Gerald's Game

[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film is Lit. The podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book. [00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie. [00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. This monster was real. Real as they come, as real as the cuffs, as the dog, as real as the eclipse. It's Gerald's game and this film is lit. Hello and welcome back to this film is like the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. We don't have every segment because we don't have a. We don't have whatchamacallit, do we? [00:01:13] Speaker B: We don't have a guess who. [00:01:14] Speaker A: We don't have that. But we do have every other segment, including lots to dive into. So before we get to everything else, we're going to I wanted to give a brief content warning we will be discussing. I mean obviously if you're listening this episode, you probably have read the book or watched the movie. This book slash movie are about child sexual assault is like a big recurring, very important element of the story. So if that, you know, is something you don't want to hear us discuss, we won't get into any nitty gritty details necessarily, but it is going to be discussed throughout the episode. So just wanted to give that warning at the beginning. Now if you have not read or watched Gerald's Game and need a little bit of a primer, we're gonna give you the summary of the film in Let me sum up. This is a pretty long and detailed summary. If you wanna skip it, you can jump to 7:08. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This summary is sourced from Wikipedia and it is just for the film. Jesse and Gerald Berlin Game arrive at an isolated lake house in Fairhope, Alabama for a romantic getaway. They come across a stray dog on the drive over. Jesse wants to help it, but Gerald objects. While Gerald takes Viagra, Jesse cuts up a raw steak the refrigerator and calls out for the dog to eat it. Gerald sees this and chastises her for the steak was expensive Kobe beef, but decides to allow her to leave the steak out. They Enter the house and Gerald leaves the door open behind them. Inside, she changes into a new slip and Gerald restrains her. With a set of handcuffs locked to the bed posts, he begins to enact a stranger rape fantasy. She half heartedly plays along but becomes uncomfortable telling him to stop and uncuff her. After a heated argument in which he accuses her of not trying to rekindle their relationship, Gerald dies of a heart attack to heart attack falling on top of Jesse and leaving her trapped in the handcuffs. A few hours pass. The dog enters through the open door of the house and Jesse tries to scare it away, but it bites a chunk out of Gerald's arm and eats it. Gerald stands up and begins talking. When Jesse notices his body remains on the floor, she realizes that she is hallucinating. He taunts her about the truths of their strained marriage and his erectile dysfunction. He informs her that she is beginning to suffer from dehydration and fatigue. And Jesse hallucinates a more self assured version of herself who explains things about her and Gerald that she never had the courage to acknowledge. The two hallucinations trigger her to remember the glass of water that Gerald had left on the shelf above the bed which she is able to reach but she cannot drink it, so she rolls the shopping tag that she had torn from her slip into a drinking straw to reach the water. Jesse falls asleep. The dog appears to be startled by footsteps in the house and runs out of the house barking. Jesse wakes up in the dark and sees a deformed, obscured figure who reveals a bag of bones and trinkets. She refuses to believe the figure is real, but Gerald says the figure is death waiting to take her, pointing out that he must have been real because the dog ran out of the house. Gerald begins to call Jessie Mouse, which triggers a memory of her father Tom, who affectionately referred to her as Mouse. When she was 12, her family went on vacation to see a solar eclipse from a boat. Jesse was scared of going on the water, so she chose to stay back to her mother's frustration and Tom agreed to watch her while the rest of the family went on the boat. During the eclipse, Tom asked Jesse to sit on his lap, supposedly reminiscing about Jesse's childhood, but began masturbating while Jesse was on his lap watching the eclipse. Tom manipulates Jesse afterwards to cover up the abuse, pretending he intended to tell their mother what happened, but subtly implying that her mother would blame Jesse for it. Near the end of their conversation, he admitted that he did a shameful thing but could not look at her. When he says this, Gerald points out that Jesse never told him about this. Gerald and the hallucination Jesse taunt her saying that she never recovered from the assault and that she married a man just like her father. During her childhood memory, Jesse hallucinates the deformed man licking her foot. She comes to and realizes it was the dog licking her foot and kicks it away. Gerald points out that it is only a matter of time before the dog stops eating his dead body and goes for her. Gerald calls a deformed man, the man made of moonlight, and points out a bloody footprint on the floor, making Jesse realize that the figure may have been real. Gerald warns the deformed man will be back after dark and indicates that she must find a way to escape before he returns. Jesse speaks to her child Persona who asks her to remember what happened afterwards. She recalls eating dinner with her family and gripping a water glass so tight that it shattered and cut her hand in the process. After her mother asked her how her time with Tom was while everyone was on the boat, her mother is shocked and seems to suspect that something happened, but still does nothing and Tom takes her aside to clean up her wound. In present day, Jesse hallucinates Tom and her younger self tending to the wound in the sink nearby the bed. And she realizes that the only way to escape is to break the water glass, cut her wrist and use the blood as lubricant to free one of her hands from the cuff. That's kind of what happens. She smashes the water glass, cuts her wrist and peels back the skin. Yeah, that is what happens. Allowing her bloody hand to slip through the cuff. She first reaches for her phone only to see that the battery is dead. She then reaches the keys for the handcuffs and unlocks her other hand. She bandages her wrist with sanitary pads, but passes out from blood loss and fatigue. When she wakes, the man made of moonlight is at the end of the hallway. Delirious, she removes her wedding ring and gives it to him for his trinket bag. Before leaving, she makes it to her car and drives away, but hallucinates the deformed man again who whispers mouse into her ear and she crashes into a tree. People from a nearby house emerge to help. Six months later, Jesse is writing a letter to her 12 year old self. She describes how she had pretended to have amnesia over the whole ordeal of being trapped. To avoid painful questions, she used some of Gerald's life insurance to start a foundation for victims of sexual abuse. But each night, the man made of moonlight still appears before her. As she falls asleep, she is disturbed by the fact that despite the police thoroughly searching the house, they were never able to find her wedding ring. She learns from the news that the man made of moonlight was in fact a serial killer and grave robber with acro acromegaly called Raymond Andrew Juber, who assaults and mutilates men, explaining why he did not harm Jesse in the house and while j. Why Gerald's ears were missing. Jesse arrives at court as Juber is being arraigned. He breaks free of his handcuffs and quotes what she said about what she said before leaving the house, mocking her and indicating that he was in fact there at the time. Seeing Gerald and her father in him, she tells him, you're so much smaller than I remember, and leaves triumphantly. The end. All right, that was a very like literally every single detail of what happens in the film, basically. So I'm going to put in. In retrospect, I'm going to put in. If you want to skip ahead. I'll do that later when I'm editing. Because that was a long one. [00:07:24] Speaker B: It was. And it was almost in the right order. [00:07:26] Speaker A: It was pretty much. That was actually a pretty accurate one for the most part. It was just really, really detailed in a way that maybe it was not necessary, but that's fine. All right, I have a lot of questions. Let's get into those in. Was that in the book, Gaston? [00:07:41] Speaker B: May I have my book, please? [00:07:42] Speaker A: How can you read this? There's no pictures. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Well, some people use their imagination. [00:07:47] Speaker A: So the film opens up, they're driving somewhere. Well, we see them packing for the first shot. We'll talk about that later. But then we're immediately they're driving somewhere. Jesse and Gerald are two main characters. And on their way, a dog is in the road and they. They have to slam on their brakes and almost hit it. This kind of mangy looking feral dog that is eating roadkill. This is a very quintessential horror movie. Open. It's also the way get out starts, I believe. Well, they actually hit a deer and I thought it was a fox, but it could be. I don't remember. Yeah, hitting a dead animal on the road. Driving somewhere is like a classic horror movie opened or almost hitting in a. Whatever. And so I wanted to know if this happened in the book. [00:08:26] Speaker B: No, it does not. The book cold opens with Gerald locking Jesse into the handcuffs. So we don't see them like driving to the house or getting ready or anything. She can hear the dog, like barking somewhere outside, but we don't See it until later. I like both openings. I think both have their strengths and weaknesses. I don't really have a strong opinion on that change. [00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the movie's fine. I think it helps a little bit. I don't think it would have. I don't know if it would have been as successful to just immediately open straight in on her in bed. I think a little bit of lead into that helps. But anyways, yeah, it doesn't really matter. So when they get to the house, they're driving to a lake house that they own for the weekend to have a romantic weekend together and to respice their love life, rekindle their love life. And when they get there, they hang out for a little bit. And then she changes because they're gonna have sex and she changes into like this negligee slip, whatever they call it. Slip in the movie. I guess that's the word for it. I don't know. Whatever. I don't know what the term is. But she's wearing this lingerie dress looking thing. But as he's getting ready to come into the room, she quickly realizes that the tag is still on it. Cause she just bought it. And so she pulls it off really quick and sets it on the mantel above the. Or they have a bookshelf above the bed and she sets it on that. And I wanted to know if that detail came from the book. Cause I liked it as a detail of very quickly kind of giving us detail about their. It was a very, very show don't tell. Giving us background about their relationship. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That is not from the book. In the book she's just wearing underwear. So she doesn't have. Obviously they couldn't do that in the movie and like just have her boobs out the entire time. [00:10:14] Speaker A: Oh, well, they could have. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Well then they could ask. [00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, there's no need to though. [00:10:17] Speaker B: There's no need to. Yeah, it doesn't really. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:19] Speaker B: But I did also really enjoy that detail in the movie. Yeah, it's still like the lingerie is still brand new, kind of subtly tells us a lot about their sex life. [00:10:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And I then immediately knew what the tag would end up being used for, which I really enjoyed as a book reader. [00:10:36] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Interesting. I also. There's a line. I almost had a question about this, but I don't think I ended up deleting it. I think. But when he sees it, he has this line where he says like, oh, I love this slip. And she says, oh, thanks. I just. Or that I'm glad I bought it or something like that. And to me, I got the vibe from that exchange that he was maybe like, I think maybe we're supposed to get out of that exchange was that he didn't realize it was new. Maybe like when he says, I love this the way he said I love this slip, almost like he's trying to be like, oh, I love this slip. It's so sexy or whatever. She's like, you've never seen. Cause I love this. It sounds more like he's pretending that, like, oh, yeah, this is my favorite piece of lingerie you own. When really she just bought it. Again, I don't know if that's how you're supposed to read it, but it's another little indication of kind of where their relationship is at. [00:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:33] Speaker A: So then they get. They get down to it and the whole purpose of why they're doing this again, their. Their relationship has been struggling as we kind of see from the drive there and their interactions with each other. But then they. They go to have sex and he has brought these handcuffs with him because he wants to try this. This kind of fun sex scenario. And he wants to handcuff her to the bed, but he pulls the handcuffs out and they're real handcuffs, like legit, actual handcuffs. And I wanted to know if that was the same detail in the book, because I was like, bro, you do not use real handcuffs. [00:12:07] Speaker B: Don't. You don't use real handcuffs for sex. [00:12:09] Speaker A: Particularly if there's not like, other people there that can help undo them for, like, this exact reason. Yeah. [00:12:18] Speaker B: Yes, they are real handcuffs. In the book we learn that he got them from a cop that he knows from work. Because he's like a lawyer. