MOVIE REVIEW: 1922

The new film based on the work of Stephen King

1922 is the sixth adaptation of the Stephen King stories to be released this year, yes, you read that right, sixth adaptation, previously the television series The Fog and Mr. Mercedes were released, as well as the films The Dark Tower, That and The Game from Gerald. Now it is the turn of 1922, a film based on the short novel of the same name and included in the collection «All Dark, Without Stars», which was published in 2012.

Wilfred James is a countryman, it would never occur to him to abandon the farm that he has tried so hard to keep afloat all his life, on the other hand, his wife Arlette fervently wishes to move to the city of Omaha, which is worse, she plans to take her son with her, take him off the farm and sell his land to a cattle company, Wilfred cannot even tolerate this idea so he manipulates his son into helping him murder his wife, after murdering her, thrown into a well where the rats immediately pounce on the body, that happened in the distant days of 1922 on his farm in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, now, many years later, guilt and ghosts of the past haunt him, for what Wilfred decides to tell his story, while still being able to do so.

 Directed and written by Zak Hilditch and starring Thomas Jane –The Fog, Punisher-, Molly Parker –House of Cards, Dexter- and Dylan Schmid, in the roles of Wilfred, Arlette and Henry respectively, the film focuses on the dark side of the human being. Once again Stephen King opens the doors to that dark well that hides in the hearts of people and that can lead any of us to commit the vilest acts for the most unlikely reasons. In 1922 the crime did not occur out of ambition or greed, as might be expected, the motive seems to be simpler and more complicated at the same time, the innate desire of man to get his way, the resentment of man from the beginning of the last century when his Pride is threatened by a woman who turns things around and suddenly has the upper hand, threatening her position as patriarch and owner of destiny, hers and his family..

In 1922, the family, money, work, and even a man’s wife were the property and business of that man, King – and now Hilditch – they take us to that distant world, to that time from which almost 100 years separate us and we strike with the reality of knowing that these atrocities are not as far away as we would like to believe, the forms have changed, the scenarios have changed, but perhaps things have not changed so much, these mud are made of those waters.

On the other hand, monsters are real and sometimes they win the battle, it is one of the best-known phrases of the writer we are talking about, at least something similar, and in 1922 this could not be more real, although monsters do not have fangs or appear With the light of the full moon, they are not entities brought from other universes or demons that come to torment us, no, in this case, the monsters are much more familiar, the monsters are made of guilt, of remorse. In the film, these feelings are represented as rats, and just like those little animals, these feelings penetrate the darkest corners of our being and begin to gnaw at us from the inside, giving tiny bites that little by little destroy everything that is left behind. his step.

Perhaps the film may seem a bit slow, at least in its first half, however, it builds the terror in an effective and above all intelligent way, the curse that falls on Wilfred and Henry takes his time to suddenly fall on his shoulders and shocking us fully with their rawness, they murder Arlette to preserve the life they know and love so much, without knowing that by doing so they are destroying everything, including themselves.

1922 is a great adaptation of Stephen King’s work, highly recommended both for those who have already read the short novel on which it is based and for those who have not read it, even for those who have not read anything by Stephen King – they say that some have not done it-, the suspense and the terror are built little by little and although they never explode, they hold the viewer’s attention during the 102 minutes that the film lasts, in addition to of course launching it suddenly on a trip in the time, to a time in which the world in which we live was inconceivable and in which things were done differently, straight to 1922.

Whoever has some kind of phobia with rats prepare to spend two very complicated hours if the scene of Gerald’s Game that everyone talks about seemed difficult to observe, in this film, there is a scene that is to the height if not that a little further in terms of the stomach hardness necessary to observe it.

1922 premiered on Netflix on Friday, October 20, 2017