE), our expectation for Mike Flanagan's adaptation of the Stephen King novel Gerald's Game were over the moon.

The guy knows how to craft an effective movie, and if anyone could make this quiet, isolated, disturbing story come to proper life on screen, it would be him.

And boy did he ever.

Jessie and Gerald are a married couple who need some spice in their life, or at least Gerald does. You see, Gerald is a BDSM freak (no judgment) who needs to take Viagra to be able to make sweet love, unless bondage or rape fantasies are involved, then he's all good on his own. Jessie is a sweet and loving wife who is trying to make her husband happy, but she had a rough childhood, and that tends to weigh heavily on her.

SO MUCH LOVE.

They decide to spend a quiet weekend together at their lake house, where they're hoping that kinky games like "Shut up and take it", "Who's Daddy's special little girl?", and "Bitch, obey!" will somehow save their faltering marriage. So Gerald cuffs her to the bed and begins to show her how to have some "real fun", when he has a heart attack and dies on top of her. Of course Jessie kicks him off of the bed, because that's gross.

THAT'S PRETTY MUCH A METAPHOR FOR THE MOVIE.

Jessie, cuffed to the bed with no food or water, starts to freak out and have hallucinations. Her dead husband is up and talking to her, and she's also walking around the room talking to the her that's cuffed to the bed. There's also a wild dog who is really hungry, and a ghostly specter called The Moonlight Man who shows up at night wanting to steal her soul.

They probably should have stayed at a Motel 6.

AND HE'S A FOOT FETISHIST.

For me, the best Stephen King adaptations tend to be his "Non-Horror" stories. Movies like Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, Dolores Claiborne, and The Green Mile are all phenomenal films, and while they all, including Gerald's Game, contain their own horrific elements, they ascend to that higher level of storytelling. Now don't get me wrong, I love his Horror flicks a ton (Salem's Lot, IT, Cujo, The Dead Zone, to name a few), but he has a genuine knack for telling human stories, and tapping into that human vulnerability that we all identify with. I think that he shines when he leans towards the dramatic.

Gerald's Game is a fantastic portrait of a woman who has dealt with abuse all of her life. Her father abused her, her husband was controlling and harbored dark secrets, and even the dog and The Moonlight Man all want things from her that are great for them, but horrible for her. It's all a way of illustrating that this woman has spent a lifetime of dealing with men who use her, abuse her, and do nothing positive for her, which makes for an interesting subtext to being chained to a bed and at the  mercy of them all... which is a terrifying premise in its own right.

It's a journey of strength and survival, and of a woman's fight to overcome not only her hopeless situation, but the ghosts of her past that have always haunted her.

Carla Gugino was one of the very first Horror Hotties that we featured on this site. Not because she has a prolific amount of Horror titles in her resume, but because she's gorgeous and extremely talented, and we just adore the shit out of her. Her work in Gerald's Game is top-notch, especially when she plays the part of her "free" self; there's just something self-assured and commanding about that part of her, and she balanced the vulnerable, terrified version of her perfectly.

Bruce Greenwood is a veteran character actor who knows his business too. Here, he plays skeevy and intimidating quite well, and was the perfect compliment to Gugino's weak and vulnerable portrayal. If you really want to see an excellent movie that shows the power of his acting, check out the 2014 film Wildlike. It's an absolute hidden gem of a movie.

And let's not forget about Henry Thomas, whose performance here made our fucking skin crawl, and was the most terrifying part of the movie... and that's saying something. I always wonder how actors can play that sort of role, and I give him credit for having the guts to do it at all, let alone doing it so well. Chiara Aurelia was no less brave and fantastic playing young Jessie.

I love the side-story of The Moonlight Man and how it unfolded too. It added a truly eerie vibe to the movie, and made things all the more harrowing.

EVER HEAR OF BACKGAMMON, GERALD?

What's with that dog, man? Someone gives you some Kobe beef, and then you turn around and try to eat them and their dead husband? You don't bite the toe that feeds you!

THIS SON OF A BITCH RIGHT HERE...

Those scenes with Henry Thomas were genuinely the most terrifying part of the movie. I'll never watch E.T. in the same way again!

