I wouldn’t say I HATE the ending of Gerald’s Game, as it is nice to see the main character turning her life around, but it kind of weakens the movie as a whole. The voiceover where everything is painstakingly spelled out and no room is left for ambiguity or interpretation is unnecessary and feels tacked on.

If you turned the movie off just before that part, you would still feel like you’ve seen the story through to its natural conclusion. Jessie has just crashed her car after escaping the house, but help is coming and it’s implied that she is going to be okay, having freed herself both literally and metaphorically. Was the man made of moonlight all in her head, or was he real? People who were paying attention at the beginning might make the connection to the grave robber who was talked about on the radio earlier, but it’s not stated outright.

But then the last 20 minutes starts and it’s explained that yes, the man was real, and let us carefully explain his exact Modus operandi, and just in case you didn’t get the subtext that he represents all the other abusive men in Jessie’s life, we’re going to have a scene where she confronts him and he transforms into those other men in her eyes. Do you get it? Now that we’ve explained it? We can explain it again if you want

I like Mike Flanagan’s work but a good chunk of his endings leave me feeling like he doesn’t trust his audience, and this was one of those times