1922 (2017) Review (& a Bonus Stephen King Movie Inquiry)

1922 (2017) Review (& a Bonus Stephen King Movie Inquiry)

 

The Netflix original film 1922, based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King, gets spoiled by the brief description that automatically pops up when you hover over the movie on the selection screen. I felt lucky that I didn’t read it beforehand—I knew pretty much nothing about it going in—and I’ve decided I’m not going to spoil it. I think it’s better to not know what, exactly, happens, because 1922 is in the upper echelons of scary movies based on the works of Stephen King.

The story begins with the main character Wilfred James, played by Thomas Jane, recounting what he did in the year 1922 and what happened as a result. Having the main character tell his own story keeps it true to the source material, and reminds me of other great Stephen King adaptations like The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me. Wilfred owns one hundred acres of farm land and his wife just inherited some land as well, but she isn’t into the whole farming life. In fact, she’s sick of it, and wants to sell and move to the city, even threatening to leave Wilfred and take their teenage son Henry with her. So, Wilfred does something bad, and saying that isn’t a spoiler. We know he does something bad because he tells us he did really early on. Maybe you can guess what happens, but the event occurs much earlier in the movie than I expected, and the rest explores the aftermath, including the impact Wilfred’s actions have on others and how he is haunted by what he did.

1922 is one of the best Stephen King movie adaptations produced in the 21^st century that I have seen. It came out the same year as the adaptation of the King novel Gerald’s Game, which I think was more popular because of the previous successes of director Mike Flanagan and the reputation that the source material was impossible to adapt to film (which Flanagan disproved). 1922 writer/director Zak Hilditch did an excellent job in crafting a uniquely unnerving tale that isn’t as showy or as grossly macabre as some of the scarier Stephen King movies, but it’s definitely scarier than the more purely dramatic adaptations, too, with some creepy visuals, realistic human horror, and one of the best jump scares I’ve seen in any movie in the past ten years. Make no mistake, though, it is still a chilling movie. You may recall in past reviews I’ve cited rats as the one animal on this planet that I really don’t like and am particularly grossed out by, and this movie has some of the freakiest rat moments I’ve ever seen. 

There’s a line from Wilfred that goes: “Each time I found nothin’ I became more convinced there was somethin’” and I don’t know for sure if that’s from the source material or not, but it sure sounds like something King would write, so I get the sense that it’s a faithful adaptation. Thomas Jane has always been a great actor, and he’s one of those guys like Kevin Bacon or Alec Baldwin who can play a likeable protagonist but can also play a really sinister antagonist. How do you make a main character who does something horrible still likeable and sympathetic? You have an actor like Thomas Jane play him. It’s a morality tale, and a pretty compelling one at that. All the supporting actors do a great job, too, and contribute greatly to the film’s authentic 1920’s aesthetic. The film is shot quite sparingly, and despite a pretty standard score there are quite a few effective musical queues. All of these elements work together to make what could have come off as a dull or tacky story into what is essentially an effectively creepy historical drama.

There are a couple parts of 1922 in the later half of the film that aren’t as strong, involving the son and the neighbour. The sub plot with the son is on the cheesier side of cliché Stephen King story ideas—again, no spoilers—and it feels a bit rushed. I can appreciate that it was probably done this way to keep the pacing up and not stretch out the runtime, but it could’ve been either eliminated from the film or conveyed in a more nuanced way. There’s a scene where Wilfred is talking to his neighbour outside in a snow storm and you can tell the “cold” environment is all fake, not just from the fake snow but because their exhaled breath is created with CGI and doesn’t match their breathing patterns. Sometimes you just can’t fake it no matter how hard you try with the best special effects you can get. This kind of detail likely won’t distract most viewers, though, I just get hung up on weird movie-making decisions like that.

While I do think 1922 is very good, largely thanks to Thomas Jane’s performance, I think it’s worth noting that this probably won’t be the kind of must-watch Stephen King movie for those who are the biggest fans of adaptations like IT or The Shining or Creepshow. The scares are not supernatural in origin; it plays more to the strengths of a humanized thriller like Misery or The Dead Zone. That being said, I recommend checking it out for anyone seeking a well-acted, well-shot horror period piece, or for anyone who wants a historical tale that’s a little darker than most. 

*** 

As a bonus add-on to this review, I thought since this is the last Clayton’s Creepy Cinema marathon and I dedicated the entire month of October in 2016 to reviewing as many Stephen King movies and TV shows as I could, I should probably answer the question I asked way back when I started the King-athon: do most Stephen King movies suck? I posed that inquiry and intended to prove that most of the movies based on his stories (or created in part or wholly by him) are actually not that bad, but I never gave a definitive answer, because at the time I wasn’t sure I could, or should, and since then there have been at least two dozen more adaptations of his work on the big screen and the small screen—in fact, I feel like my King-athon came right before we had a bit of a Stephen King Renaissance, with the releases of the highly successful IT films (2017, 2019), the aforementioned Gerald’s Game (2017), and the TV shows Mr. Mercedes (2017-19), Castle Rock (2018-19), and The Outsider (2020). 

