A quarter-century after its first publication, Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game has finally streamed its way onto Netflix. The film adaptation is no small feat, considering the challenges presented by the source material (with its inciting moment of a bondage game gone awry): protagonist Jessie Burlingame spends the bulk of the novel mostly naked and left handcuffed to the bedpost after a mule kick to her jackass husband’s crotch leads to the titular Gerald’s death by heart attack. Director Mike Flanagan deftly sidesteps issues of nudity and related sordidness by working details of a new negligee and a little blue pill into the plot, but he arguably drops the ball when attempting to execute a similar modifying maneuver.

I can appreciate that King’s novel–where Jessie is not only chained to the bed but locked up inside her own head–is fundamentally unfilmable without certain liberties being taken. Nevertheless, the movie’s decision to personify the voices in Jessie’s head as hallucinations proves problematical on several fronts. The almost darkly-comic note struck by these figures as they move around the bedroom somehow mutes the horror of Jessie’s solitary confinement. Streamlining eliminates the “Goodwife Burlingame” and “Ruth Neary” inner voices so prevalent in the novel, and the assertive/acerbic Jessie alter ego visualized in the film ends up lacking rationale. Most troubling of all is the reanimation of Gerald as recurring hallucination. While I did like that this allowed him to toss a couple of verbal Easter eggs (alluding to other King works), I soon found myself wishing that Bruce Greenwood’s character would just shut up and play dead already. Gerald spends too much film time posthumously dictating to his wife (for better or for worse), which seems to short circuit many of the feminist impulses of King’s novel.

Gerald’s lingering presence also eclipses another masculine antagonist; the film’s so-called “Moonlight Man” is both underutilized and misused. This dreadful apparition is drawn out of the shadows way too soon, missing a tremendous opportunity to develop extended psychological suspense. The Moonlight Man then haunts the film via a few nightmarish yet fleeting images that fail to capture the tormenting effect he has on the book version of Jessie. Also, in the adapted concluding scene in which Jessie confronts her monstrous voyeur, the film eschews the visceral (she spits right in his face in the book), opting for an expression of defiance that comes off as more trite than empowering.

Make no mistake, Carla Gugino gives a strong and believable performance as Jessie. Perhaps inevitably, though, the film lacks the immediacy, the intensity, of King’s novel.  As a viewer, I felt distanced, and (excepting the excruciating handcuff-escape scene) struggled to be be drawn into the experience of Jessie’s physical and mental ordeal. Flanagan (Oculus, Hush) is a fine director, but ultimately appears shackled here by the circumstances of King’s narrative. While it provides a few hours of solid entertainment, this version of Gerald’s Game isn’t destined to be called a classic.

Twenty-seven years after the TV miniseries, Stephen King’s monster epic has hit the big screen at last. Both savvy marketing and advanced critical praise have generated tremendous buzz, and the film does nothing to pop the lofty balloon of viewer expectations.

Admittedly, one of my biggest concerns going into It involved the cinematic shifting of the era of the characters’ coming of age, from the novel’s 1950s here to the 1980s: would the film just come off as a retread of the obviously King-influenced Stranger Things? The update, though, is made seamlessly, with no felt loss of the earlier decade’s particular cultural context (and famous movie monsters). An overwhelming sense of nostalgia never undermines the naturalness of the 1980s setting; invocations are made in a light-hearted rather than heavy-handed manner, such as a running joke involving New Kids on the Block and one hilarious mention of a certain red-headed femme of Brat-Pack fame.

The film’s settings are impressively dreadful: the shadow-soaked basement of the Denbrough home, the eerily-unquiet public library, the sewer system serving as Derry’s It-lodged bowels.  But it’s the decrepit house on Neibolt Street that looms largest, featuring enough frightful rooms to shame every haunted attraction nationwide. Overall, Derry is brought to remarkable life. Perhaps the single regret is that the town’s ugly history tends to be glossed over, referenced mostly by newspaper clipping. I would have loved to see incidents like the razing of the Black Spot and the Kitchener Ironworks explosion visualized via flashback.

One of the most admirable aspects of the film is its willingness to devote the time to develop each of the members of the Losers Club, to allow us to care about these young characters (imagine that in a horror movie!). Finn Wolfhard’s Richie nearly steals the show with his string of raucous one-liners, and along with Beverly tends to eclipse (the somewhat-underused) Ben and Bill (looking here like a latter-day Gordie Lachance), but the actors are excellent across the board.  Populated with endearing characters, It proves adept at eliciting “awws” as well as “ahhhs!” from its audience.

Make no mistake, though: this movie is genuinely terrifying. There are jump scares galore, all skillfully orchestrated. Expected set-pieces from the book make arresting appearance, including scenes involving the predatorial leper and Beverly’s blood-geysering bathroom sink. Director Andy Muschietti also concocts some fresh horrors, such as a painting-escaping grotesque that bedevils Stan–and forms the creepiest contorted female since Pet Sematary‘s Zelda. The film grows relentless in its onslaught, placing viewers in the same exhausting position as the continually evil-done protagonists.  For me, an added theater-going pleasure was getting to observe tweens in the audience shrieking and practically bouncing out of their seats in sheer terror–a perfect reminder of just how effective King’s original novel was when I first experienced it as an adolescent.

No film review of It can conclude without discussion of Pennywise, who is subject to a stunningly unsettling makeover (vs. the more garish figure cut by Tim Curry’s miniseries incarnation). Pennywise here is so undeniably frightful-looking, It almost defies belief: rather than being lured in, any kid with a lick of sense would turn and haul juvenile hiney at the first distant glimpse of such sinisterness. Nonetheless, Bill Skarsgard gives an amazing performance, whether posing as a static menace or launching into acrobatic act; this Dancing Clown has some jaw-dropping–and heart-stopping–moves. Pennywise’s signature line about floating is also given some wickedly inventive turns (I won’t spoil with specifics). It’s no hyperbole to claim that Skarsgard’s character is destined to be ranked among the greatest horror villains of all time. Nor would it be terribly bold to predict that a whole new generation is about to be afflicted with coulrophobia.

Much like the titular It, the film itself is richly-detailed, multifaceted, and given to frenetic action, and accordingly is sure to reward the repeating viewer.  While the end title promises a second filmic chapter, I am already counting the days (which hopefully won’t feel like an agonizing twenty-seven years) until It resurfaces on DVD.