I can say now with enthusiasm that I am a Mike Flanagan mark. He did DOCTOR SLEEP, and damn was that a rockin’ flick. He did THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. He did OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL and OCULUS. And he did GERALD’S GAME. He tends to cast the same actors over and over, just like he’s running a repertory company. That’s rare in Hollywood, although AMERICAN HORROR STORY has made it a touchstone. You see it a lot more in Theatre, as in, the stage. But then a lot of the actors in Flanagan’s works have backgrounds in Theatre.
Anyway, GERALD’S GAME. I bought a bootleg DVD off eBay, since I can’t livestream and missed this one when it first came out. After watching THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE I knew I had to see it. It’s fantastic. A nearly perfect cinematic adaptation of one of my favorite Stephen King novels. And can I just say that Carla Gugino is sooooo underrated. She’s got all kinds of the acting chops.
Note that I wrote “nearly” perfect. My one small complaint: I would have liked to have seen more of the Moonlight Man. The events from the book were by necessity condensed a little for the movie, but I missed the repeated visits of the silent stalker (portrayed most ably by the seven-foot-tall Carel Struycken, who plays the Giant in TWIN PEAKS and was also in DOCTOR SLEEP). At least they included plenty of the maneating dog.