So here’s how it’s going to go: instead of getting all in-depth and technical and breaking it down in some long drawn-out essay or countdown, I’m going to use the good ol’ Siskel & Ebert stand by, the thumbs up or thumbs down, to indicate whether the movie or show is, in my opinion, good, or not good. If I have not seen any of the movies or shows listed, I will defer to the critic scores to determine which thumb it gets. And, finally, if it’s too derivative, meaning if it’s a sequel that has nothing to do with the source material that the first movie was based on, it simply doesn’t count as a true Stephen King movie. I’m also not counting any TV shows that he only wrote individual episodes of. Here we go!

M = movie

TV = television show or miniseries

Bold = ones I’ve watched

 

Carrie (1976) M: 👍

Salem’s Lot (1979) TV: 👍

The Shining (1980) M: 👍

Creepshow (1982) M: 👍

Christine (1983) M: 👍

Cujo (1983) M: 👍

The Dead Zone (1983) M: 👍

Children of the Corn (1984) M: 👎

Firestarter (1984) M: 👍

Silver Bullet (1985) M: 👍

Maximum Overdrive (1986) M: 👎

Stand by Me (1986) M: 👍

Creepshow 2 (1987) M: 👍

The Running Man (1987) M: 👎

Pet Sematary (1989) M: 👍

Tales From the Darkside: The Movie (1990): 👍

Graveyard Shift (1990) M: 👎

Misery (1990) M: 👍       

IT (1990) TV: 👍

Sometimes They Come Back (1991) M: 👎

Golden Years (1991) TV: 👎

The Lawnmower Man (1992) M: 👎

Sleepwalkers (1992) M: 👎

The Dark Half (1993) M: 👍

Needful Things (1993) M: 👎

The Tommyknockers (1993) TV: 👎

The Stand (1994) TV: 👍

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) M: 👍

The Mangler (1995) M: 👎

Dolores Claiborne (1995) M: 👍

The Langoliers (1995) TV: 👎

Thinner (1996) M: 👎

The Shining (1997) TV: 👎

Trucks (1997) M: 👎

Quicksilver Highway (1997) M: 👎

The Night Flier (1997) M: 👎

Apt Pupil (1998) M: 👍

Storm of the Century (1999) TV: 👍

The Green Mile (1999) M: 👍

Hearts in Atlantis (2001) M: 👍

Rose Red (2002) TV: 👎

Carrie (2002) M: 👎

The Dead Zone (2002-2007) TV: 👍

Dreamcatcher (2003) M: 👍

Kingdom Hospital (2004) TV: 👎

Secret Window (2004) M: 👎

Salem’s Lot (2004) TV:  👍

Riding the Bullet (2004) M: 👎

Desperation (2006) M: 👍

Nightmares and Dreamscapes (2006) TV: 👍

1408 (2007) M: 👍

The Mist (2007) M: 👍

Dolan’s Cadillac (2009) M: 👎

Children of the Corn (2009) M: 👎

Haven (2010-2015) TV: 👎

Bag of Bones (2011) TV: 👎

Under the Dome (2013-2015) TV: 👎

Carrie (2013) M: 👎

Big Driver (2014) M: 👎

Mercy (2014) M: 👎

A Good Marriage (2014) M: 👎

Cell (2016) M:  👎

11.22.63 (2016) TV: 👍

The Dark Tower (2017) M: 👎

IT (2017) M: 👍

The Mist (2017) TV: 👎

Gerald’s Game (2017) M: 👍

1922 (2017) M: 👍

Mr. Mercedes (2017-2019) TV: 👍

Pet Sematary (2019) M: 👎

In The Tall Grass (2019) M: 👎

Doctor Sleep (2019) M: 👍

IT: Chapter 2 (2019) M: 👍

Creepshow (2019-present) TV: 👍

The Outsider (2020) TV: 👍

Children of the Corn (2020) M: 👎

The Stand (2020-2021) TV: 👎

Chapelwaite (2021-present) TV: 👍

Lisey’s Story (2021) TV: 👎

Firestarter (2022) M: 👎

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022) M: 👎

The Boogeyman (2023) M: 👍

 

Total thumbs up: 41

Total thumbs down: 41

Well, that’s not the result I was expecting, nor was that as easy of a task as I had expected it to be, either. After combing through every Stephen King adaptation from the beginning of his career up to October 2023, I have determined that about half of them are varying levels of good, and half of them are varying levels of not good. So it seems those who say most Stephen King movies suck are wrong, and I, too, was wrong in thinking most of them were good. It’s a weirdly even split, but I think the highs outweigh the lows. There are probably more “meh” movies and shows than really terrible ones, and more high-quality productions than merely OK ones. With many, many more adaptations currently in development and King himself still writing new stories for potential future adaptation, we’ll see if this trend continues or not.