After being thoroughly impressed by Gerald’s Game, I decided
to check out another Mike Flanagan joint.
As it turns out, they had a lot more in common than I thought. For instance, the book Carla Gugino throws at
the dog in Gerald’s Game was written by the heroine of this movie! Not only that, but she also has a Stephen
King book prominently displayed on her bookshelf! It’s a veritable King/Flanagan shared
cinematic universe!
Kate Siegel (who also co-wrote) stars as a deaf-mute author
who lives alone in the woods. While she’s
busy in the kitchen, a crossbow-wielding killer in a white mask murders her
neighbor just outside her door. He then
sneaks into her house and takes advantage of her disability to toy with her. The killer cuts the power and waits patiently
in the darkness to strike. In the
meantime, Kate builds up enough courage to fight back and beat the killer at
his own game.
This is essentially Wait Until Dark, but with a deaf woman,
but Flanagan finds lots of ways to make it stand on its own and be unique. As with Gerald’s Game, he shows he can milk a
maximum amount of suspense from a slim premise, a single location, and a minimum
amount of characters. Like Gerald’s
Game, there’s even a scene where the female character steps outside of herself
to give herself a rallying pep talk.
Another similarity: There’s a
scene where the heroine has to rebound back from a horrifying hand trauma.
There are definite similarities in both films, but they are
still different as night and day, which makes it a fun double feature. I will say that even at a scant 81 minutes,
there are a few places where the movie drags.
The highs easily outweigh the valleys though, and it’s amazing how much
suspense Flanagan was able to wring out of such a slight scenario.
No comments:
Post a Comment