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I think we assume he's a lawyer. In the movie, we only hear a little. They never say. Well, I think they do maybe at the end of the movie, potentially, but in the whole, like, in the very end, like, monologue, she gives. But up until that point, we hear his dialogue and I was like, he's a lawyer. Like when he's on the phone that one time and he's like, oh, we can't move forward unless they sign the non compete. I was like, oh, yeah, he's an asshole lawyer. [00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And we learn later on in the book that they are male cuffs. Oh, he calls them like m. Some string of numbers. [00:12:56] Speaker A: Right. Like they have different ones for. [00:12:58] Speaker B: That makes sense. And he's. He was disappointed by that. Yeah, because the. Yeah, because the male cuffs don't close as tightly as the female Cuffs do. But apparently still enough. It was a good thing that they had the male cuffs. [00:13:11] Speaker A: Yes, that's true. Actually, in retrospect, it might have been a. Yeah. So they. He handcuffs her to the bed. And the way he does it, if you haven't seen the movie, is they have like a four poster. Well, I guess it's. I don't think it has posters on the end. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a two poster back. [00:13:25] Speaker A: I guess it's a thing. But it's got these big poles like banisters up by the headboard on each end. And he puts one end. He has two pairs of handcuffs and he puts one end around each of her wrists and then the other end of each of the handcuffs around these wooden banisters. And it's important anyway, and that's how the handcuffs are to the bed. And then they start going at it and he's doing this roleplay scenario where he's pretending he's not her husband and like he's this stranger who's come in to take advantage of her. And she like almost immediately starts having like a panic attack and like clearly is not into. Well, she's clearly not into it, like pretty immediately. And then very shortly thereafter within like a minute is like full on having like a panic attack. And I was like, oh, bro, did you not discuss any. Clearly didn't discuss any of this with her. And so I wanted to know if she reacted so quickly, like if she had such a negative reaction so quickly in the book. And then on that, I had a second question that you moved up here, which is that at one point she's like, they start arguing after she starts kind of freaking out. And then she's like, uncuff me. And she says, just uncuff me and we can talk. And then he kind of just out of nowhere is like, what if I won't? But they've already kind of broken the scene at this point, so I wanted to know if both of those elements came from the book. [00:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so the book is told in third person, but we're in Jesse's perspective for the majority of it and she's already not into the idea of what they're doing at all. Like, I feel like in the movie she entertains it a little bit more than she does in the book even. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously I can't compare. But yeah, she seems very hesitant in the movie. I mean, I guess, yeah, she at least kind of plays along for a minute. Yeah. [00:15:09] Speaker B: But in the book she's really Irritated at the idea of having to play along with this. She's not into it. She thinks it's stupid. So she tells him she wants to stop. And he plays dumb and, like, acts like it's just part of the scene. Even though he can clearly tell. He does in the movie, too. It's, like, subtly different between the book and the movie, which I'll get to. And that's what kicks off their argument. And he does say, what if I won't? To one of her requests to be, like, set loose. I wouldn't say that she has a panic attack in the book, not like she does in the movie. At one point, he drools on her, and her brain immediately interprets that as his semen due to her, like, previous trauma. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:16:00] Speaker B: And that, like, sends her into a fit of rage. [00:16:03] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:04] Speaker B: I liked the movie's decision, though, to change this to having him call himself Daddy. And that being, like, the thing that sets her off. [00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, like, the big thing that really triggers her. [00:16:15] Speaker B: But I thought that it felt more concretely related. Plus, I thought that the droll seaman thing would have been hard for a movie to explain in the moment. [00:16:26] Speaker A: That I agree with completely. I don't know if it's. I think the books version would work totally fine in the book, because, again, we get to be there. And I think that seems like a very reasonable trigger for her. But I think trying to explain that in a movie would have been damn near impossible. Whereas what the movie does and switching it to him saying Daddy or calling himself Daddy definitely becomes very clear very quickly why this is an issue for her. Or at least because at this point, we don't know. But you have an idea, at least it's starting to set you down the path. Whereas the drool semen thing would have been like, how do we even possibly explain this to an audience at all? I have this here, but it's not really even a question so much, I guess I can ask about the line. I think this was just a note I had that I wrote down, ended up in my questions. But at one point, as they're arguing, she's still handcuffed to the bed. Obviously, it's the whole premise of the movie. But he's like. They're arguing back and forth, and at one point he stands up. He's like, how did we go so wrong? And I'm like, I don't know, man. Probably because you clearly never talked to your wife about, like, literally anything ever. Like, you guys have, like, the worst relationship I've ever seen based on the five minutes I've seen of your relationship, like, you guys don't talk about it. Like, you just started doing, like, a rape roleplay scenario with her with zero warning and like. [00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah, zero discussion. [00:17:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:52] Speaker B: So that specific question, how did we go so wrong? I don't think ever happens in the book. But I did want to talk about the kind of first little bit of the movie because I thought one of the most interesting changes that the movie made to this kind of, like, opening act is to sort of trick us into thinking that they might have, like, not that bad of a relationship. [00:18:16] Speaker A: Didn't trick me. [00:18:17] Speaker B: But see, and I was comparing it to the book, so felt different to me. [00:18:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:23] Speaker B: Like, I felt like there was tension, but I felt like things seemed, like, not that bad up until she wants to stop their sex game. [00:18:35] Speaker A: I guess it depends on what you mean by that bad. Yeah, I mean, clearly, like, once that happens, it triggers this whole thing and then it spirals into a place where, like, oh, they're like, really have, like, a horrible relationship. But even before that, I was like, I don't know, like, if their relationship. After that moment, I'm like, well, that's a 10 out of 10 bad relationship. Before that, I was like, they're like a 7 out of 10 bad relationship. I don't know. Like, they're like, her looks in the car as they're driving there. I. And I will admit that I. Mine was tempered by the fact that I kind of knew the premise of the movie. And, like, I'm sure that, like, fed into that a little bit. Like, if I had gone in completely blind, maybe I wouldn't have felt that way. But even still, I was like, yeah, pretty clearly terrible. [00:19:19] Speaker B: At any rate, comparing it to the book, paragraph one, I was like, oh, you hate him, huh? Oh, you absolutely cannot stand this man. And then as soon, like, as soon as he started talking, I was like, oh, you hate her. Okay, that's what we're doing. Right. Whereas to me, it at least felt like, like, I don't think the movie was trying to say, like, oh, these two have a great relationship initially. [00:19:46] Speaker A: No, I'm not saying yeah. [00:19:47] Speaker B: But it did feel, like, a little more nuanced. [00:19:52] Speaker A: Right? It's definitely. Yeah. You don't. You're unsure of, like, are they just going through a fight right now? [00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:57] Speaker A: Or is like, their relationship just fund at a fundamental level? Not. Does it not work? And it becomes very clear that it's the second thing very soon. But I guess, yeah, you could think again. Maybe I'm just so. Like, I was so keyed into, like, all the little. Because I kind of knew that, like, it was about their relationship and stuff like that, so. And among other things. But, like, I was very. So maybe I was just more keyed into the details of her reactions to him saying things and just that he seemed like the worst person from moment one that I was like, yeah, there's nothing worth saving here. [00:20:34] Speaker B: I also thought it was really interesting that the movie has Gerald break character during their scene and then still refuse to let her out, which is what. [00:20:44] Speaker A: I was talking about with that. Well, the question before this one. [00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Because in the book, he plays dumb the entire time. Like, he never, like, breaks character so that they can argue. He just acts like he thinks she's in character even though he, like, clearly knows that she isn't. [00:21:01] Speaker A: But, like, he's still. [00:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:03] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, it's. Yeah, it's. They're. Like I said, their marriage is just awful. It's because they clearly did not discuss any of this. [00:21:13] Speaker B: No. I feel like one of my first notes in the book was like. Oh, so no safe word? Huh? [00:21:19] Speaker A: Nothing. [00:21:19] Speaker B: No. No safe word. No. No safe bondage tools. Okay, cool. [00:21:24] Speaker A: Yep. No. Yeah. Which makes sense again, because it's not. It's. He's doing this kind of impulsively. [00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Because it's like a fantasy of his or whatever. But it's not because their relationship is not one built on trust and communication. It is just like he just does this thing he wants to do and. Oh, boy, that went poorly, of course. You weirdo. Yeah. So we mentioned earlier that they almost hit a dog on the way in. She does end up go out and feed it at one point some of the Kobe beef that he had delivered for their weekend. But then. So I skipped the part where he has a heart attack. I assume that happens in the book because that's like the whole main incident of the movie is that she died or he dies and she's handcuffed to the bed. So after that happens, he falls onto the floor. And after she's there for a little bit, the dog from earlier wanders into the house. Great tension building moment in the movie of, like, we hearing sounds and don't. [00:22:17] Speaker B: Know what it is. [00:22:18] Speaker A: And the camera kind of slowly, because we're trapped in her perspective, which I have a note about later that I think works really well for a horror film or, like, a thriller. But the dog wanders in and kind of sits there at first and then after a few minutes, it goes over and starts licking Gerald's blood because he cracks his head on the floor when he falls off the bed. And then starts like, chewing. Biting pieces off Gerald's arm. And I wanted to know if the dog starts eating Gerald. [00:22:45] Speaker B: In the book, yes, Gerald does become dog chow. The movie actually has the dog stay in the room with Jesse, which I thought was a nice additional layer of horror. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting because it comes back later in certain ways, but, yeah, for sure. So then, kind of surprisingly, she passes out for a little bit, and then she. Wait, I think she. I think she passes out. I can't remember. But at some point, we move forward in time a little bit. And all of a sudden, Gerald stands up and starts talking to Jesse. And she's like, what the hell? And she's, like, freaking out. She's going, oh, thank God you're alive. And then she glances over and sees that his body is still on the floor and realizes in that moment that she is hallucinating Gerald. I wanted to know if that. The hallucination version of Gerald, like, if she talks to a dead version or living dead version of Gerald after he dies in the book. Because then also later, a different version of Jesse appears, who's, like, a more confident version of Jesse. And she's having a conversation with both of them kind of throughout the movie, talking through stuff. And I wanted to know if that. That narrative element of her talking to both Gerald and Jesse or herself came from the book. [00:24:02] Speaker B: Okay, so this is the major way that the movie deviates from the book. There's no hallucination Gerald or Jesse in the book. Jesse does start to have conversations with voices in her head who becomes kind of characters in their own. Right. There's no indication that she, like, sees them. [00:24:26] Speaker A: Right. That they're like. That she imagines them physically existing. [00:24:29] Speaker B: No, there's not really. At least not that I picked up on any implication of that. But she. She has conversations with these characters who represent, like, different aspects of herself. And one of them she calls Good Wife Berlin Game, which is her technically, but it's like a submissive, like, proper wife, proper woman, kind of version of her. [00:24:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:55] Speaker B: And then the other is her college roommate, Ruth, who Jesse remembers as being very bold and brash. She does also talk to her childhood self, but that's not till, like, much later in the book. So throughout the book, she, like, learns to accept all of these different aspects of herself and work with them in order to get out of her predicament okay. So I think the movie is doing something really similar from, like, a thematic standpoint. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. [00:25:26] Speaker B: The hallucinations still represent, I think, different aspects of her psyche, and she still needs them in order to get out of this situation that she's found herself in. [00:25:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the Jesse character, the one that appears is her confident, like. [00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like her confident Persona, her version of herself. [00:25:44] Speaker A: And then Gerald is the. All of her doubts and, like, insecurities basically manifest. