The Big Picture

Gerald’s Game brings Stephen King’s horrific novel to life with terrifying imagery that will leave a lasting impact. The film explores the fears experienced by women, delving into themes of violence, trauma, and abuse. The connection between Gerald’s Game and Dolores Claiborne highlights the shared themes and visions in Stephen King’s works.

In 2017, Mike Flanagan proved he could accomplish the impossible: Adapting Stephen King’s horrific novel Gerald’s Game into a film. Stephen King, one of the most recognizable horror authors ever, is no stranger to using the supernatural to scare his audience. From the frightening vampires in Salem’s Lot to the ghosts of The Shining, he knows how to scare. But King also knows when to reign in the supernatural and Gerald’s Game is the perfect example of that. Gerald’s Game is filled to the brim with the horrors of humanity, and Stephen King runs with it in every direction that he can. Mike Flanagan, in turn, brings that horrific imagery to the screen in a way that will stick with you forever.

What Is ‘Gerald’s Game’ About?

Gerald’s Game is layered, its depiction of fears covers a wide array of ideas, from violence against women to those irrational but universal fears we all share. When Jessie (Carla Gugino) is left handcuffed to the bed, it’s far from just the urgency to get out that scares her. The situation snowballs into so many events that torment her, all by Gerald’s (Bruce Greenwood) insistency on hurrying that makes her leave the front door open. At the time, that’s not that big of a deal. The film already establishes that there’s no one around to walk in, what’s the harm in it?

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But that open door left open leaves Jessie vulnerable. Vulnerable not only to the hungry dog she already fed that comes back for more but anything else too. While hungry, dehydrated, and exhausted trying to get free, she wakes up in the middle of the night to a figure standing in the corner of the bedroom. He is tall, monstrous, and looming in the moonlight just enough to see him. He does nothing but show Jessie the contents of his bag, filled with stolen jewelry and bones. He appears once more when she is delirious from blood loss and shuffling out of the house. She thinks he’s no more than a vision, a manifestation of her fears, and throws her wedding ring into his bag only to find out later that they never found her wedding ring. The man was a grave robber and murderer. He didn’t do anything but stare, but invading the room while she was vulnerable was enough for him to haunt her.

‘Gerald’s Game Focuses on the Fears Experienced by Women
Image Via Netflix

Gerald’s Game is inherently tied to womanhood, notably, the terrible things women so often have to endure. When we meet Jessie and Gerald at the beginning of the film, it’s clear that their marriage has not gone well. And when their handcuff play turns into a rape fantasy for Gerald, she fights back to stop it, though it’s clear he wanted to continue despite her saying no. Jessie, after Gerald’s death and her being on the bed for hours, finds herself thinking about her traumatizing past.

We find out that Jessie’s father, Tom (Henry Thomas), sexually assaulted her as a child paired with the imagery of an eclipse turning the landscape blood-red and otherworldly. Afterward, he gaslights her into saying what “they” did was wrong and that she should not tell anyone about it. He effectively blames the consequences on her if she ever tries to seek help out of this situation elsewhere. This film has one of the most disgusting scenes ever, the famous degloving scene where Jessie rips the skin off her hand to get out of the handcuffs, but no scene will be more disturbing than the scenes with her father.

How Does ‘Gerald’s Game’ Tie Into ‘Dolores Claiborne’?
Image via Columbia Pictures 

Gerald’s Game is in fact, not one-of-a-kind in King’s library of works. The book has a sister, and so does the film, called Dolores Claiborne. While the books came out just months apart in 1992, the films had a 22-year gap between them. Dolores Claiborne focuses on the strained relationship between a mother and daughter as the mother has been accused of murdering the elderly woman she was taking care of. Kathy Bates gives a masterful performance as the titular character as we discover she killed her abusive husband during a solar eclipse, by luring him to fall down a well, for assaulting their daughter as a child. While there is no mention of Gerald’s Game in Dolores Claiborne, there is mention of Dolores Claiborne in Gerald’s Game. In the film, Jessie talks about having a vision of a woman looking down at her in a well. The eclipse is the same, and both Dolores and Jessie have a vision of each other. Dolores Claiborne cut the connection to Gerald’s Game, likely because the book was widely regarded as unfilmable, but Mike Flanagan managed to connect them again 20 years later.

Stephen King rarely steps out of the supernatural in his work. Even his odd drama or two has some elements, like the healing in The Green Mile. One could argue that Jessie and Dolores’s visions are supernatural, but that’s it. There are no ghosts, no ghouls, no creatures that come in the night. There are monsters though, monsters in the form of something that can be the most brutal and cruel: us.