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[Interview] Mike Flanagan Talks Controversial ‘Gerald’s Game’ Ending and One Thing He Couldn’t Leave Out

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Mike Flanagan‘s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Gerald’s Game was released by Netflix last Friday to rave reviews, with many critics calling it one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made. I had the opportunity to speak with Flanagan ahead of its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, where we discussed a multitude of things about the film (be on the lookout for more articles from this interview coming out this week). Chief among which was the controversial epilogue that concludes the film.

***SPOILERS***

The Stephen King novel upon which Gerald’s Game is based is 332 pages long, the final 50 of which are an extended coda following Jessie’s escape from the handcuffs and the mysterious Moonlight Man that takes up residence in her cabin. Readers have taken issue with King’s resolution to Gerald’s Game and the way it is told (via a letter Jessie writes to her college roommate Ruth) ever since it was released in 1992. Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard keep the epilogue mostly intact, except they have Jessie (Carla Gugino) write the letter to herself since Ruth is absent from the film.

Lest you think that Flanagan is blind to the criticisms of the epilogue of Gerald’s Game, rest assured that he is fully aware of them. When I brought up the fact that I was worried he was going to leave the coda out of the film due to the fact that so many readers take issue with it, he replied:

“It was something when I read the book that I loved. I know it was polarizing with fans of the book, so the people that hated that epilogue in the book are going to hate it in the movie. I fully expect that [the epilogue is] going to be the lightning rod for people to be like ‘Oh I was so into it and then (groans) that ending.’ But that’s what happened in the book. There was never a time where it felt right to do the film without that ending, for better or worse”

As I pointed out in my review of the film, the epilogue is a little clunky, but leaving it out would deprive the viewer (and Jessie) of an important moment of catharsis. I ask the question: what is the lesser of two evils? Leave out the epilogue for the sake of quality but deprive audiences of a satisfying conclusion? Or include the clunky epilogue and give your audience that sublime moment of catharsis? Flanagan and Howard choose the latter, and while it does hurt the film somewhat, it is ultimately the right decision if only for the moment when Jessie and the Moonlight Man meet in the courthouse.

“I thought that we needed to have her confronting a physical embodiment of all the male perversion that she has dealt with in various forms from various people throughout her life,” Flanagan said. “I wanted to take all of that male gaze and the dirty nastiness that she’s gone through and put it all into skin.”

While Jessie does encounter the Moonlight Man in the courthouse in King’s novel, Flanagan and Howard change one important part about it that drastically changes its tone. In the novel, Jessie spits in his face and walks out. In the film, their interaction is a bit more peaceful:

“We thought ultimately that more important than [spitting in his face] would be finding the perfect words in that it wasn’t that she was lashing out in some way,” Flanagan said, “but that it was just like ‘You know it’s not even worth that.’ To make such a giant man who represents such a giant problem in men…I don’t know if you caught it but when she says to him ‘You’re so much smaller than I remember.’ That is the first thing she says in her first flashback as a child about the house. So the first thing you ever hear her say is ‘It’s so much smaller than I remember’ and her father says ‘It’s because you’re bigger.’ So that is what all of this has been building up to and what we wanted was for those words to land. We wanted to watch him wilt in that and that was just more satisfying to me emotionally. We talked about a punch at one point, but for all of this to boil down into one moment of violence just felt wrong. She needs to walk out of that courtroom towering over him. That was the only way we felt was an honest way to get there.”

Like it or not, that epilogue was going to happen no matter what, and even if the execution may not have been perfect, the intention is honorable and the message is clear.

Gerald’s Game shares a connection to one of Stephen King’s other novels: Dolores Claiborne. Not only do both novels feature child molestation as a subplot, they also both feature an eclipse. In Gerald’s Game Jessie has a vision of Dolores looking over the well where *SPOILER ALERT* she has just killed her husband. In the film adaptation, Flanagan and Howard have Jessie recount her vision in a scene that may confuse viewers who are not familiar with King’s novels.

