Dir - Mike Flanagan
Overall: WOOF
The 1992 novel Gerald's Game is no different from other Stephen King stories in that it has as intriguing a premise as any of them. Though its reputation as one of his better publications has never been a reality. Perhaps that is why it makes sense that it was not adapted for film for another twenty-five years, at last emerging under the direction of the very prolific as of late Mike Flanagan. The first act is sufficient in setting things up, but this film will aggravate people who have no stomach for emotional trauma + physical impairment = random imaginary friends cliches. King's story then adds too much insult to injury to the point where the already squeamish and unpleasant scenario goes into lots of areas where, amongst other things, E.T. forever will be ruined for you. The ending is really where the wheels completely fly off though. King has a habit of tying every possible thing up in a nice little package and having his characters pull a confident "I'm not afraid of anything anymore" revelation, but unfortunately that can easily undermine the previous horror of the proceedings and make ones eyes roll. This film is one of his biggest offenders of just such a habit and comes off more aggravating and insulting than anything else.
Dir - Zak Hilditch
Overall: GOOD
Another Stephen King adaptation finding its initial home on Netflix during 2017's Halloween season, 1922 was directed and scripted by Zak Hilditch and based of King's 2010 novella of the same name. There are two conflicting elements that balance each other out here. One being that the score was composed by none other than Mike Patton, whose diverse, outstanding body of work speaks volumes for itself. The Shining-esque soundtrack here, (with mounting, screechy violins and all), is appropriately ominous and effective. On the other end of the sound design though, subtitles are frequently needed to understand Thomas Jane's teeth-shut, Nebraska hillbilly droll, to the point of irritation. Actors sure do like to mumble all their lines these days don't they? As aggravating as those "what the fuck he just say?" moments are, 1922 is a mighty success overall. It barely qualifies as a horror film for the bulk of its running time, but that is actually welcome in this case. Cliched supernatural elements could have easily piled up on top of each other, but the very sparse use of genre mainstays completely work to the movie's benefit as it oozes along as a moral tragedy of requital through suffering.
Dir - Yorgos Lanthimos
Overall: GOOD
To put it mildly, Yorgos Lanthimos is a very stylized director who seems to revel in making movies far outside the confines of "normal". This comes down to the tone which is a heaping concoction of absurd and deadly serious all at once. Each and every performance is way off the mark of either MOVIE reality or reality reality. Not one line of dialog resembles anything the average human being would ever say and nearly all of them are spoken in the fashion of someone reading their lines as quickly as possibly with as little emotion as possible. When a character does actually raise their voice or shed a tear far into the film, we have grown so accustom to everything everyone is saying as being so bizarre, (like casually mentioning menstruation cycles, demanding that someone eat their caramel tart, and saying how their mom's body is beautiful), that any closeness to the ordinary stands way out. Keep in mind, this is not a complaint. If anyone is going into The Killing of a Sacred Deer insistent on seeing a gritty bit of realism, disappointed they assuredly shall be. Lanthimos' approach is meant to be this way and the effect it has on the viewer will no doubt be head-scratching, but also humorous and enjoyable for some while the whole thing is engulfed in a dark, harrowing, tragic re-imagining of the Greek play Iphigenia in Aulis.
