1922
2017 · Directed by Zak Hilditch
Original language: English
- horror
- crime
- drama
The story
A simple yet proud rancher conspires to murder his wife for financial gain, convincing his teenage son to participate.
What it’s like
Flat, dun-coloured Nebraska farmland under a hard autumn sky, shot with wide, still frames that make the fields and the farmhouse look small and exposed. The light is pale and overcast for much of the runtime, with warm lamplight and dim kitchen interiors pulling the eye inward, and the palette leans on ochres, rust and cold blue-grey. Camera work is patient and deliberate, with slow pushes into faces and long unbroken takes of chores and silence. Sound is mostly wind, rustling corn, livestock and creaking wood, with a sparse, mournful score that surfaces only at pressure points. The vibe is bleak, claustrophobic and slow-burning, with a creeping sense of guilt that festers into hallucinatory dread in its later stretches. It suits a late-autumn night alone with the lights low. Intensity is moderate and grim: there is a murder, a body, and rot-tinged imagery, but the violence is mostly brief and implied rather than gory, and the horror comes from paranoia and haunting rather than jump scares. It is for viewers who like moody, Stephen King-style rural horror and a tense, morally corrosive family drama about a father who draws his son into a terrible crime.
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