‘Gerald’s Game‘ is possibly one of the most disturbing movies ever made. While the gory visuals and traumatic backstory contribute to the nightmarish effects, all I could think about after finishing the Netflix film was the creepy man in the shadows, The Crypt Creeper.
The movie spends so much time making you doubt it that it almost feels like it wants you to keep asking: Is he real, or is Jessie just imagining him?
Why The Crept Creeper Initially Feels Like A Hallucination
In the beginning, it feels like the Crypt Creeper isn’t real. Jessie and Gerald head to a remote cabin to try to fix their failing marriage. Gerald suggests a risky bedroom game to spice things up, and even though Jessie feels uneasy, she agrees. Soon after, things fall apart. An argument turns physical, Jessie kicks Gerald in self-defense, and he suddenly dies from a heart attack.
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Jessie is left handcuffed to the bed, alone, injured, and completely stuck. As hours pass with no water and no help, she becomes exhausted and disoriented. So when a tall, silent man begins appearing, it feels logical to assume her mind is playing tricks on her. However, the movie doesn’t let that explanation sit too comfortably.
Little by little, it starts dropping details that don’t quite fit. Early on, there’s a radio news report casually mentioning a grave robber in the area near the cabin. At first, it feels like background noise, nothing important. As the story continues, though, moments like that start to matter.
One of the biggest turning points is when Jessie notices bloody footprints on the floor after one of the Crypt Creeper’s visits. Even after he disappears, the footprints remain. That’s when it gets harder to brush him off as imaginary.
The Clues That Reveal Crypt Creeper’s Identity In ‘Gerald’s Game’
Mike Flanagan, who directed the film in 2017, clearly plays with this uncertainty on purpose. Knowing that ‘Gerald’s Game‘ was considered borderline unfilmable by many Stephen King fans, it feels like these clues were intentionally placed to keep viewers questioning things for as long as possible.
Eventually, the movie stops teasing and gives a clear answer. The Crypt Creeper is real. After Jessie escapes by painfully degloving her hand to slip free from the cuffs, she later comes face to face with the man who watched her throughout her ordeal. Next, she drops her wedding ring into his bag of stolen trinkets, and that scene clarifies all confusion.
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This is where we learn his real name: Raymond Andrew Joubert. The press calls him the “Crypt Creeper.” He has acromegaly, a condition that causes abnormal growth. Well, this explains his unsettling size and appearance. Joubert digs up graves, steals from the dead, and molests corpses, and suddenly, every earlier hint clicks into place.
What’s interesting is that this twist was part of the novel, and Mike Flanagan stayed faithful to it. As it turns out, the Crypt Creeper is based on real-life killer Ed Gein, who murdered two women in the 1950s. Gein also exhumed bodies and made objects from human remains, and his crimes later inspired famous horror villains like Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Buffalo Bill.