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Ultimately, this change was kind of six of one for me. I think it's a good movie decision, especially for just, like, baseline, not having to introduce or explain any new characters. [00:26:03] Speaker A: That's true. And it also gives, like. I think it creates a really interesting dynamic with Gerald of having him, like, be both this manifestation of her insecurity, but also saying the things that feel like Gerald would say. So, like, because he is, like, he did feed on her insecurities as a person and that sort of thing. So I think it makes perfect sense and works really well and is super compelling. Also gives some really good visual moments. There's this one great shot where Gerald's laying there dead on the floor. She's handcuffed to the bed. And then Gerald and Jesse are both standing on either side. The other versions of them are both standing on both sides of the bed next to her. It's this. And we get, like, a wide shot of it. It's like this really weird tableau. I thought it was really cool. [00:26:52] Speaker B: I will say, the one thing that I did kind of miss from the book was Good Wife Berlin Game. Now, I thought there was some obvious, like, kind of second wave feminism type commentary going on with that character. So maybe Mike Flanagan and company just felt like it was outdated. But I thought she ended up being kind of an interesting character in her own right because she starts out, obviously, like, very annoying. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:20] Speaker B: And kind of a wet blanket. But we end up coming to learn that there are, like, aspects of that part of Jesse's personality that she does need, that, like, kind of calmness. [00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. So she's been handcuffed to the bed now for hours, and she's getting very fatigued. She's passed it out a couple times, but she's obviously very dehydrated. Gerald mentions to her that she's dehydrated and that she'll obviously die if she doesn't get some water. And then we get this very clever way that she remembers the glass of water above her on the headboard or on the man or the bookcase above her is that they kind of the multiple versions of herself talk her, or Gerald and Jesse talk her through, like, what happened when they got there. And through the course of that, she realizes, oh, my God, that's right. There's that glass of water that he set on the. On the bookshelf above me. And I wanted to know if that played out the same way in the book, because I thought that was really cool. And if she's able to, like, slide it, because she. In the movie, in order to get it, it's, like, in the middle, and she can't reach the middle because the way her hands are handcuffed. So she has to literally tip the shelf, and the glass of water slides, and she catches it at the end of the bookcase. And I wanted to know, because that was impressive, does she pull it off like that in the movie or in the book? [00:28:44] Speaker B: So there's no Viagra in the book. [00:28:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is why he has the glass of water. [00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And I don't recall there being any cool memory trick that makes her remember the glass of water. I think she just knows that it's up there. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:29:01] Speaker B: But otherwise, this plays out pretty much the same. She has to manipulate the shelf until the glass slides down into her hand. [00:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I just thought. I really liked. Because I think that feeds into, like, they're talking about, like, why this all started and, like, his. Him being, like, having Ed or whatever. And they're like, how that was an issue in their relationship and slowly meanders back around to him taking, like, the Viagra pill. And Gerald's like, no, it's a good thing I did, or something like that. And she's like, what are you talking about? And then, like, realizes, oh, the glass of water. I just thought it was really clever. [00:29:42] Speaker B: Fun fact. I had to look this up. Viagra not available in the US until 1998, which was six years after the book was published. So obviously, no Viagra in the book. [00:29:55] Speaker A: Yes, right. Yeah, obviously. That makes sense. So the other thing that I liked about the Jessie that isn't handcuffed to the bed, the alternate Jesse, the confident Jesse who shows up, is that she kind of talks her through situations like she did with the Viagra thing. Although I think that might have mostly been Jared, but. Or Gerard. Gerald. Jared. Gerald. But her alternate Jesse kind of, like, talks her through stuff and, like, helps her puzzle things out in the same way. Like, when you're in your own head kind of thinking about things, you can kind of puzzle things out. But It's a. You know, it gives us as an audience, a way to kind of literally be a part of that and watch it play out like a dialogue, which is cool. And it reminded me a little bit of the film Hush, which was another Mike Flanagan film, I think, from, like, the year before this. I mentioned the prequel. The book that she throws at the dog in this movie. If you didn't listen to the prequel, she throws a copy of a book called Midnight Mass that was written by the character in Hush. The character in Hush, played by Kate Siegel, is an author, and she writes a book called Midnight Mass. Well, she doesn't in that movie. In this one, her character's name is the author name on Midnight Mass. And then Midnight Mass would go on to be a TV show anyways. Very fun. But I wanted to know if. And in Hutch, getting pointed out is. In Hutch, she's an author, so she, like, works. She, like, writes scenarios in her head, and it helps her figure out what she's gonna do to survive this home invasion scenario that she's in, which I thought was really clever. And we actually see things play out and then not play out, which this movie does, too, I thought was when she escapes, when the first Jesse escapes from the bed and we think she's free. I didn't, obviously. Cause I knew what the premise of the movie was. I knew she would escape like, 15 minutes into the movie. But a very similar things happen in Hush, where we see the main character do stuff and then she gets killed, and then it snaps back and she's like, well, I won't do that. Yeah, don't do that. And so I thought that was clever. And I want to know if it came from the book or if it was a Mike Flanagan thing, because, again, it reminded me so much of Hush. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah. The book does kind of a similar thing. The aforementioned characters in her head do this for her. They kind of talk her through and coax her towards the answers that she needs. [00:32:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting because I. And that's like. My next question here is, I wasn't really expecting so much of this to be about, like, the actual physical stuff she had to do to survive, like, I expected it to be, which it primarily is about, like, the emotional, like, things that are going on. But there is, like, a significant amount of the movie and a lot of the tension does come from, like, the physical survival scenario that she is in, which is kind of interesting and really wasn't what I was expecting. And I was comparing it to, like, an of MacGyver. Because what she does here is that she remembers the glass of water. She's able to get it, but she can't drink it because she can't get it to her mouth. So she then remembers that she has the receipt from the slip that she got up on the bookcase and she's able to grab that and roll it up with one hand, which was incredibly impressive. I don't think I could do that without dropping it and put it in her mouth and then use that as a straw to drink the water. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. I was like that. Wow. Very, very impressive. [00:33:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. It's not a clothes tag in the book. It's like a paper insert from a magazine. Remember those? [00:33:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:22] Speaker B: But the outcome is the same. She, like, rolls it into a straw to use. [00:33:25] Speaker A: Yeah. No. Yeah. Like I said. And I actually like the kind of weird. I like that the movie. And I guess the book by extension does give us those, like the actual practical, like, kind of survival stuff that is also going on while simult dealing with all of the emotional trauma that's going on that she's kind of processing through all of this. [00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really interesting. [00:33:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So she's able to drink some water and then she passes out again. And she wakes up in the middle of the night and it's pitch black. And she sees some movement in the corner of her room and in the shadows. And then all of a sudden, out of the darkness, this very indistinct figure. The first time we see it, you can't really just see a little bit of it kind of lit by moonlight, hence his name, the Moonlight Man. But she sees this, like, this big, gigantic, terrifying looking man that kind of looms out of the darkness in the corner. And she's like. Doesn't really think he's real. She closes her eyes. She's like, it's not real. It's not real. And I wanted to know if that scene came from the book and her being unreal, if it's or unsure if it's real or not. [00:34:28] Speaker B: Yes. All of that is from the book. The movie was not as spooky as I imagined it. [00:34:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:34:37] Speaker B: But it is from the book. [00:34:39] Speaker A: I thought that scene was pretty spooky. [00:34:40] Speaker B: It's pretty spooky. It's just not as spooky as what I imagined. [00:34:46] Speaker A: I mean, it's often hard for that to be the case. Like, it very rarely is something as spooky as you can imagine it because your brain Knows what scares it more than Mike Flanagan does, generally speaking. So. Yeah. But I really like that scene. I had a note about it later, but it makes sense to talk about it here. I really. I really enjoyed that scene, that moment, because, again, I mentioned earlier, we're trapped in Jesse's perspective. We're tied to the bed with her. We cut around outside of that. But a lot of the time we are trapped kind of from her perspective, or at least when the movie wants us to be, in a way that I thought was really effective. And it really played. This scene in particular, really plays into some very primal fear of darkness kind of thing because there's these dark corners of the room and she's an adult. If she was, you know, she could just turn the light on or she could walk over there, but she literally cannot do that in this scenario. And it kind of immediately transports you back to being like a little kid in your room, scared of the shadows in the corner and you're too scared to even get out of, you know, like, go look or do anything, so you just hide under the covers or whatever. And I thought it did a really effective job of kind of capturing that type of suspense and, like, spookiness in a way that I thought was kind of fun, the way it was able to play with that. So then we get into the main meat of, like, what is actually going on here, sort of. That is the root of all of the issues kind of emotionally and with their relationship. And I don't say the issues, their relationship. This is a relationship is that he's an asshole. But the part of the reason that they've never had a very communicative relationship is because she has this trauma from her childhood that she has kind of buried and. [00:36:28] Speaker B: Well, and then this unhealed trauma is also the reason that she gravitates to him in the first place, too. [00:36:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So we flashback and we see and I talk about this all in the summary, but that she went on a vacation with her family to go see an eclipse. Family goes out in the boat, leaving her and her dad to watch it, and her dad sexually assaults her. And I wanted to know if that. Obviously, I assume that all happened in the book, but specifically the important or not important. But one of the, like, big visual elements in the movie is that this all takes place during a solar eclipse. And, like, we get, like. We see the eclipse happening and the assault actually happens during the eclipse. And everything is, like, bathed in this red blood red light, which, if you've seen an eclipse, is not what it actually looks like. But I was wondering if the element of the solar eclipse came from the book, because I thought that was interesting. And I was trying to figure out what we're doing symbolically there. And I want to talk about that. So does that happen in the book? [00:37:27] Speaker B: Yes, it does. [00:37:28] Speaker A: Okay. Because initially I was like, is this just an excuse to make it, like red and creepy because we get like this, like, horrifying lighting? [00:37:35] Speaker B: Like, I think yes and no. Because as we've said, that's not what an eclipse. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Not what an eclipse looks like. It just looks like nighttime is what it looks like when you, like during the actual eclipse, basically. And they did not capture the. Well, because it's all red, I guess, but whatever the. What is the word? Not coriolis, but the. [00:37:57] Speaker B: I don't know what the. [00:37:58] Speaker A: When the actual eclipse happens, you get the big white, like halo. [00:38:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:02] Speaker A: The ring around the ring, which is just. If you've never seen a solar eclipse, it's one of the coolest things you will ever see. And I cannot recommend enough going to see a solar eclipse. But. But. So I was trying to like. Okay, maybe they just wanted, like. Cause it's super creepy and weird and like, you know, it is like a very surreal experience. [00:38:19] Speaker B: Yes, it is. [00:38:21] Speaker A: Especially the moments leading up to. And, you know, like the way the lighting gets. Whatever. It's very interesting. And so I was like, okay, it's just a good visual thing to do to make during this creepy scene. But then as I thought about it more, and I was like, okay. I also see what we're doing here in the sense of this is an event. We especially find out later that she has basically blocked out of her mind and basically memory holed. And it's like, like completely decided to just. [00:38:45] Speaker B: Yeah, she's completely compartmentalized it. [00:38:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Because of a scene we'll talk about later. But. And. And I was like, oh, so that makes perfect sense then in retrospect that the. The eclipse there then becomes symbolism of. Because the eclipse is the moon obscuring the sun. And in the same way that she has sort of memory hold or black hold this. This event in her life. The eclipse blocks the sun, the sun, you know, like it's a thing blocking another thing. It feels like pretty obvious what we're going for symbolically. [00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think you're right about the symbolism. And in the book it's, you know, not that it isn't this in the movie, but because we're in her perspective in the book, we're able to, like, get into it a little more. But, like, at the very beginning of the book, before she starts kind of diving into this previous trauma and actually, like, remembering it, she doesn't even remember that it was an eclipse. