Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Gerald's Game is kind of peak Stephen King for me, not really in quality, but in my personal journey through his work. The early '90s is when I really started reading his stuff. I started with Cujo in the Sixth Grade and never looked back. I can't pinpoint the age I was when I read Gerald's Game, but it was definitely too young. Twelve, thirteen or fourteen-ish.
King's output at this time was a little hit and miss. One of his worst books, The Tommyknockers, kind of started this period that includes the flawed, but still really damn good Needful Things and mixed bags like The Dark Half and Insomnia. I like those books, but they're definitely not top tier King.
Gerald's Game is a weird book, even by Stephen King standards. It's about a woman who is having some "spice up the love life" sex with her asshole husband. When he gets a little rapey she kicks him off the bed, killing him and leaving her alone, handcuffed to the bed with nothing but her inner demons to keep her company. These inner demons begin to materialize in an are-they-there or are-they-hallucinations kinda way, but for the majority of the book it's just a woman tied to a bed, which isn't the most cinematic idea King's ever had.
So this is going to be a big challenge for Mike Flanagan, who has been making a name for himself in his genre output over the last few years with movies like Oculus and Hush. He's been attached for a while (along with his longtime producer Trevor Macy), but now it seems like Gerard's Game is really going forward as a Netflix Original film with the great Carla Gugino in the lead role (and Bruce Greenwood playing Gerard, her rapey husband who spends most of the runtime dead on the floor).
I can take or leave the book if I'm being honest, but I love the prospect of Gugino in this role. She's either going to kill it or fail miserably. The whole thing rests on her shoulders and it's going to be a tough one for her, but she's got the talent to make this something special.
What do you folks think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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