“I’m just such a King nut, there’s no way I could do this without the Dolores Claiborne reference, or at least some version of it. [In the film] I had [Jessie] describe the most common paperback cover of Dolores standing over the well. I just thought that might jog more memories.”

And on the possibility of nabbing a cameo from Kathy Bates, who portrayed Dolores Claiborne in Taylor Hackford’s 1995 film adaptation? Flanagan considered it, saying:

“Wouldn’t that have been cool?” But that would have cost a lot of money and we couldn’t include Dolores for rights reasons.”

Yes, Mike, that would have been very cool indeed!

Gerald’s Game is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

A journalist for Bloody Disgusting since 2015, Trace writes film reviews and editorials, as well as co-hosts Bloody Disgusting's Horror Queers podcast, which looks at horror films through a queer lens. He has since become dedicated to amplifying queer voices in the horror community, while also injecting his own personal flair into film discourse. Trace lives in Austin, TX with his husband and their two dogs. Find him on Twitter @TracedThurman

Interviews

“I Don’t See Retiring from This” – Joe Bob Briggs Talks New “Last Drive-In” Format and the Show’s Future [Interview]

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Hey everybody, have you heard the news? Joe Bob is back in town!

The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs has returned for its sixth season on Shudder. While the show’s format has been slightly revised adopting a new biweekly schedule with one film instead of a double feature the beloved horror host’s approach is much the same.

“It didn’t really change anything,” Briggs tells Bloody Disgusting. “We were crowding all of our movies into 10 weeks once a year and then having specials, and we found that people would rather have more weeks. It’s actually more movies than we had before.

“And some of the people on the East coast fall asleep in the second movie,” he laughs. “It’s about a five-hour show when it’s a double feature because we talk so much. Also, it’s hard to get thematic double features every single time. So our specials are still double features, but our regular episodes are single features.”

The season kicked off last week with The Last Drive-In Live: A Tribute to Roger Corman, celebrating the legendary filmmaker’s first 70 years in Hollywood with a double feature of 1959’s A Bucket of Blood and 1983’s Deathstalker. The special was filmed live in front of a fervent audience of Briggs’ fan base lovingly dubbed the Mutant Family at Joe Bob’s Drive-In Jamboree in Las Vegas last October.

In addition to his usual hosting duties, Briggs conducted a career-spanning interview with Corman and his wife, fellow producer Julie Corman. They were also joined by one of Corman’s oldest friends and collaborators, Bruce Dern. In a heartfelt moment of mutual admiration, Briggs and Corman exchanged lifetime achievement awards on hubcaps.

“I’ve known Roger for about 35 years, so I’ve only known him for half of his career,” Briggs chuckles. In his long history of reviewing, interviewing, and talking about Corman and his legendary work, one emblematic encounter sticks out to Briggs.

“I remember the very first time I went to the Corman studio, which was a lumber yard on Venice Boulevard. He had a standing set for a spaceship control room, a standing set for a strip club, and I think he had one other one, and then he had all of his editing facilities there, but it was still a lumber yard. They had not really changed any of the buildings or anything.

“He’s showing me around the studio, and we were walking past a pile of debris, and I said, ‘Roger, is that the mutant from Forbidden World?’ It had just been thrown over in a corner. And he just said, ‘Yes, Joe Bob, I believe that is. He was apparently no longer needed.’ I said, ‘Roger, you gotta get with it! That stuff is worth money.’ But he was like, ‘When the movie’s over, the movie’s over.’ That was Roget to a T.”

At least part of Corman’s longevity can be attributed to his shrewd business practices and pragmatic approach to the industry, which has included working in every conceivable genre of cinema. “I couldn’t think of a single genre he has not made,” Briggs says.

“When we did this interview at the Jamboree, I said, ‘I’m gonna name the genre, and you tell me what you love about that genre,’ and every comment that he made involved money and box office performance,” he snickers. “None of it was involved with love of cinema, although I did get him to say that his favorite genre is a genre that he didn’t dabble in much other than his first movie [1954’s Highway Dragnet], and that was film noir.”