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:39:46] Speaker B: She just has this vague memory of everything going dark. [00:39:50] Speaker A: Oh, okay. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, and that ties into another thing we'll talk about later with the lighting thing we'll talk about. That's so good. [00:40:00] Speaker B: Also, I just want to say that the funniest thing to me about Mike Flanagan making everything turn blood red during an eclipse is that Stephen King actually nailed, like, the description of what the light does. Like, especially, like, leading up to it, where it's getting. [00:40:21] Speaker A: Which the movie is not that far off. [00:40:22] Speaker B: No, because it gets, like. It's such a weird experience. It gets, like, progressively dimmer. [00:40:27] Speaker A: But not in a way like it does at sunset. [00:40:30] Speaker B: No, no, it's far weirder than that. [00:40:32] Speaker A: Very different and way weirder. Yeah, it just gets dimmer. But it doesn't. Because the sun's still above you. [00:40:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Or wherever, you know, the sun's still in roughly the same spot. So it doesn't, like. It doesn't do the thing that a sunset does. But yeah, it just. It gets. But. And I think the movie kind of captures that very weird, surreal light experience because, again, the light is still coming from above, but it's just way less. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's. It's being, like, filtered and, like, the shadows look weird and very interesting. [00:41:00] Speaker A: But yeah, he just. The red thing is just like, this is just a very visually striking, horrifying kind of moment. And dialing that up with the red. I think Mike Flanagan probably knows what an eclipse looks, whether or not he's seen one. I'm sure he at least could have Googled what it looks like. [00:41:16] Speaker B: I feel pretty confident that Stephen King has. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So then we flashback, or we back to the current timeline after we see that flashback. And Jesse is discussing what happened with herself and with Gerald, I think. [00:41:33] Speaker B: Yeah, with Gerald. [00:41:35] Speaker A: And he has this just horrible line that I wanted to know if came from the book is that he talks about how that she had just had her first period because she was, like, 12, I think, at the time, and she had just had her first period. And he says, and the dog. In this moment, the dog is still sitting in the room, like, chewing on Gerald's flesh or whatever in the doorway. And he kind of looks at the dog and looks back at her, and they're talking about how she had just had her Period, for the first time. And he says he smelled the blood and did what dogs do. And I wanted to know if that line came from their book, because. Jesus Christ. [00:42:11] Speaker B: So that exact line isn't from the book, but this is. She started when she was only ten and a half. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he smelled blood just like that dog out in the entry. Maybe it made him frantic. The movie's version is, in my opinion, more impactful, but obviously, obviously pulled from that. [00:42:35] Speaker A: Yes. It was just to take that and kind of condense it down into its most distilled, upsetting form. Well, and more directly does what we're doing about men, which is like comparing them to dogs in this scenario, where obviously the book is doing that, but it's not as directly doing it as the movie line does. Then the next day she wakes up and one of the things she realizes is Gerald points out to her, like, hey, look down on the floor. You see that? And she sees this kind of thing in the blood that kind of looks like a footprint. [00:43:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:10] Speaker A: And he's like, if that guy in the corner wasn't real, why is there a footprint? She's like, eh, that's probably not. Whatever. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, if like this idea that maybe this moonlight guy, moonlight man, was real because she sees like a footprint or something. [00:43:24] Speaker B: So she does see what she thinks could be a footprint, but it's in mud, not blood. [00:43:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:30] Speaker B: She also sees a pearl earring on the floor, which the movie completely omits. I'm fine with those changes because I think that I felt like it was a little obvious in the book if there was. There's mud on the floor now. [00:43:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:45] Speaker B: And there wasn't before. [00:43:46] Speaker A: Right. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Like, obviously the mud had to come from somewhere. I guess it could have come from the dog. Yeah. Whereas in the movie I felt like just like the smear of blood was a little bit more. [00:43:57] Speaker A: It was. It was vague enough that it's like come from the dog or something. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't necessarily. It kind of looked like a footprint, but it also could have just been. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Like a smear of blood. [00:44:11] Speaker A: I want to stress at this point, I was still fully on. Under the. When I'm writing these questions, I was still fully under the assumption that moonlight man was not real. If you have seen the movie or. [00:44:21] Speaker B: Listened to the summary, why would you be under any other assumption? [00:44:24] Speaker A: You will know that that is not the case. But we will get to that. [00:44:27] Speaker B: Oh, we'll get to that. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Because boy, do we have thoughts. Anyways, then we got back, we flash back again, and maybe the most upsetting. Well, upsetting in two different ways. There's a very physically upsetting scene coming up shortly. But this is maybe the most emotionally upsetting scene in the movie, at least it was to me, is that her dad comes in and talks to her after he has assaulted her because they're getting ready to have dinner after her mom has come back with their siblings and he's talking to her and he basically he manipulates her into keeping it a secret. He's like, we should tell Mom. And he comes in and is saying, we should tell her what happened because if we wait until later, it'll be worse. We just need to do it now, that sort of thing. We need to take our medicine, which is a Shining line. I'm pretty sure when he said that, I was like, I'm pretty sure somebody says that either in the Shining or Doctor Sleep, which I'm 100% sure. [00:45:22] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure that's from the Shining. [00:45:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I think Jack says something about taking his medicine or something like that. But then he soft pedals it and is like, but things have been rough between your mom and I. And she hears about this because she was like, her and her mom have had tension because she's a preteen. [00:45:39] Speaker B: She's grown up. Yeah. [00:45:40] Speaker A: Daughter, preteen girl. So she's at that age where you start having falling out with your parents often. And so he's like, look, and your relationship has been bad. This will just make it way worse. And basically manipulates her into being like, no, we should keep it a secret. And then that is kind of what causes her to truly memory hole it, basically. [00:46:00] Speaker B: Because now she believes that was her choice. [00:46:02] Speaker A: Yes, yes. He manipulates it into thinking it was her choice to keep it a secret, essentially. And like I said, it was one of the more brutally uncomfortable scenes. And just this movie in general is one of the harder to watch movies I've watched in a while. And we just watched Rosemary's Baby not that long ago, which is nothing compared to this in a lot of ways. But I wanted to know if that scene played out like that in the book. [00:46:24] Speaker B: The scenes are very similar, but I have to give this one to the book. Being in Jesse's perspective and being in her mind as she's trying to, like, think through this. [00:46:37] Speaker A: Oh, God. [00:46:38] Speaker B: And ultimately falls for his manipulation was viscerally horrifying in a way that I have not experienced in a while. [00:46:47] Speaker A: I can imagine it's Horrible. Watching the movie. And you can kind of see because the actress does a really good job. [00:46:52] Speaker B: Yeah, she does a really good job. [00:46:53] Speaker A: The actress playing the younger Jesse does a really good job. And you can see on her face, her going through that, like, mental calculation and trying to figure out, like, what to do and that sort of thing. And so you can. You can infer a lot of what's going on in her head in a way that's also really horrifying. Because it's kind of like we were talking about where, like, what I'm imagining is almost as horrifying as I can imagine reading, like, her thoughts would be. But, yeah, I. Yeah, I can't. Yeah, reading that would be very hard. So then we cut forward and she. She's passed out again. And then she. Oh, that's right. Then after that scene in the past, she, like, falls on the bed and is laying there. And then she looks down like the young Jesse is. And she looks down and sees a dog licking her foot. [00:47:38] Speaker B: No, no, she sees. She hallucinates. [00:47:40] Speaker A: That's right. [00:47:40] Speaker B: The moonlight guy. [00:47:41] Speaker A: She sees the moonlight guy licking her foot. And then it cuts and it's the dog. And then we're back in current time, and it's current Jesse still handcuffed to the bed, and the dog's licking her foot. But I wanted to know if the scene of the creepy guy licking her foot came from the book. [00:47:57] Speaker B: No. And I. I have to say that I didn't really care for this addition, really, in the movie. I thought it was kind of a cheap jump scare. [00:48:04] Speaker A: It's a little bit of a cheap jump scare. But I thought it was one that worked because the dog is there and the idea of it licking her foot makes sense. [00:48:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:11] Speaker A: And so, like. And then her psyche turning that into the creepy guy she saw. I, like, thought it, like, totally worked, like, narratively. [00:48:19] Speaker B: You know what I mean? I'm saying it doesn't work. I just thought it was a little cheap. [00:48:23] Speaker A: Fair enough. So she then wakes up, and now she realizes she needs. She's gotta get out of here. Cause nobody's coming for her. And she's gonna die if she stays in this bed much longer. Cause she doesn't have. She's out of water, basically, at this point. She hasn't eaten in over two days or whatever. Among other things, obviously. [00:48:40] Speaker B: And physical symptoms. [00:48:41] Speaker A: Physical circulation, being cut off in her arms from being handcuffed to the bed and all that sort of stuff. So she has to get out of there. And she realize that what she needs to do. She has a memory again of her childhood where after the dinner, after the assault happened, she squeezed a drinking glass and it shattered in her hand and she cut her hand all up. And this is what triggers her memory or triggers her to think that, oh, she can slice her hand open and use the blood to lubricate it to slide her hand out, but more importantly, slice some of the flesh off in order to make it easier. And then I want to know. So that's what she does. And now I will say I think the movie does this symbolically. She slits her wrist in the movie and that feels like. Not like. I'm not sure why she does that necessarily. Because they're like. They make a point of like, you need to slit your wrist, but not too deep because then you'll get enough blood that it'll be like. But the thing that ends up being the important part is that she slits enough of the flesh off that it is able to pull. So I don't know, the wrist slitting to me feels very symbolic and like a. She's dealing with this trauma. It's symbol. Like she, you know, she could have killed herself or something. But it's a similar action, but it's actually saving her. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like we're doing something there with like kind of the parallel of what's going on. But I wanted to know if that happens in the book because then she starts after she cuts her wrist and part of her hand, she starts yanking her hand out of the handcuff. And I'm not going to go into details, but it's maybe the worst thing I've seen in a movie. Like the worst gore I've seen in a movie. I don't even want to say worse in the sense of like, I've seen gorier things. [00:50:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:22] Speaker A: But this is the. I don't know if I full body cringed that hard watching a movie in like. I'm uncomfortable thinking about it in like a long time. I was that the most visceral, like, oh my God reaction to gore I've had in years. And I wanted to know if it played out similarly in the book. [00:50:44] Speaker B: Yes, it does. And I will fully admit two things. One, I actually almost threw up reading this scene. I was sitting on the couch. I don't know if you heard me or like noticed me. