Starring Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Henry Thomas

Directed by Mike Flanagan

Netflix, out now

A couple retreat to an isolated cabin for a weekend of ‘games’ in an attempt to breathe life into a faltering marriage, but the fun soon turns to horror and a fight for survival.

Mike (Oculus) Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1992 thriller is a fine adaptation of the prolific writer’s work, sitting closer to IT than The Dark Tower in terms of quality – though it’s not without its problems.

Adapting a book that features an awful lot of inner dialogue is always a tough call – does the character talk to themself, or do you resort to voice-over? In this case, it’s the former, and that’s fine because the groundwork is set up within the novel itself, with protagonist Jessie talking to people who aren’t actually there.

It’s not a spoiler to say that Jessie (a great performance from Carla Gugino) has to carry the show, as she is abandoned by her husband (Bruce Greenwood as the titular Gerald) early in the movie, and left to cope with dehydration and a hungry dog. Except that while he’s unconscious, he’s still harassing and goading her – a side-effect of a spiralling mind that is descending towards death. Greenwood is also very good as both the real and alternate Gerald, whispering bad thoughts into her ears and convincing her that she’s going to die.

I don’t really want to go too far down the rabbit hole of book versus movie; suffice to say that the adaptation rationalises the number of different visitors that Jessie has in the bedroom (it would get crowded very quickly). The plot is followed very faithfully, with occasional changes made, and it still keeps that scene. It’s a moment reminiscent of Kathy Bates’ sledgehammer hobbling in Misery and sure to be the subject of water-cooler talk.

One of my greatest issues with the movie is the same as with the book – the character of the Space Cowboy (though he’s now called the Moonlight Man). Certain things happen that determine whether or not plot events were fantastical or real, and I preferred them the way they didn’t play out. There’s also other uncomfortable elements of the plot that I won’t go in to (a brave performance by ET’s Henry Thomas) and these real-world horrors seem to be fighting the fantastical contrivances when we all know where our real focus should be.

Verdict: A survival story that will keep you guessing as to how/if our heroine will escape, burdened by a trip into the fantastic and the clumsy exposition of some real-world horror. 7/10

Nick Joy