Gerald’s Game: a BDSM Halloween movie

As it is October, I thought I might throw in a thriller, just for fun. Of course, when it comes to thrillers, fun is relative… But if for you fun means feeling bad for an hour and a half, than Gerald’s Game should be your poison. Add some great acting and a few unexpected plot twists and there you have it. My October pick for BDSM movies.

Gerald’s Game: the plot

Gerald’s Game starts with a nice and romantic BDSM-ish plot. A married couple in the car on their way to a weekend of fun and games. So the wife packs a night gown, the husband the handcuffs… Now what can go wrong? Well, as it turns out, quite a bit actually.

When Jessie is cuffed to the bed, she starts to panic. It turns out she is more vanilla than her partner. She tells him to stop and demands he uncuff her. Instead, he tries to take a tender approach to help her relax (thereby definately violating her consent). She still resist, they fight, and then he dies. Yes, I did not see that one coming either. But as this happens in the first fifteen minutes, I don’t think I am spoiling anything for you.

So, Jessie hallucinates a version of Gerald who is not dead and she can converse with. And the first place she goes is a memory of how Gerald had needed viagra for years. Whenever he had sex with her, he could not get it up anymore. With one exception: the time he pinned her hands above her head and choked her. She did not say anything back then, but subconsciously it made her wonder what kind of person she had married. And at this point the part of me that is sex positive and pro-BDSM really started to dislike her. The kink shame here is pretty literal: throughout their marriage, Gerald had to hide his kinks. Because of shame. But no fear (ha!), my dislike for her was only temporary.

The Kink factor

Now, most people wouldn’t call some light choking, role play and the use of handcuffs edge play. But when your husband dies on top of you and he left the keys to the cuffs in the other room… Especially when the cuffs he used were real functional ones… You have the making of a great thriller. And a proper cautionary tale.

The way I see it, there are two kinky groups of people who will watch this movie. There is the people who are into BDSM and love watching thrillers. These people will get two of their itches scratched. And probably come out of the experience both satisfied and with the religious belief that one should keep the keys within reach when playing with handcuffs. The second group consist of kinksters who will be scared into vanilla. I’m not sure which one I am yet.