TURN OFF YOUR FUCKING HEARTLIGHT, HENRY!

Not a ton of gore to be found here, but the bits with the dog and the part at the end made up for the lack of quantity with truly gruesome quality.

SWEET JESUS...

There's no nudity in this one but the movie contains plenty of sexual themes, some of them disturbing as hell.

WE'D PLAY CARLA'S GAME ANY TIME.

Mike Flanagan was born to make compelling, suspenseful movies. Period. The guy's impressive resume has gotten infinitely stronger with Gerald's Game, and given the way that he melded emotional drama with stark Horror in this one, we expect that we'll be hearing his name attached to bigger projects very soon.

This is a great movie that operated on different levels, all of which flow together to make for one harrowing, intense, and emotionally weighty watch.

Don't miss it.

A

Gerald's Game is streaming now on Netflix.

Oh, Carla.

VOD Review: Split (2017)

"For us, the end justified the means."

What I'm trying to say is that Split was a decent enough psychological thriller, even though it was a bit long and didn't offer much in the way of incident until the end... but that ending... that ending...

I can't, and won't, talk about that ending here, because I know that there's still plenty of peeps out there who haven't seen this movie yet, but I will say that the way the story ended, made us a bit giddy with anticipation as to what comes next with this story... and what comes next is going to be awesome.

M. Night Shyamalanananan may just be returning to form after such a long string of disappointing efforts.

On their way to a birthday party, three teenage girls are kidnapped by a guy who looks a lot like a young Professor X. They're locked in a dank room (presumably in a sex dungeon of some sort), where it turns out the kidnapper is actually Dennis, a stern germophobe... but then he's Patricia, a kind lady who seems up to no good... but then he's Hedwig, a 9-year-old boy... Whoever he really is, it's clear that he's got some issues.

THE FACT THAT HE'S TELLING THEM TO CLEAN THE BATHROOM TERRIFIES HER MORE THAN ANYTHING.

Why this guy with Split personalities has kidnapped the girls is a mystery, but when they get wind that another of his personalities, The Beast, will be arriving shortly to teach them a lesson, they start to panic; especially Casey, who is the level-headed one of the group. She's also had a pretty rough life, so she's not about to put up with the rantings of a madman, and so she seeks to manipulate his personalities in an effort to escape.

And that's all we're saying about that.

YEAH, HE LOOKS LIKE A BALL OF JOY, DOESN'T HE?

Split is a well-made, interesting thriller that has a great cast and a very disturbing premise... that it doesn't really do much with. James McAvoy owns the screen with his performance, and Anya-Taylor Joy lends a ton of credibility to the final girl trope in this one, but Shamalayananan doesn't ever really deliver on the great set-up that he's constructed.

It's good, but it's basically an above-average PG-13 Horror movie, and you know that means little in the way of boundary pushing.

James McAvoy has always been a hell of an actor, and I don't men his work in the X-men movies; if you want to see him set the screen on fire, go watch Trance or Filth, both are great flicks. His work here, as the... thing... with multiple personalities is something extra special to behold. Most of the movie is him jumping from personality to personality, and making us uneasy as hell, and he pulls it off brilliantly.

Anya-Taylor Joy is an actress coming into her own as well. Not only is she adorable, but she's one of the best young actresses of her generation, and she plays the part of clever victim here flawlessly. The backstory that gives her character its disturbing depth was maybe the creepiest part of the movie, and she sold it perfectly.

And then there's the twist at the end... the thing that made us immediately think back over the whole movie and see it in a different light. It didn't make it any more thrilling, but it did make it, and what comes next, a hell of a lot more intriguing and kick-ass. I imagine that with the way things go with the Internet, that you may have already heard what it was, but if for some reason you haven't, then read nothing about the move and give it a watch... and you might be as geekily surprised as we were.

WHEN IT COMES TO MANIPULATION, CREEPY DUDES HAVE NOTHING ON TEENAGE GIRLS.

Things get a bit bloody towards the end, but it's more disturbing than it is graphic.

"HA! NO GORE FOR YOU!"

It's PG-13, so no nudity, but there are plenty of shots of girls in their undies.

