Film Review: "1922" (2017)

3 1/2 out of 5

Warning: Spoilers

Somewhere, right now,  there's a room full of Hollywood players brain storming movie ideas, and at the head of the table is a giant white board. In the dead center of that white board under the banner "Ideas?" are two words: "Stephen King".

We're at a point culturally where you can't fart in a crowded Burger King without crop dusting another Stephen King adaptation. This is, as far as I know, the fourth film version of his work in the last few months. This also happens to be the second released directly to Netflix.

Like "Gerald's Game" which also debuted on the streaming service earlier this month, "1922" feels much smaller than its big screen brothers "The Dark Tower" and "IT". Effective horror is built on uneasiness and drama, and the modest means afforded to director Zac Hilditch by Netflix keeps the focus on atmosphere and tension rather than spectacle.

Taking place during the year of, you guessed it, 1922, we follow the degradation of Wilfred James (played by Thomas Jane) a simple farmer whose wife has an independent streak and a plan that includes selling their farm, divorcing him, and moving to the big city with their son in tow. Wilfred doesn't like this and plots to kill his wife as a means of keeping the farm and his son, something that will inevitably bring about a lot of misery for a lot of people. 

Jane does an excellent job as the gruff Wilf, embuing him with poetic stupidity as he digs his hole deeper and deeper with every new bad decision. At first he felt like an extra from "The Grapes Of Wrath",  but after a while he began to feel like a sinister version of Ernest P Warhol, with his thick drawl and country bumpkin affectations. I found myself imagining this as the gritty Ernest reboot no one asked for called "Ernest Kills His Wife".

Things unravel in quick succession after he coerces his son into aiding him in the murder, an act that drives his son (and his pregnant girlfriend) into a life of crime as the Sweetheart Bandits that ends with both of them dead; the farm begins to languish, rats fill up the walls, the roof begins collapsing, and Wilf loses a hand to infection. 

Wilfred eventually has to go against his own wishes (and the main reason he murdered his wife in the first place) buy selling the farm for next to nothing to pig ranchers and moving himself to the city. He becomes a broken drunkard literally haunted by the spirits of the people affected by his act of callousness, writing out his confession as they slowly close in.

As someone who prefers simple horror this hits all the right notes. The plot is straightforward and paced well, visually it's stark but matches the moody tone of the material, and the score is excellent, a point that can't be overstated loudly enough. "IT"  was almost derailed by its overbearing score, but here in the capable hands of eclectic weirdo Mike Patton the quiet moments are unnerving and few shrill strings that punctuate the ambiance work as a mood enhancer as opposed to a perfunctory cue to the viewer to "be scared now". 

The horror in "1922" has less to do with the vengeful ghost wife seen in the trailers and more to do with the idea that the duality of human nature has an exacting cost if we should indulge the darker side of ourselves, something that will invariably cause a person to fall. This is no new concept for anyone who is familiar with King, seeing that a large part of his work is dedicated to seemingly normal men being driven to violence and madness by internal (and oftentimes external) demons, so what you see in "1922" won't be shocking to most seasoned viewers.
Where this work excels is in knowing its limitations and fully exploiting them. Horror, and specifically the horror of Stephen King, can be overly convoluted and usually gets explained to the Nth degree. Out of necessity this film cuts all the fat by giving us a simple concept centered at one main location and a focus on what matters the most in effective creepy horror: the story itself.
Ultimately "1922" isn't a remarkable or groundbreaking film that will redraw how you view horror, but it is surprisingly entertaining and is one of the better ghost stories of this moment. At a time where cheap horror movies are easy to start and stop with little regard, which is undoubtedly bolstered by the glut of viewing possibilities on streaming services, it's nice to find something new that actually tries, succeeds, and merits a complete viewing.
Ernest might have killed his wife and paid the price for his actions, but I didn't mind killing some time watching it all go down.