STARS: 2/5
2017 has been the year of Stephen King adaptations and remakes. However, we as viewers are quickly learning if it wasn’t on the big screen, the film probably isn’t worth your time. The Netflix original “1922” is a properly advertised dud that, frankly, leaves little to the imagination.
This adaptation follows a farming family in 1922. We open with the father, Wilfred James, narrating a written confession of the murder of his wife, Arlette.
As he slowly builds up the premise of the plot, we see picturesque images of their 14-year-old son, Henry, and Arlette sitting on their front porch. The way the opening scenes are shot create a once-upon-a-time feel as we scan across their heaven on earth — their corn fields and family — which contrasts the murderous confession being voiced over.
A quote from Wilfred will resonate throughout the film as we watch his personal heaven crumble by his own hands: “A man’s pride was a man’s land … and so was his son.”
Once Wilfred’s narration ceases, viewers get to see his unhappy marriage, as his wife desires to move away from country life into the city. Wilfred, stubborn in his ways, refuses to let their land go, even if it costs him his marriage. Arlette threatens to sell the land regardless of what Wilfred wants, and even take Henry with her. With this Wilfred decides murdering his wife is the only way to retain his paradise.
The murder itself isn’t what’s so disturbing or horrible about the plot, but the way Wilfred goes about it. He not only informs his son of his plan to kill his wife, but brainwashes Henry into thinking this is the only way to maintain their happiness.
Wilfred uses Henry’s love interest, Shannon, and religion as ammunition for forcing Henry’s hand in all this. This is one of the few things that for me, redeems this film — a psychological element to any horror flick is a plus.
The gore that follows in the film is appropriate and perfectly nasty for a Stephen King film. The mother’s throat is slashed in a bloodbath and her body is dumped into a well, where we see rats eating her face and body. While identifying Henry, who eventually dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Wilfred sees that rats ate much of Henry’s face off as well. A rat bites Wilfred during a nasty winter, eventually causing his hand to be amputated, but not without showing a gangrenous hand of rotting flesh.
You’ll probably notice that rats seem to be used heavily in this film. I love a good psychological element, and here they could be used as your basic fear tactic — as bothersome creatures simply sent to torment the living or the literal gnawing away of Wilfred’s mind as he comes to terms with his actions. I personally find the latter to be more compelling.
In the film, the music used implores violins and high-pitched scores of music to cultivate a sense of unrest in the viewer, something that you expect, even want when coming into a Stephen King film. However the same scores of violins and sharp notes are played throughout the film, creating an expectation for fright that left me less than impressed.
In terms of fear factors, your refrigerator’s ice machine in the middle of the night is more frightening than this. Although audiences get gore, it does not translate into scenes of fear but of disturbia. We get about 10 full minutes of the rotting, terrifying body of Arlette James as she confronts Wilfred and tell him of Henry’s downfall and death.
As viewers, we are left with an incomplete film, genre-wise. It has elements for psychological and horror genres, but does not play either of them out to their full potential, leaving audiences unsatisfied.
