Tagline
“Handcuffed to a bed. Husband dead on the floor. Now what?”
The Review
Mike Flanagan adapted the Stephen King novel everyone said was unfilmable — a woman handcuffed to a bed in a remote lake house after her husband dies of a heart attack during a sex game. Carla Gugino delivers a career-best performance, carrying the entire film essentially solo while hallucinating conversations with her dead husband and her younger self. The degloving scene is among the most unwatchable body horror moments in any film. Flanagan proves that horror's most effective prison is psychological, and the childhood abuse revelation hits with devastating emotional force.
Fun Fact
Stephen King himself called the adaptation 'brilliant' and said Flanagan cracked the problem of translating an internal, single-location novel to screen. The degloving scene caused multiple audience members to faint at festival screenings. Flanagan shot the film for Netflix in just 27 days.
Score Breakdown
Total Score
21/30
Get Glen’s Updates
Investing insights, new tools, and whatever I’m building this week. Free. No spam.
Unsubscribe anytime. I respect your inbox more than Congress respects property rights.
Keep Exploring
Top 25 Horror Movies
See the full ranked list of the greatest horror films ever made.
Read moreTop 25 Sci-Fi Movies
The greatest science fiction films ever made, ranked.
Read moreTop 25 Action Movies
The greatest action films ever made, ranked.
Read moreTop 25 Movie Villains
The greatest antagonists in cinema history, ranked.
Read moreConsulting
Salesforce development and technical consulting.
Read moreWins
Track record of wins across investing, building, and creating.
Read more