RELAX, GIRLS, YOU CAN STAY DRESSED.

The very end, where we find out that... well, you'll know when you see it.

SHE DIDN'T SEE IT COMING EITHER.

Split was decent enough, if a bit pedestrian given its subject matter, but the performance of James McAvoy and the huge twist/reveal at the end kicked this one up a solid letter grade for us.

For those two reasons alone, Split is worth checking out if you passed on it in the theater like we did.

B+

Split is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

The captivating women of Split: Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula.

Netflix Review: No Escape (2015)

"What a crazy, intense ride."

I remember when this movie came out back in the Summer of 2015, and having no desire to see it. Not sure why, it just seemed like it was going to be cheesy... which is odd because I really liked the Dowdle Brother's previous films like As Above, So Below, Devil, and The Poughkeepsie Tapes, so maybe I should have given it a bit more credit at the time.

Shame on me for not doing so, because after browsing through Netflix for something to watch tonight, we came across No Escape, and decided to give it a go... and we're still catching our breath.

American businessman Jack Dwyer has just moved his family to an unnamed Southeast Asian country, too work for a company called Cardiff, who is there to bring clean drinking water to the people of the region. Unbeknownst to him, Cardiff has pissed off the locals, who think that they've shadily stolen their clean drinking water, and so they decide to rise up against the company, and kill everyone who works for them in protest.

"YES HONEY, EVERYONE HATES WHITE PEOPLE."

Marked for death by a massive mob of bloodthirsty locals, Jack and his hot wife (and two adorable kids) must do some crazy shit to survive, and even with the help of a saucy British ex-pat and Kenny Rogers (true story), there's pretty much no way that any of them are going to survive.

Butt-puckering action ensues.

THERE'S A LOT OF RUNNING INVOLVED TOO. A LOT.

It's not often that an action thriller has us on the edge of our seats, literally, but I'll be damned if No Escape didn't have us biting our nails, holding our breath, and yelling at the screen for just about its entire runtime. This was a taut and scary movie, and it wasn't shy with the violence at all, most of which played in realistic fashion.

The Dowdle Borthers have a knack for making effective, under-the-radar movies that end up being far better than they have a right to, and No Escape might be their best effort to date. Their cast is top-notch, which probably helps: Pierce Brosnan steals every scene he's in as Hammond; the British "spy" who is as charming as he is deadly. Owen Wilson plays the ordinary, everyday guy as well as he always does, which isn't a bad thing, but he's outshined by Lake Bell as his wife... which might just be because she's hot. Not sure. Either way, she's really likable, and so we like her better!

This movie could have been a run-of-the-mill effort, and we expected it to be, but The Dowdle Brothers managed to give us characters we care about trying to survive a horrific situation, and they did it about as well as any thriller in recent memory has.

LIKE A BOSS.

It's interesting too note that a lot of the negative reviews that I saw about this movie deride it for being racist, because the lives of a white family were made out to be so valuable, and the Asians who led the bloody uprising that the family was trying to escape were painted as bloodthirsty and violent. Because that kind of thing doesn't actually ever happen in third world countries.

And did these idiot critics not see the local people tying to help the family?

It aggravates the shit out of me that everything today is sexist, racist, homophobic, patriarchal, etc... simply because people need to see what they need to see in things, to justify their agendas, or special little feelings.

It was a fictional thriller, assholes, that mimics real-life in some ways, and it didn't paint a negative picture of any particular people at all.

ALSO, HOLY SHIT THIS SCENE...

The uprising leads to many people being butchered in bloody fashion. It's definitely not for the squeamish.

THE DEER HUNTER, FAMILY STYLE.

Unfortunately, no, and as hot as Lake Bell is, it's a crying shame.

"WE WON'T MAKE IT IF YOU DON'T TAKE OF YOUR TOP!"

If you want to see a thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat for its entire runtime, as predictable as some of it may be, then No Espace is one you should check out asap. We're glad we finally caught it after so long, and we can't wait to see what The Dowdle Brothers do next.

No Escape is streaming now on Netflix, or you can grab a copy below. 

Lake Bell is still stunning.