Fancy a brief sojourn into the deep, dark recesses of a broken and tormented psyche? In the mood for an intricate examination of the inner-workings of repression and the demons it forces one to harbour? Or are you just looking for a cinematographic representation of the damage sexual violence, abuse and misogyny can do? You’re in luck then because Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game (2017) has all that and more.

Subverting every expectation I have before pressing play is not always an easy feat, especially when it’s concerning a horror film. The handcuff motif that saturates the marketing and publicity of this film and the title itself (his game) automatically prepared me for an uncomfortably eerie depiction of a rape fantasy gone wrong. Although the handcuffs still play a significant metaphorical role (how Jess is bound and forcefully manacled to her traumatic past of sexual abuse which she has refused to confront) and although it technically is all about a rape fantasy gone wrong, it stopped following any of my mental predictions after about ten minutes. Considering the film’s namesake, as soon as Gerald dropped dead of a heart-attack, leaving Jess helplessly handcuffed to the bed, I thought “ok, ok. We’re playing that game now. Let’s see where you take me.”

Horror films that aren’t quintessentially ‘scary’ (aka. jump scares, bucket-loads of blood, things that go bump in the night, etc.) but that manipulate and play with your concept of stability, sanity and reality by just making you second-guess every little thing that presents itself onscreen – these are the films that really catch my attention and get my skin crawling. Gerald’s Game forces you to inhabit the disintegrating mind of the protagonist, Jess, as she faces the duel struggle of escaping her shackles whilst re-living all of her worst memories. Other than a slightly strange, out-of-place subplot concerning a supposedly paranormal ‘Moonlight Man’ of death (quick sidenote: this was the only part of the film that I couldn’t quite get behind. Why did the Crypt Man have to be a real guy who robs graves and eats people? I understand and appreciate the additional twist but there were enough subversions of expectations to last you until the end of the film without this and leaving him as the enduring memory of that horrific incident for Jess to use as a reminder of sorts to never return to that dark pool of repression would have been far more effective. Phew ok, that’s my little rant done), nearly everything in this film occurs within Jess’ mind as she progressively loses sanity and descends into madness. And what is more unsettling than the knowledge that our minds are that powerful and that convincing. When we’re pushed to such extreme limits, where will our minds go? Which hidden memories will return as we begin the tango with death? These are questions that I’m sure many people would struggle to even venture to answer. We’re told that at during our lowest moments, the good will persevere and shine through. But what if it’s the opposite, just as it is for Jess? What if everything we try to forget, everything we hate about ourselves, everything we regret comes hurtling back to reveal how we’ve been living our entire lives handcuffed and weighed down by a repressed past? This is why this film is so ominous.

Not only does Gerald’s Game expose how deep repression can conceal itself within the human soul, but it simultaneously shows us how resilient we are. The drive for survival, as a base instinct – the very reason why the stray dog feasts on the dead flesh of Gerald’s corpse – pushes Jess to her extreme limits, making failure seem worse than the very evil committed against her all those years before. The framing of the shots tighten around Jess as her demons claw their way towards the surface. But she tackles them head-on for the first time, pushing against both the physical frame imposed on her by the camera and the symbolic jaws of death. By confronting and overcoming her repressed past, she escapes her current trap. More than just an allegory for the impact of repression, Gerald’s Game shows us a way out. It shows us that there is a way to survive, but (just as Jess had to banish her visions and do it completely by herself) the effort and fight must come from within. Our psyche can ultimately be our largest competition and our biggest threat. But just as we seem to have an unlimited potential for pain and suffering, we also have an unlimited potential for perseverance. We can reverse the total eclipse of the sun (whether you want the sun to represent youth, innocence, joy – they all work in the film’s case) and bring light back into our world and our souls.

Gerald’s Game works on so many different levels that I didn’t expect. A psychological journey that represents how sexual abuse and violence can manifest itself within and outside of the self is no easy feat. But I think it was done rather tastefully, leaving us with a note of hope that no demon is too large to conquer and that the sun will always return from out behind the darkness.