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Maybe I don't remember because I don't know what you're reading at any given point, so. [00:51:01] Speaker B: Or like I was like. I was physically ill. I was like gamble. [00:51:05] Speaker A: I Can imagine. [00:51:06] Speaker B: And, like, felt like that. Nauseous, like, I'm going to barf sensation. And two, I closed my eyes and plugged my ears during the scene of the movie. I already knew what was happening. I'd had enough. I didn't need any more. [00:51:21] Speaker A: I saw some of it and I did. I closed. I did not. Like I said, I fully full body, physically cringed and was like, oh, my God. And had my hands over my ears and closed my eyes for parts of it. I kept looking to be like, oh, but I. It was awful. Incredibly effectively done. [00:51:41] Speaker B: Special effects, obviously. Everything. Very well done, start to finish. [00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it has the effect it's supposed to have in the best and worst way possible. So kudos. But, man, oh, man, it is something else. So then she's able to get her hand out, and then she tries the phone. Can't get the phone. The phone's dead. They were talking about how he always forgets to charge it, so their phone's dead. So she's able to get over to the sink, though, and get the handcuff key and is able to undo the handcuffs and get out. And now she's bleeding, obviously, to death because she's sliced open her whole hand and forearm. And so she grabs. There's towels everywhere. But she opens a drawer and pulls out some sanitary pads that are in. [00:52:25] Speaker B: There, which she has to unwrap, which. [00:52:27] Speaker A: She has to unwrap, and then wraps them around her wrist to staunch the bleeding. And I wanted to know if she used sanitary in the film or in the book, because I thought the symbolism was kind of on the nose here. [00:52:36] Speaker B: Yes, she does. And yes, it is so on the nose, which I think is also not helped by the fact that I did not read that as, like, a real action that a real person would take. [00:52:49] Speaker A: So you said that. And then I was like, I feel like I've heard people talk about this before. I swear somewhere I have heard on, like, some podcasts or something, I listen to that. A thing. A potentially good emergency option for traumatic injuries like that, if you don't have actual, like, gauze or bandages, is to use, like, sanitary pads. Because, one, they're relatively sanitary compared to other things because they are wrapped up and they're designed to be sanitary, and they're also designed to absorb and contain blood. They're actually not, like, a terrible option. [00:53:22] Speaker B: I'm not saying that it's not a terror, that it's not a reasonable option, or that you can't reason and logic your way to that. I just don't think that a real person in that scenario would be like, ah, yes, the pads. [00:53:39] Speaker A: I will say. I would say most people wouldn't. But like I said, I think I heard somebody on a podcast mention it. Like, so I think the context I heard this in was like, during, back during some protests, listening to like, leftist podcasts talking about, like, if you need to treat specific, like gunshot wounds or stab wounds or whatever, that sanitary pads are like a good emergency way to do. Like, I think it's actually like an out there in the world piece of advice that some people have banging around in their heads. I don't, I have not confirmed whether or not it's actually good advice or not, but I swear I heard somebody mention it in the context of, like, this is a thing some people will tell you to do because it's like a pretty good thing to do. And so I, I don't know for sure that, like, how many people have heard that advice. And again, I have no idea if it's actually good advice or not. It seems reasonable to me, but yeah. Anyways, so as she staunches the bleeding, she's getting ready to leave the house. But then she gets to the hallway and she looks down and at the end of the hallway, the moonlight man is there leering at her at the end of the hallway. And she walks up to him and he just kind of looks at her and she pulls her wedding ring off because he has this big bag. He's shown her this bag that it's. [00:54:49] Speaker B: Like phones and jewelry. Basically very folkloric. [00:54:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And she pulls. So she pulls her wedding ring off and puts it in the bag. Again, obviously very symbolic. She's basically paying the toll here to death or whatever. But also the symbol of her from. [00:55:09] Speaker B: Removing the shackles of her relationship to Gerald. [00:55:13] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. So we get a nice two for one there. But I wanted to know if that moment came from the book. [00:55:19] Speaker B: Yes, it does. On her way out, she sees him. He's in Gerald's study. Like, as she's leaving, she, like, looks into the room and sees him in there. Like, I, I do think at the End of the hall is creepier and more symbolic. But she does give him her wedding ring. Like she's paying the ferryman to cross the river. Sticks and continues on her way out. [00:55:40] Speaker A: Yeah, and I just want to add my, my second sentence on this question here, as I was writing it, as we were watching the movie was, surely this guy isn't real. Right, Right. More on that in just a second. So then she Gets out, she gives. She gets in the car, drives, and she crashes into a tree. Not really that important. Some people run up and find her as she's like, kind of bleeding on the ground. And then we cut and she wakes up and we cut. And then we get her writing a letter, and it's sometime has passed. [00:56:09] Speaker B: It's like six months early or something. [00:56:11] Speaker A: And she's writing this letter to her younger self. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Yes, basically. [00:56:16] Speaker A: And we see she has a little thing on her hand from where her injury was. And so she writes this letter and that she uses to basically explain to us as the audience everything that happened after she was found by these people. She talks about going to the hospital and telling the police, but being vague about the details and saying she had amnesia so she didn't have to explain everything. But then I guess she did explain everything to at least somebody because she says that the lawyers at her husband's company, like, kept all the details secret. So somebody knew what was like. Anyways. Point being, and I was like, I wanted to know if this came from the book, this letter, because to me, as we're getting to this point, and I wrote this question at the beginning part of this letter where she's like, going through and she's like, oh, and then I got the money. They basically wrote it down as a heart attack and confirmed my story. And then I was able to get his insurance money and I started this foundation for survivors of sexual assault, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, this is kind of a clunky way to do. Do this. Like, I'm not sure how else you would end this, but, like, this is kind of clunky. And I wanted to know if, like, this letter wrapping things up came from the book. [00:57:22] Speaker B: So she does. We do end the book with her writing a letter, a massive letter. But in the book, she's writing to Ruth, her former college roommate, and she actually mails it despite not having had any contact with Ruth for like a decade. Or at least it's strongly implied that she. She's going to mail it. So it's. It's kind of clunky either way. [00:57:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:46] Speaker B: But I do prefer the movie's version of having her write to her younger self. I feel like that's a pretty common therapy thing. [00:57:53] Speaker A: That's true. Yeah. [00:57:54] Speaker B: And she also isn't going to traumatize a former friend. Like, imagine getting a letter from a college friend that you haven't seen or spoken to for a decade. And it's just a small novel detailing all of this Horrific shit that they went through. I wouldn't even know what to do. [00:58:12] Speaker A: I'd be like, well, wow. All right. Yeah. I don't even know how you. How you would begin to handle that. [00:58:19] Speaker B: I need the follow up to this book that's about Ruth getting this letter and being like, what the fuck? [00:58:24] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I agree. In comparison to what you're describing in the book, I do think the movie's version works better. And I. It's not that, like, what she's doing doesn't make sense. Like writing a letter to her younger self, like you said, as, like, a therapy thing. Yeah, totally makes sense. That being said, it still reads as clunk because the movie has been so expertly crafted until this point. Very much show, don't tell. [00:58:43] Speaker B: The novel as well. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, so very much show, don't tell. And, like, even though we have the conceit of her, we get this conceit of her talking to Gerald and herself after Gerald is dead and, like, the alternate version of herself, which is kind of also like a. You know, I think you could argue. Some people might argue. Kind of a hack way to get us to be able to, like, see the dialogue that's happening. I think it works really well and comes across perfect. This part with the letter, even though the act itself is, like, perfectly reasonable. [00:59:12] Speaker B: It'S a reasonable thing to do. [00:59:14] Speaker A: It's just as a movie, its inclusion. [00:59:18] Speaker B: As a storytelling device. It's giving college writing course. Yes. [00:59:26] Speaker A: It just feels so disparate from how well crafted the rest of the film was. And then we get this letter. [00:59:35] Speaker B: No, I felt the same way reading the book. [00:59:37] Speaker A: Just voiceover explained explaining everything that happened. It's like, okay, it's like. It's like just that classic, like, well, like, villain monologue at the end or. You know what I mean? Like, this isn't a villain model, but it's that kind of thing where you're like, all right, this is kind of a hack way to do this, but whatever. [00:59:51] Speaker B: And I do think, and I kind of feel the same way about the book. I think if it had ended with her crashing the car and the light fading out and we're not sure if she actually lived or if she. Maybe she died on the bed and she really was paying the ferryman. [01:00:10] Speaker A: And I will say we'll get to it in a second. I do think it's possible you can read the movie that way, but. Yes, but that being said, I do. [01:00:19] Speaker B: I agree. I think that's a stronger ending. [01:00:21] Speaker A: I agree. That's a stronger Ending. But I also, I like the movie. Deciding to give us a more concrete, happy ending. I think it's good because I like the message. [01:00:36] Speaker B: Sure. [01:00:36] Speaker A: And so I like giving us a triumphant ending for Jesse. I just think it doesn't do it. We'll get into it right? [01:00:44] Speaker B: We'll get into it right now. Right now. [01:00:47] Speaker A: So this. I'm just going to read my next question here, which was, as the letter was going on, I wrote, wait, is the moonlight man real? Okay, this monologue where she just explains everything is unreal. This feels like a joke. Is this a joke? Because she one day she gets a newspaper and sees the guy in the newspaper that she saw in the house. And his name is Raymond something, Joubert or something. And he is a serial grave robber, cannibal. [01:01:23] Speaker B: He's every kind of criminal, necrophile, like. [01:01:26] Speaker A: Every bad thing you can think of. He has been accused of, like, just everything. And she realizes. And then we get this montage of her, like, putting together, like, news stories. And she's writing this in a letter to her younger self, which is also insane. Like, a weird thing. But she's like, oh, and he was real. And, like. And so does that. Does all of a sudden it get revealed that this guy was real? The moonlight man is real and he's a real guy. Serial killer, serial necrophile, cannibal. [01:02:01] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Unfortunately, there is no joke happening here. But I did kind of enjoy watching you react to the end of the movie the exact same way that I reacted to the end of the book. I looked over at you and we had. We made the same face. And everything, it just. It turns into an entirely different story. In the ninth inning, I was stunned. [01:02:25] Speaker A: I could not believe what I was seeing. Like, it didn't feel real. Like it especially because even the way it's filmed feels. And again, this goes back to my. Like, maybe it isn't real. Like, I think there is an interpretation of this ending that is she dies or maybe doesn't die. But when she crashes and passes out and we see the people running up to her, that's the last, like, real moment of the movie. I think you could read the movie that way. And maybe she survives, maybe she dies, but everything else is, like, in her head. All this ending that we see. Because, again, it's shot so weird. It doesn't even. It doesn't. It, like, the weird, like, montages of the, like, shots of the noose clippings and everything feels wrong. Anyways, I couldn't believe it. And then she sees that he's getting arraigned for all of these crimes that he has. So she's going to go confront him at the trial. She's like, I need to go show him that I'm alive or whatever because he was there. That was him. And she strolls into the trial, walks right in and he turns around and he busts out of his handcuffs and he like mocks her and he's like, you're made of moonlight. You're not real. And so before we get to what she says, I wanted to know if she goes to confront him at his trial because I get what the movie was going for here with her confront. He is the literal, physical embodiment of, of the evil men in her life. [01:03:56] Speaker B: Yes. [01:03:57] Speaker A: And we like the movie again in the way that is compared to so much of the rest of the movie. It's so ham fisted. Like it turns into her husband, it turns into her dad briefly and then it's him and then she gets to have this moment. But the through line on all of this is so slapdash because. And we'll get into. But like he does not, he's not. [01:04:16] Speaker B: Remotely connected to those things. [01:04:18] Speaker A: That's the thing is that like him being the representational figure of, of her, like the stand in for her husband and her dad doesn't. He doesn't represent those things. He's a cannibal. [01:04:31] Speaker B: He's a cartoon monster. [01:04:33] Speaker A: He's a cartoon monster who eats dead people. Like it doesn't, it doesn't connect at all. And so I want to know if that came from the book. [01:04:42] Speaker B: It does. And it's such a weird, like almost surreal scene in both the book and the movie that I think we're supposed to just take. [01:04:52] Speaker A: The fact that it's so surreal is the only saving grace I can get the movie of. Making me think maybe it's not supposed to be real. Maybe. But I also think it is because. [01:05:00] Speaker B: I also think it is like it. [01:05:02] Speaker A: Because otherwise it's like what is the point of doing. I don't know. [01:05:05] Speaker B: I don't know. I like, I agree with you. Like I don't know what the point of doing all of that would be. [01:05:10] Speaker A: If it's, if it's like fake. If it's like if she died and it's all in her head. Like she, oh. So as she. [01:05:15] Speaker B: Because if that is, if that is the case, if she, she is dead or whatever. Then again, to go back to what I was saying, having the movie end after she crashes the car is then the much stronger ending. [01:05:27] Speaker A: Right. Well. And yes, I agree it's a stronger ending, but if she is dead, I guess the idea would be that this gives her some closure before she dies. Maybe doing this gives her as a person some healing enclosure to confront him as this. Like, I don't know again. But I agree. I don't think that's the reading. I think we're supposed to read this as all actually happening. I think. I think I'm like 90% sure. [01:05:55] Speaker B: I feel fairly confident I'm at like 95% because I just don't understand the decision all the way around. Like, if I squint, I can kind of see like the connection that we're supposed to make and the idea that we're supposed to get from it. But having the moonlight man, the thing that seems to very obviously be a hallucination, actually be real, could be interesting. