Before filmmaker Mike Flanagan would put his mark on Netflix with hit shows like The Haunting of Hill House and The Fall of the House of Usher he started his career-long trend of adapting Stephen King. Netflix is no stranger to Stephen King adaptations, having produced the likes of In the Tall Grass, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, and 1922, but none as impressive as this, since it was with a book that should have been impossible. The film that not only secured Flanagan’s place at Netflix but got him in the door as the go-to Stephen King guy is not only the streamer’s best adaptation of the master of horror, but one long considered unfilmable, 2017’s Gerald’s Game.
Gerald’s Game the novel was published in 1992, and despite being considered a futile story to attempt to adapt, the story is pretty much the same from book to film. It tells the story of Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino in the film) and her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood), who take a weekend trip to their lake home in Maine. As far as the title goes, Gerald’s “game” is when he handcuffs his wife to the bed ahead of having sex with her, but once she’s tied down it becomes clear that he intends to take part in a rape fantasy while she’s immobilized. Distraught by this development however, Jessie tries to get out and begins yelling at her husband. The confrontation results in probably the worst possible outcome as Gerald has a heart attack and dies right there while Jessie remains tied up.
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As the story unfolds, Jessie remains tied to the bed and begins to hallucinate any number of people appearing and speaking to her, including not only her child self but an alternate version of herself, plus former friends from her life. Another mysterious figure also appears in the house as she begins to succumb to delirium, a ghostly apparition that shows her his basket of trinkets and human bones.
This is in large part why the book was considered unfilmable. Most of the book takes place in one room with a character that can’t even leave the spot that she’s confined to where she’s largely having conversations with herself and recalling her traumatic past. Not to mention, the other characters that appear may not even be real. Flanagan has not been shy about the challenges of making this work, not to mention being fully aware that this adaptation was a major hurdle.
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“I’ve wanted to make this story since I was 19. I’m a Stephen King fanatic. When I was in college I read the book and thought it was amazing but unfilmable. Half my life I’ve been trying to make this movie,” Flanagan previously told The Independent. “We had to find a mechanism to make the story cinematic while being faithful to the story, which is a beautiful story. In the book, Gerald’s dead and gone by page 10 and the rest of the book takes place entirely in Jessie’s head. It’s a stream of consciousness. The trick for us was trying to make that visually interesting. What we came up with was keeping Gerald — played by Bruce Greenwood — in the movie by taking that inner monologue and making it an outer monologue. It was really hard.”
To his credit, his plan clearly worked, as Gerald’s Game is one of the highest rated horror movies on Netflix (plus far and away their best rated Stephen King adaptation). As of this writing Gerald’s Game is “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes and carries a 91% approval rating, with praise not only for Carla Gugino’s performance but Flanagan’s ability to adapt the unadaptable.
The success of Gerald’s Game would also make way for Mike Flanagan to flex his muscles not only as a visual storyteller but to prove how well he understood King. After Gerald’s Game Flanagan’s next feature film would be 2019’s Doctor Sleep, another novel from the author that it was assumed would never see the big screen. Earlier this year he rolled out his latest Stephen King movie too, the upcoming The Life of Chuck, which won the Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the not-too-distant future Flanagan will return to King twice over, adapting Carrie into a limited TV series and bringing The Dark Tower to life in a series of interconnected movies and shows.