While the fourth annual Drive-In Jamboree is still in the planning stage, Briggs is delighted by the event’s continued success. “The Jamboree is something that we literally just threw together. We’ve had three of them now. It’s something where we just show up and try to come up with programming for each day.

But I really think the Jamboree is more about the mutant family meeting the mutant family. It’s more about people who know each other online gathering and partying with each other in person. It’s not so much about what movies we have. I mean, we always have an anniversary movie, and we always have some special guests and everything, but it’s more about the gathering of the mutants. It’s fun from that point of view. They’re exhausting, I can tell you that.”

The zeal among Briggs’ audience has only grown over the years, from hosting Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel from 1986 to 1996, to MonsterVision on TNT from 1996 to 2000, and The Last-Drive-In on Shudder since 2018. “I’m amazed, having been in the business for this many years, that I still have a show at this time, because they say you can’t repeat TV,” Briggs notes.

“Nobody wants to see old TV, and yet I’ve done the same show three times on three different networks, and every time I try to change it everyone says, ‘No, no, don’t change it! That’s the part we love.’ I always want to do something new, and I’m always told, ‘No, you’re the CEO of Coca Cola who went to New Coke.’ You can’t do that. People will revolt. So we’re still doing it.

“It’s one of the few shows that I know of that’s just sort of grown organically over, gosh, almost 40 years. We’ve just added elements to the show. We try things. If something doesn’t work, we throw it away. If something works, we do it forever!”

The mutant family will be happy to know that Briggs plans to continue hosting and writing about movies for as long as he’s able to. “I don’t see retiring from this or retiring from writing. I’m primarily a writer, and the good thing about writing is long after they don’t wanna see you on TV anymore you can still write.

“The difference today, though, is I was pretty much the only guy doing genre films when I started. Now, there are academics that do it. There are entire books written about Dario Argento and Tobe Hooper and even lesser names than those, and there are, of course, a massive number of websites, including your own, so that when something comes out today, there’s immediately a hundred reviews of it; whereas in 1982, I was sort of the only guy, because the movies were considered disposable trash. So I have been surpassed in my deep knowledge, because who can keep up with all that? It’s impossible!”

Diana Prince, who serves as Briggs’ co-host Darcy the Mail Girl and was instrumental in getting him back in the hosting chair, has been promoted to an associate producer this season. “She was sort of always the associate producer, but I guess they finally gave her the title,” Briggs explains.

“Diana Prince is in on all the decisions about programming. I always listen to Austin Jennings, the director, and Diana Prince, the mail girl, because they come from opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of what kind of movies they wanna watch, and we try to strike a balance between. You know, she’s not gonna vote for Possession, and he’s not gonna vote for Mountaintop Motel Massacre,” he chortles.

“They’re probably the principal advisors, as far as what we show. Of course, [Diana] has a lot of social media clout, and she’s extremely knowledgeable about pop culture. Wow! She has seen everything. She’s seen more than I’ve seen!”

While surprises are part of the fun of The Last Drive-In, Briggs previews some of what’s in store this season. “The place we normally live is the neglected ’80 slasher, and we still live there,” he assures. “But we’re gonna pay a lot more attention to the ’70s especially. I’ve always thought the ’70s are more interesting than the ’80s anyway. And we’re gonna pay attention to some really recent stuff.”

He teases, “We’re gonna bring back Joe Bob’s Summer School, which is something that we used to do at MonsterVision. And we may have a marathon. There’s a possibility of that. But I’ll be digging this new format of being on every other week between now and at least up to Labor Day.”

While Briggs’ hosting format hasn’t changed much across four decades, the world around him certainly has and that’s why The Last Drive-In remains relevant. He points out, “In the era of streaming, where everything is menus and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of choices, we are that thing called a curator that can direct you to the fun places on the spectrum of streaming.

“Streaming is very confusing for people, and a lot of people don’t like it for that reason. I hope what we’re doing is cutting through the weeds and bringing things into perspective. And, you know, it’s just more fun to watch a movie with us!” he concludes with a Texas-sized grin.

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