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, she finds out, oh, my God, he was real. [01:06:27] Speaker B: An interesting story element, but I don't think it adds anything to or works in this story. [01:06:35] Speaker A: Not at all. [01:06:36] Speaker B: It was already a nuanced and horrific psychological horror story exploring the real life monsters in this woman's life. And we didn't need a cartoon monster at the end. [01:06:48] Speaker A: Yes. That was the big thing for me. It's like I can see the idea being interesting. [01:06:52] Speaker B: Yes. In a different story, in a different movie. [01:06:54] Speaker A: Entirely different story entirely. It just doesn't make any sense in this story. Again, assuming it is real, like, assuming we were supposed to take it at face value and that the events from her crashing the car to the end of the movie actually did take place in, quote, unquote, reality. It makes it's. It does not make any sense with this story. [01:07:14] Speaker B: And then, like, on top of that, I was like, I was having like a fit reading this in the book because we get so much more of his, like, backstory and list of crimes. [01:07:27] Speaker A: Oh, we get a lot of it. And we get a lot of it at the end. She just reads it all out. [01:07:31] Speaker B: There's so much more in the book. This goes on for, like, pages and pages and pages. So as, as we mentioned, he's like every kind of criminal that you can possibly think of. Pretty much he's done it all. [01:07:43] Speaker A: Serial killer. He's a serial, like, grave robber initially. Then he started eating the corpse. Then he started killing people to eat them and murder. [01:07:53] Speaker B: And then in the book, they also talk about he's like pedophile and he also kills animals. [01:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like every bad thing. [01:08:00] Speaker B: Every bad thing, thing you can possibly think of which is why I call him like a cartoon monster because it's farcical. But he's also like. He's this, like. He has this like genetic agro. Yeah. Which is a real thing that causes like different parts of your body to be like abnormally large. [01:08:19] Speaker A: Yes. [01:08:21] Speaker B: So he's like this genetically like disabled, deformed guy who also very clearly has mental issues. [01:08:28] Speaker A: It seems to be. Yes. [01:08:30] Speaker B: Developmentally, something also is heavily implied to be like, queer of some sort because they say that he only rapes the male corpses. [01:08:40] Speaker A: Right. [01:08:40] Speaker B: And then also in the book, they say that he also likes to dress up in women's lingerie. [01:08:45] Speaker A: I'll say. That's not mentioned in the movie, I don't think. But yeah. [01:08:47] Speaker B: So we have like all of this together and it's so many layers of problematic that it's downright comical. Like, it's a fucking farce. It's hilarious. Like, what are we doing? [01:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I could not believe that. That I was like, what are we doing? To the point where I was. I respect Mike Flanagan too much and the rest of the movie is just too good for it to be the actual ending of the like, for that to be the real thing that happens. Like, I just can't believe that you would make that ending after so carefully crafting such a well done story about trauma and dealing with trauma and confronting the toxic men in your life. Like, it's just. It's so good. And then the end, I'm like. And it's so quick. It's like a fight. It's like seven minutes. At the monologue montage at the end of Just Insanity, I could not believe it was. Again, I was like. I got to a point where I was like, basically pleading with myself, like, this can't be the. It has to be fake. It has to be something happening in her mind as she's either dying, dying or is like, you know, in the hospital recovering or something like, whatever. Whichever version of that you want to. It almost had to be that for me to like. I just couldn't believe that you could make such a. I don't know. [01:10:02] Speaker B: Anyways, I don't know. And I would love to know if, like. If Stephen King, like, insisted and was like, you can only make an adaptation of my book if it includes this. Because I have to imagine that Mike Flanagan was like, can we please? You would think she's something else. [01:10:23] Speaker A: I don't know. Know. So then that gets me. The final question that I had here is that we get to I wanted to talk about the line that she says because I was like, okay, that's a good line. The setup to get here was ridiculous. It's a good line. And I, to me, I felt like I almost knew this wasn't in the book. I was like, this can't, this line can't be in the book because it feels like Mike Flanagan desperately trying to like fucking put a ribbon around all of this in a way that like somewhat makes any sense at all. And it's like remotely thematically coherent is that she approaches them, he like, you know, yells at her, whatever. And she just looks at him and says, you're so much smaller than I remember. And it works for all of the people. It works for the guy, cuz he's a very large man that. Who she saw this physical, imposing person in the darkness and wasn't sure if it was real. Seeing her father in him. Obviously when you're a child, your father's, you know, larger than life character and like being able to stand up to him. And then same for her husband, who's this powerful lawyer and all that sort. [01:11:29] Speaker B: Of thing, who we also always see looming over her throughout the course. [01:11:32] Speaker A: Throughout the course of the movie. And so this line works for all of. You're so much smaller than. Remember. It's a great line, incredible line. And I'm like, I guess maybe what it was is literally he came up with that line. So sorry, was that line in the book? [01:11:45] Speaker B: I was like, it surely cannot be, as you suspect. [01:11:50] Speaker A: I knew it. [01:11:51] Speaker B: This line was a movie edition in the book. She just spits on him. [01:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. Yeah, 100%. I was like, that has to be like, yeah. The only thing I could think maybe that's the other thing is that maybe Mike Flanagan wrote that or whoever. I don't want to say. Michael, there was a co writer and several other. You know, it may not have been Mike Flanagan specifically, but maybe Mike Flanagan or his co writer wrote that line, like, came up with that line for the ending and was like, all right, now we gotta do this ending. Because that line's too, like, it's too good of a moment. Like, I, and I agree, it's like a great moment and it makes for a very satisfying conclusion. But it just. I wish we could have figured out a different way to get there. I wish we could have figured out some other way to get there. Like, and this is cliche in its own way, but like, maybe she goes and it's at his, her father's grave or something. I don't know. Like, maybe he's dead. Because we don't know if he's alive or dead at this point. We don't know anything about her parents or her family, you know, like, what happened to them. Maybe she goes and she says that. Like we see her somewhere and she says that line and says, I don't know. Whatever. It's just. And also, again, it works in that moment with the guy. It's just him being a real thing. [01:13:07] Speaker B: Is so, so stupid. [01:13:10] Speaker A: Stupid. It's just so stupid and thematically incongruous with the rest of the movie. [01:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Completely disconnected from the rest of the story. [01:13:18] Speaker A: And again, the movie does its damnedest to, like, try to wrap it back up, but it doesn't like. Cause it doesn't really change anything about. Sounds like it doesn't change anything about who that character is. [01:13:29] Speaker B: No. [01:13:29] Speaker A: So in. So ultimately, it doesn't really fix anything because that's the issue is that the character doesn't. He's just a cartoon boogeyman monster. He's not like a physical representation of, like, toxic masculinity or any. You know what I mean? He's not any of that stuff really. He's just. Yeah. Anyways, okay, that was it for my question. [01:13:50] Speaker B: Real quick. While we were on that tear, I just wanted to go back to. In the prequel episode, I read a poll quote from a contemporary review of the novel. Yes. [01:14:02] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. And we were. We were dunking on. [01:14:05] Speaker B: We were d. We were dunking on this review. So, writing for the New York Times, Wendy Doniger said, did Stephen King take on these heavy themes to prove that he is a real writer, not just a horror writer? Was he trying to shift from writing good, bad novels to writing good, good novels and ended up writing a bad, good novel? The two genres cancel each other out. The horror makes us distrust the serious theme, and the serious theme stops us from suspending our disbelief relief. To savor the horror, Mr. King seems handcuffed. His old technique, the tried and true formula. But perhaps it is now time for him to break loose from his past. To do this, he would have to confront what may well be his own personal horror. To try, perchance to fail, to write a good novel without any horror scenes. And we were kind of dunking on Wendy. Yes, because it felt like she was just being a genre snob. [01:15:03] Speaker A: Right. [01:15:04] Speaker B: But now, having read the book, I feel like I owe Wendy an apology. She was right. [01:15:10] Speaker A: I think she might have been right. [01:15:11] Speaker B: I. And I didn't. I didn't think the book was Bad. I thought. I thought 90% of the book was great. But King is clearly attempting to do two different things, and they do not mesh well together at all. [01:15:24] Speaker A: And the movie is. Is I. [01:15:26] Speaker B: It. [01:15:26] Speaker A: It. [01:15:26] Speaker B: And the movie's along for the ride. [01:15:28] Speaker A: For the ride. As adaptations go, it is very faithful in that it goes down with the ship in the same way. I'm just like, I guess this is what we're doing. And. Yeah. Because it is equally. Equally riveting and brilliant for 95% of the runtime or whatever. [01:15:44] Speaker B: And then we tripped at the finish line. [01:15:45] Speaker A: The finish line is just. Woof. All right, I got one question that I wanted to discuss in Lost in Adaptation. [01:15:53] Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here and I'll be on my way. Wow. [01:15:57] Speaker A: That's hilarious. [01:15:58] Speaker B: Yes. [01:15:59] Speaker A: Yes. [01:15:59] Speaker B: And I want to get un. Lost as soon as possible. [01:16:02] Speaker A: I don't know if you can help with this, but I. I was trying to figure out, like, how old they were supposed to be in the movie, but also, like, when it was supposed to take place. The modern time looks like it's supposed to take place in modern time. 2017. [01:16:13] Speaker B: 2017. And so she has, like, a smartphone. [01:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah. She has an iPhone that's like. Yeah, like a. [01:16:18] Speaker B: Whatever generation. [01:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah, like an iPhone 7 or something like that. But I wanted to know if the movie has concrete dates, because I don't know if there are any concrete dates in the. Or, Sorry. If the book has any concrete dates, because I don't know. I don't think the movie does or not. They may, at some point on the radio when they're talking about the eclipse, say a date, and I just missed it. But when does take place? How old are they supposed to be? Because I couldn't tell when the flashback. The thing that really spawned it is that in the flashback, in the movie, I was like, what decade is this supposed to be? [01:16:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So Jesse is in her late 30s. In the book, she talks about being, like, just shy of 40 or, like, not quite 40. Gerald is implied to be older than her, but I don't think the book ever specifies how much older. [01:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:04] Speaker B: We do know exactly when the eclipse took place, though. July 20, 1963. And it was an actual total solar eclipse, which I would assume went through Maine. [01:17:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I assumed the movie was also probably, like, if it. If they did mention a date was probably a real one. I don't know why you wouldn't make it a real one. [01:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And we know that Jesse was like, 10 or 11 at the time. So we can deduce that the book takes place sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. [01:17:29] Speaker A: Okay, well, then I guess the movie's probably doing similarly, because the thing in the flashback, I was like, it just felt kind of. I thought that maybe they were trying to keep it kind of vague with, like, the set dressing and stuff to make it a little more timeless. [01:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah, like in the flashback. And I do think that you're probably right about that, like, overall, because the only thing in the flashback that looked to me somewhat grounded in a time period was the radio. Yeah, it looked really 80s. [01:17:55] Speaker A: It did like the radio. [01:17:56] Speaker B: Everything else was kind of clothes didn't. [01:17:58] Speaker A: Feel very specifically some period. You know what I mean? And some of the other stuff, like the interior of the home didn't feel particularly like a certain decade. And again, that probably is a little intentional to make it a little more just like, timeless, which I think works fine. But so assuming that's the case. So if it takes place, the eclipse is 63 and the movie. And then current time in the book was like the early 90s. So, like 30 years later, roughly. If this would have been 30 years before 2017, that would be what, 1987. So, yeah, that seems actually probably pretty much spot on. So. Okay. And I think that also matches because I think Carlo Cogino at the time was in, like, around 40, so. All right, those are all of my questions. It's time now to find out what Katie thought was better in the book. You like to read? [01:18:47] Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read. [01:18:50] Speaker A: What do you like to read? [01:18:53] Speaker B: Everything. I would be remiss to not mention Jesse's description of Gerald's penis because it is a scorching