Gerald's Game (2017) - Horror Film Review

Gerald's Game was directed by Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush), if I had known this before hand I might have been quicker to watch this as Hush is a darn good movie. The other day I reviewed 1922 which was based on a novella Stephen King wrote, Gerald's Game is another adaptation of one of his stories.

Jessie (Carla Gugino - Sin City, Watchmen, Sucker Punch) and her older husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) have gone away to a remote house in the woods for a weekend of fun which they hope will save their dissolving marriage. Gerald has brought some handcuffs with which he cuffs his wife to an ornate bed as part of a sex game, finding she doesn't feel comfortable she asks him to release her and they get in a row. Unluckily for her Gerald has a fatal heart attack and dies, leaving her trapped. The stress of the situation, coupled with the fact a stray dog has started to eat her husband causes her to have a mental breakdown of sorts and she starts to hallucinate, discovering repressed childhood memories as she does so...

I had heard this was a good film but for the first third of this I really wasn't impressed. I found the whole situation to be pretty awkward and hard to watch, and found the whole hallucination angle to be pretty darn silly. It was the hallucinations themselves which saved the film though as it led to some beautifully framed flashback sequences to show sexual abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father as a girl during a solar eclipse. I also thought the supernatural elements were a decent touch at well. Each night a being who Jessie identifies as the 'moonlight man' visits her leading to some creepy moments when he appears deep in shadow.

Split (2016) - Horror Film Review

Split is the latest film from M. Night Shyamalan, of course he needs no introduction as everyone has heard of at least The Sixth Sense. Personally I would put his super hero flick Unbreakable as one of my top 30 films of all time, yet as the years went by he began to seem like a one trick pony, cursed with the expectation that there would be a huge twist at the end of whatever film of his you were watching. For me I had lost faith, none of his films after the first couple were memorable to me, the twists became obvious (The Village, The Visit) and despite always choosing the perfect actors the films just had lost the zing that I had come to expect. As such going in to see Split my expectations were pretty low.

Three teenage girls including loner Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy from Morgan and The VVitch) are just about to head home from a party when they get abducted by a serious looking man (James McAvoy) . They awaken in a make-shift prison cell and soon discover that their captor has dissociative identity disorder, the most dominant personalities being the stern OCD inflicted Dennis, matriarchal Patricia, and a nine year old called Hedwig. Learning that someone dangerous referred to as 'the beast' is going to come for girls they must try and find a way to escape their confinement.