1922

Much like Stephen King's 1408 (a short story from his Everything's Eventual collection), 1922 is another short story that transfers well to the silver screen. 1922 is an American Gothic tale set at a family's comfortable farm in the mid-west. Hundreds of acres of pristine farmland, a thriving crop, a proud father, and blue skies as far as one can see. The husband has plenty to love about life here, except for his ill-contented wife. This idyllic scene becomes the backdrop of husbands conniving treachery, and a thematic string of mishaps and horrors which follow. The sweet life is not so sweet anymore. Thomas Jane churns out a strong and convincing performance not to be missed.

Based on Stephen King's novella of the same name, 1922 is like Stephen King's own version of Allen Poe's timeless classic THE TELL-TALE HEART story that set around here Wilfred James, a Nebraska farmer with a bitter wife named Arlette and a loyal son named Henry. This hardworking but not-too-successful farmer finds himself under increasing pressure from his wife when she clearly started to express her frustrations living in the country and wants to sell her all of the 100 acres of land that she got inheritably and move to the big city. Through their disagreements, when Arlette threatens to divorce him, taking the son with her, Wilfred plots to murder her and methodically persuades his son to become his partner in crime. This is beautifully done, an effectively slow-burn horror-drama directed by Zak Hilditch and like the way Carla Gugino turned GERALD'S GAME into her own showcase of versatile acting talent, this time almost an unrecognizable Thomas Jane delivered one of his best performances in career, IMO. His deeply sincere & committed performance as an early 1920s manipulative, desperate farmer with a slowly rotten psyche…was not only an absolute treat but surely this year's one the best so far that deserve some recognition in the coming award season.

My thoughts:

1 - the movie was very similar to the novella which is a great thing.

2 - The actors portraying Wilf and Hank nailed the characters.

3 - No CGI that I could notice. The movie relied on subtlety and didn't try to explain everything detail.

4 - My wife enjoyed it, and she is a tough big to crack.

The movie is beautifully shot and very evocative of the period and location.

The plot summary tells you up front what happens -- a man kills his wife after coercing his son into helping. Who knows why he couldn't have just done it himself. As expected with a Stephen King story, things go downhill afterwards.

My primary objection is the accent used by Thomas Jane in the lead role. Was it supposed to be ... some kind of Midwest Okie? Others have praised his acting so mine is a minority opinion, but I could never get past it.

The story is narrated by the father, which isn't a device I particularly enjoy in general, plus it makes his weird accent and slowly deliberate way of speaking even more prominent.

I loved it from start to end. Thomas Jane gives another excellent performance!

The plot is thrilling and makes you want to keep watching even if it's a slow-paced film. It reminded me a lot of old school horror/suspense films from the 80's. The ones that didn't depend on jump-scares or stupid demonic creatures to make the whole movie.

Don't listen to those few people arguing the film was boring because it was slow. Maybe they're used to jump-scares and serial killers. This is a very simple but deep plot that is worth seeing.