burn. Something meek and pink and circumcised.5 inches of completely unremarkable erection. [01:19:14] Speaker A: Wow. [01:19:15] Speaker B: Got him. [01:19:16] Speaker A: That's kind of a movie. Nailed it. She does. [01:19:18] Speaker B: She does jab at him for having a five inch for his five inches. She does. [01:19:22] Speaker A: Which. That's a perfectly reasonable size penis for all of our listeners out there. [01:19:26] Speaker B: Yes, it is. [01:19:27] Speaker A: Just in case you're self conscious and. [01:19:33] Speaker B: Honestly, you start getting too much bigger, it can be a problem. There's also another moment at the beginning of the book, like, before Gerald dies, when she's. She doesn't really want to be in this scenario, but she's kind of arguing with herself and, like, at one point thinks to herself, just let him do it and it'll be done. And I was like, woof. Okay, been there. Didn't realize we were getting called out today in the Book. She also kicks Gerald when, like when he won't stop and like she kicks him in the balls and in the stomach and it's kind of implied to be what sets off his heart attack. I don't know if that medically makes sense. [01:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I don't know about. I mean, yeah, like any sort of physical trauma that causes like a. Yeah, a jolt of adrenaline, I would think. [01:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah. She like, he like won't stop coming all over her and then she like gives him a couple good kicks. [01:20:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry, the lang, the wording. [01:20:35] Speaker B: I know. [01:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:38] Speaker B: I will say we just talked about the setting and moving the story to a modern setting. Did bug me a little bit because she doesn't even try to. Hey, Siri, her phone. [01:20:48] Speaker A: It's true. It is an iPhone. [01:20:50] Speaker B: She doesn't even. She didn't even give it an attempt. [01:20:52] Speaker A: She doesn't even try and. Well, to be fair, I don't know what generation this is. I think would have been a generation that would. [01:20:58] Speaker B: Yeah, Siri, I would think. [01:21:00] Speaker A: But you do also have to have it on. Not everybody turns theirs on, so. But sure. So maybe she just knew she didn't have it on and so she didn't try it. But. Yeah, no, I, I agree. It is something. [01:21:09] Speaker B: But I think she could have tried it and then they could have had like hallucination Gerald be like, you don't like having that feature on, remember? [01:21:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:21:18] Speaker B: Maybe they were afraid that they would get rid of Siri and they didn't want to date it. [01:21:22] Speaker A: I think they just decided it wasn't worth explaining that. Probably not. [01:21:27] Speaker B: But there are people like me. A little detail from the book that made me really angry was that when Gerald and Jesse like first got married, she had a part time teaching job that she really loved, but he makes her quit her part time teaching job because every time they did their taxes, the, the IRS saw like the tiny amount of money that she was making and thought he was like embezzling or something. So he makes her stop doing that. Another moment that really got me in the gut was during the scene where she's remembering her father abusing her. She remembers her father asking, do you love me? And the line after that is, she was gripped by the terrible premonition that the right answer had become the wrong one. Yeah. And I thought the lead up to her father molesting her I thought was much more layered and complex in the book. The movie does a pretty good job, but there was something about the way that the book did it, which I'll Talk more about later. And also, he definitely does touch her in the book. Like, the movie changes that. [01:22:45] Speaker A: I mean, they say he says, like, I didn't touch you, but I don't. Because I don't know how. I don't want to get into the logistics of it. But she's sitting on his lap at the. I don't know how he touched. [01:22:55] Speaker B: She's sitting on his lap. Yes. And that is from the book. But there's much more specific things that happen in the book that the movie seems to have omitted. Yeah, she does. When she gets out of the one cuff, after cutting her hand open, she does drag the bed over, like, across the room to get to the handcuffs. In the book, she basically has to push it across the entire room because the keys are over on the dresser, like, on the other side of the room. [01:23:25] Speaker A: I thought that was fun, though. In the movie, though, is initially she kicks it over so she can get to the phone. [01:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:30] Speaker A: And then when the phone doesn't work, she has to drag it back the other way so she can get to the bathroom, which I thought was fun. [01:23:36] Speaker B: And my last thing here is actually a thing I disliked about the movie, which is that I really hated the glowing red eyes in the moonlight. Man. I thought it looked. Looked really stupid and cheesy. [01:23:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I wasn't a big fan of it. [01:23:48] Speaker B: It was one of the things that, for me, made him not as scary. [01:23:52] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I could agree. And he doesn't always have them. I think he only has them at scenes where she actually is hallucinating him or hallucinating him. Any of the scenes where he's actually there. He doesn't have the glowing red eyes, but your point stands. I also thought it wasn't a huge fan of it. All right, let's go ahead and see what Katie thought was better in movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies. [01:24:21] Speaker B: I thought the Viagra for Gerald was a nice touch. I thought it was kind of a quick, easy way to show. Don't tell us more about what his whole deal with a capital D is. I also liked having him initially fall on top of her when he dies. In the book, he just falls off of the bed. But I thought that that was very dramatic. And I liked the visual then from above, of him laying on her. [01:24:49] Speaker A: Yes. No, Yeah, I agree. [01:24:51] Speaker B: In the book, we get a very sad backstory for the dog telling us about how he was abandoned. I was fine with skipping that. I think we can deduce what happened with the dog. No need for more upsetting details. I also like mouse as a childhood nickname better than Punkin, which was her nickname in the book. [01:25:13] Speaker A: Mm. Yeah, it definitely adds a layer of what are mice? They're quiet. Yeah, yeah. [01:25:19] Speaker B: Meek. [01:25:20] Speaker A: Meek, yep. [01:25:21] Speaker B: The memory that triggers the idea to cut herself to get out of the handcuffs, I thought felt a lot more directly connected to that idea in the book, where in the movie she squeezes the glass and it shatters. In the book, she has this memory of. In order to view the eclipse, her dad takes these like, panes of glass that he cut out of a window and like, holds them over a fire to like, make them cloudy. And then he gives her like, oven mitts to like hold them with because the edge is unfinished. And he's like, oh, I don't want you to cut yourself. And I just thought the movie's memory. [01:26:02] Speaker A: Was better, especially because, well, we move forward a little bit where they have. They just have solar eclipse glasses or whatever to look at it with because that might be a thing you could do. Like, basically it's so soot covered. I would imagine that it basically gets like black to the point where you can kind of look through it. But obviously once we hit a period where we were mass producing solar eclipse glasses. [01:26:25] Speaker B: Right. [01:26:25] Speaker A: I don't know. Even in the 60s, I think they probably would have been, but. But by the 90s, we were definitely mass. Or late 80s, we were mass producing solar eclipse glasses. So we didn't have to have this weird thing. [01:26:34] Speaker B: So. [01:26:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that makes sense. [01:26:36] Speaker B: I really liked the headlights on the car as she's like driving away, fading out as she lost consciousness. I thought that was really cool. [01:26:45] Speaker A: Yes. So I love that I had this as a note that. As a thing that the movie does several times that I absolutely love. [01:26:51] Speaker B: I think that was the only time that I like consciously picked up on it. [01:26:54] Speaker A: I noticed it at least twice. The car driving with the headlights being one of them, the other another one is that. I think the scene with the glass breaking when she. After she breaks the glass in her hand, she leaves her dad takes her to the bathroom and she walks out of the kitchen. And as she's looking back, the light over the kitchen table dims, but you can still see. So that's a motif the movie uses several times that instead of a scene fading to black, the actual practical lights in the scene fade down to being off, leaving minimal ambient light from other outside sources. Sources like you said, the. The cars headlights do it at one point, there's a scene with the dining room. I think there's at least one more. Super creepy and cool. I've never seen that in a movie before, but I was immediately just like, obsessed with it and thought it was super cool. And it also is a really good way we talked about earlier, like, with the sun being. It's a motif that matches the sun. The eclipse. [01:27:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Of, like, the weird fading light. [01:27:57] Speaker A: Fading light. Just so clever and so cool. And I was like, I gotta remember that. I'm gonna use that at some point. That is too cool. [01:28:07] Speaker B: My last note here is kind of an overall note, but the movie does make the story, especially the Gilbert part, cuts it mercifully short. [01:28:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:20] Speaker B: I did enjoy this book. I want to stress that, but do you know how much I wanted to cry when she got out of the house? And There were still 70 pages left in the. [01:28:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:31] Speaker B: This book could have been, like, 25 to 30% shorter and been just as, if not more effective, in my opinion. [01:28:40] Speaker A: Fair. Very fair. All right, let's go ahead and talk about a few things that the movie nailed. As I expected. Practically perfect in every way. [01:28:52] Speaker B: The specific line. What is a woman anyway? A life support system for a cunt. [01:28:58] Speaker A: Mm. [01:29:00] Speaker B: There's a whole bit that Gerald says it. Hallucination. Gerald says it in. In the movie where he's talking about, like, darkness and what waits for you in the dark. And if they. If they scream for help, who knows what might answer? And that is all, like, directly from the book. [01:29:18] Speaker A: Yep. [01:29:18] Speaker B: As well as the suggestion that whatever was there at night with her might have just gone under the bed, which horrified me. [01:29:27] Speaker A: Yep. Very creepy. Yep. [01:29:30] Speaker B: If he had a drinking problem, it's certainly cured now. Spoken. Spoken about. Dead Gerald. [01:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:38] Speaker B: Her father does look away from her as he's manipulating her when he actually says the truth. [01:29:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:45] Speaker B: And says that he did a shameful thing. He can't look at her. [01:29:47] Speaker A: Yep. [01:29:48] Speaker B: After getting out of the handcuff, she does pass out and wakes up, like, face to face with Gerald's rotting corpse. [01:29:55] Speaker A: Yes. [01:29:56] Speaker B: And she does pretend to have amnesia to avoid talking about exactly what happened at the lake house. [01:30:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:04] Speaker B: Which, I'm gonna be honest, doesn't feel like a great idea, given your track record with trauma. [01:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah. But it seems like a bad idea. And also, I guess I didn't understand that in the movie. I kind of alluded to it earlier, but she clearly does explain. What? Like, otherwise, she would have been in trouble. Like, how could she. [01:30:19] Speaker B: So, okay. [01:30:20] Speaker A: Or maybe. Yeah. Does the book go into it. Like, what? [01:30:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So this could have been a Lost in nft. [01:30:25] Speaker A: I guess it could have, actually, in retrospect, because I was like, you had to explain something. [01:30:30] Speaker B: So basically, the law firm that he worked for helps her to keep the actual story of what happened from coming out. [01:30:42] Speaker A: Yeah, the movie says that. [01:30:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Because. And maybe this is just, like, a time period. [01:30:47] Speaker A: So she tells them, or so she. [01:30:49] Speaker B: Tells one specific person at the law firm that she, like, trusts, like, his partner or whatever. Okay. Like, knows everything that actually happened, but they kind of help her, like, smooth it over. Yeah. Smooth it over and, like, make sure that no, none of the details are gonna leak, et cetera, et cetera. [01:31:07] Speaker A: That makes sense. And then again, the movie does say that, but it just does it. So, like, hand wavy. I was like, what? [01:31:11] Speaker B: Okay, well, and. Because there's. There's, like, concerns about, like, what they were doing there, which we could chalk up to, like, a time period thing, because I, you know, now. Now, in 2017, that might have been, like, a salacious bit of gossip, but I don't think most people would. [01:31:31] Speaker A: And you definitely. It definitely would be a thing you would tell to the cops. Like, you would absolutely tell the cops what happened. And, like, I understand. Like, you know, they would want, like, maybe the law firm would be like, okay, we don't really want, like, a story coming out about, like, our top partner having a heart attack during a sex romp in a Whatever. So, like, let's. Let's just kind of gloss over the details of, like, what we put out in the world. Yeah, but, like, she wouldn't be so embarrassed that you wouldn't think she would be so embarrassed by it in 2017 to as, like, not tell the police about it. I could believe that in the 60s, and I guess I could believe it now there people that would be. I don't know. It just. Yeah, it just was a little. I thought it was a little strange, but. Yeah, that makes sense. [01:32:11] Speaker B: But also, then later on, they talk about, like, her and this law partner talk about how she could be in trouble if the police think that she, like, wanted, like, did any of it on purpose to try to, like, make him have a heart attack. To, like, collect his life insurance. [01:32:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Wild way to collect somebody's life insurance. [01:32:34] Speaker A: That was the. The detail of it from the movie that made me think she had to have told somebody what actually happened, and they had to have confirmed it, which she says in the movie. [01:32:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:42] Speaker A: Because otherwise she wouldn't have gotten the life insurance if they couldn't confirm that her story was like, made sense and was true. So like obviously somebody had to know about it. And so yeah, I just, I thought that was a little weird in the mood like this. Again, it's not. Doesn't really matter. It's not that important. We can kind of just hand wave that away because who care? Like, yeah, how that all got wrapped up isn't really important to the story, but it wasn't something I was kind of wondering. So it should have been a lost in adaptation. But. All right, before we wrap things up, we have a few things to talk about in our odds and ends. So I understand this for the shot, it's the opening shot of the movie. We get this top down shot of the bed, of a bed. It's their bed in their home, which obviously preface setting us up for where most of this movie will take place. But they're packing their bags and we see Gerald set his bag on the bed and then the last thing he does is he puts the two pairs of handcuffs on top and zips it. [01:33:46] Speaker B: Up very, very reverently places them. [01:33:49] Speaker A: And I was like, I understand it for the shot and like what we're setting up here for opening shot of the movie, but who puts their sex handcuffs on the very top of their packed bag? Nah, nobody does that. Nobody does that. That's so weird. So weird. [01:34:05] Speaker B: Gerald is not the guy from ncis. [01:34:09] Speaker A: It's true. [01:34:09] Speaker B: But I looked it up like three times because I kept second guessing myself. [01:34:14] Speaker A: He does look that guy a little bit. And he also. [01:34:17] Speaker B: But he's not all the time. But there were certain like facial expressions that he made where I was like, is that the guy from ncis? [01:34:24] Speaker A: This guy has also been Bruce Greenwood. He's been in tons of stuff too. Like that's the other thing. You probably did recognize him. Like he does kind of look like he looks like the guy from ncis, but he also, you probably recognize him from stuff you don't even realize he's been in. Like probably tons of stuff. [01:34:38] Speaker B: As we've established, I'm bad at recognizing people. I was really glad that the movie answered my question about the spires on the headboard, the posters. Because I was looking at screen caps from this movie and like looking at it thinking it kind of looks like she might be able to just slide, slide them up and slide them off. But there's like a, there's like a knob that they won't go over, go past. So glad we answered that. [01:35:11] Speaker A: Which actually would have been a very good way if you're going to use these handcuffs to do it somewhat safely would be leave them wide enough on the bar, on the banister so that they can slide off the top. Because obviously he's not going to be able to do that in the moment, but needs to get out. [01:35:25] Speaker B: She needs fucking Gerald. Gerald guy. [01:35:31] Speaker A: Yeah, him and. Him and Christian should start a support group and not a support group, but whatever. [01:35:43] Speaker B: A prison group. [01:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, Gerald's dead, so anyways. [01:35:48] Speaker B: A hell group. [01:35:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I really love. There's this moment in the movie where after Gerald falls off the bed and she's like panicking and like, blah, blah. There's this moment where she. She's like, still kind of reckoning with whether or not he's alive or not. And then all of a sudden she sees this blood pooling, like, kind of coming out. And the shot's great. Like from her perspective, we can only see, see a little bit of his head and his hands on the floor, but we can't really see most of them. But then we see this pool of blood start to form by his head. And when that happens, we get this great. It's one of the only times we get kind of a dramatic camera move because the camera for a lot of this is pretty locked down and pretty stationary for the most part. But we get this great dolly pushing on her as it really dawns on her that he's dead. And she starts, like, freaking out. And then we go from that super dramatic dolly push in to her to these, like, subsequent, like, cuts where we cut, like, outside the house and we hear her screaming. And then we jump a little bit further, bit back, and we hear her screaming, but it's quieter. And then we jump, like across the street. [01:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:36:54] Speaker A: Looking at the house and you can't hear her anymore. You just hear, like, the birds and like the animals and stuff. Just so beautifully communicating the scenario and, like, what's going on and how isolated she. It's just. God, it's haunting and it's just brilliant filmmaking. It reminds me of Carrie a little bit in the sense of, like, how does a movie so good also have the ending? This movie has Carrie. It's kind of the opposite. How does a movie with an ending that good have some of the other stuff that happens in that movie? But. But anyways. [01:37:31] Speaker B: I have to bring up. Okay, so in the book, at one point the dog, like, starts going after Gerald's face and, like, tears off part of his face to eat. And the quote from this book, most of Gerald's left cheek, Dangled from its mouth like the scalp of a small infant. And I just want to say, what the fuck kind of metaphor is that? Steven? [01:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't understand. [01:38:03] Speaker B: What does that mean? Yeah, what the fuck does that mean? [01:38:08] Speaker A: I have no idea. That's very strange. I don't like it. [01:38:15] Speaker B: What? [01:38:16] Speaker A: I don't know. I really liked the attention they paid to her makeup throughout the film. Like, she has a full face of makeup on at the beginning, and then as time goes on, it starts to run as she's crying and freaking out and sweating and stuff, and it gets more and more kind of dilapidated. And then the next day, if she's been crying and rolling around in bed and stuff, it's gone. And she basically. So you get to see the progression of time and what she's been going through as the makeup. And also, she's laid more and more bare the layer, the layers of facade. [01:38:51] Speaker B: Being peeled, quote, unquote. Artifice. [01:38:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm not. I understand. Understand, Right. The problematic in its own way, but you know what I mean? Like, it still. It is an artifice. Even if it's a perfectly fine and valid artifice, it is a thing you're. You know, in the same way clothes are like. You know, if you. If your clothes are being. You know, you could do the same thing with clothes. It's not like it's not a judgment on makeup. It's just that it is a thing you put to disguise yourself or change yourself in some way. [01:39:16] Speaker B: I also thought they did a really good job of casting Preteen J. Jesse. [01:39:22] Speaker A: Yes. [01:39:22] Speaker B: Like, she looks a lot like Carla Coutinho. Carla Cogino. Yeah. [01:39:27] Speaker A: I thought so. [01:39:28] Speaker B: Another thing that I want to mention, because this was the only thing that I found interesting in the entire section about Joubert where they were, like, detailing his crimes, was that when they. So he's described to look basically like he looks in the movie. Like he's too big and his arms are too long, and he's, like, deathly pale white and has, like, all these kind of weird, like. [01:39:53] Speaker A: By the way, that actor, that's Lurch. [01:39:55] Speaker B: Oh, is it? [01:39:56] Speaker A: Yes. I remember when I mentioned he was in Jared's Game, and yes, that's the actor who plays Lurch. And I'm pretty. I'm like, 99% sure. I can double check that. [01:40:04] Speaker B: So he's described, like, looking like. It's a pretty accurate vision of him. But in the book, when they, like, they, like, catch him in the act of, like, crypt robbing and he's like, like hunched over a coffin when these cops come in. And I was like, dude, I would, I would die on the spot. Yeah, I would think I was seeing a fucking vampire. [01:40:32] Speaker A: Kind of looks like Nosferatu. [01:40:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:34] Speaker A: Paul Nosferatu. Yeah. Yes, Carol, Stricken is the actor's name and it is, he was also in doctor Sleep and other stuff. But yeah, he's been in lots of movies because he's very distinct looking guy. They put makeup on him, but he also is already a fairly distinct looking man because he might even have the thing they're talking about. I don't know. He has some sort of growth like disorder where that's why he's like 8ft tall or something like that. [01:41:00] Speaker B: And my last note here is that maybe I'm just a softie, but in both the book and the movie, I kind of desperately wanted Jesse to adopt the dog. [01:41:10] Speaker A: Dog. Yeah, I could see, I could see that working. But also, I don't know thematically how. [01:41:17] Speaker B: Well that works, thematically how well it would work. I just kind of wanted it. Yeah, I, I wanted them to like forge a bond. [01:41:24] Speaker A: I think it could have worked. I think you could have made it work. I, I, I think it could have worked, but. Yeah, that's fair. Before we get to the final verge, we want to remind you you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, threads, good reads, Blue sky, we're on there. I don't think we're posting on it, but we do have posting on there. [01:41:41] Speaker B: But we do have an account. [01:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And interact with us mainly on those other platforms. So you can tell us what you thought of Gerald's Game. Blanking on the name of Gerald's game. We'd love to hear what you have to say about it and we will talk about that on the next prequel episode. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple podcast, Spotify, I don't know, wherever else you're listening to our show, YouTube, drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review, subscribe to us on YouTube, if you're watching there, give us thumbs up, whatever. Um, and finally, if you really want to support us, you can head over to patreon.com thisfilmislit Support us there for 5, 10, 15, whatever bucks a month, get access to or 2, 5, 15 bucks a month, get access to bonus stuff at the $5. I didn't edit the episode, did I? [01:42:23] Speaker B: No. [01:42:23] Speaker A: Shit, I gotta do that. I'll get it, I'll get it done. I'll do it tomorrow. I Forgot about it completely. At the five dollar and up level, you get access to bonus content every month. We put out a bonus episode we just recorded last week and that I forgot to edit our bonus episode for November where we discuss Heathers. So if you want to hear us talk about Heathers, go check that out. Very interesting discussion about that movie. Very interesting movie. Really enjoyed talking about that one, but that helps. It'll be out, probably. As you listen to this, it's either out or will be out within a day. So go check that out. And if you support us at the $15 a month level, you can get priority recommendations or patron requests. And this one is a patron request from. [01:43:00] Speaker B: This is a request from Shelby. [01:43:03] Speaker A: There you go. Thank you, Shelby. I thought you were going to say no. [01:43:07] Speaker B: No. [01:43:08] Speaker A: Okay. You looked at you. That sounded like you were going to say something. All right, Katie, it's time for the final verdict. [01:43:13] Speaker B: No sentence, fast. Verdict after. That's stupid. I wouldn't blame anyone for preferring Gerald's Game the Movie over Gerald's Game the book. It's far more succinct and arguably easier to follow, doing quite possibly a much better job of connecting details and through lines from different parts of the story. Both versions have the same glaring the cartoon boogeyman that turns out to have been real the entire time, eating up 33 pages of book and five minutes of movie with a denouement that's so disconnected from the rest of the story story that it's downright comical. But my final verdict doesn't come down to that. I'll be honest. I really struggled with this book. I am a CSA survivor, and I found parts of this book intensely upsetting. And I want to stress that that's okay. Nobody needs to feel bad. And that goes double for you, Shelby. It was upsetting, but I'm not upset that I read it. Some parts of Jesse's backstory, particularly how her father manipulated her and the way that he twisted and used her relationship with her mother, rang so true to my own experiences that it was incredibly jarring. I cried reading it. I don't know how Stephen King did it, but I don't think I've ever had my own experiences reflected back at me with such horrific clarity. So I didn't need the Chaubert storyline. Gerald's Game was already a horror story that explored a very precise, very much real horror. And for that reason, I have to give this one to the book. [01:45:10] Speaker A: All right, Katie, what's next? [01:45:13] Speaker B: Up next, we're going to do something along little Cozier. [01:45:17] Speaker A: Yeah, different. [01:45:19] Speaker B: This is. This book is sad, but it's sad in the way that, like, a children's novel is sad. We're going to talk about A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett and we're going to be talking about the 1995 film. Both things that I will be re. Exploring from my childhood. [01:45:38] Speaker A: I realized that I had seen this movie when I once you mentioned that we were doing it. [01:45:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:45:44] Speaker A: And I looked it up and we'll talk about obviously a lot more on the prequel episode. But I was like, oh, yeah. I remember watching this movie a few times as a kid and liking it. And then I looked and saw who directed it and I was like, oh, that's fascinating. I'm not gonna spoil it here. That's a teaser. Come on back for the. I mean, you could just google it. But yeah, come on back for the prequel and we'll talk more about it. But yeah, I was. I was like, wow, that's. I had no idea. That's really interesting. So we will get into that in the prequel episode. So until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals and everybody else keep reading. [01:46:13] Speaker B: Books, keep watching movies and keep being awesome.