The Tall Man

Saw The Tall Man (thanks, Basil!) It was a very interesting movie. It revolves around a big twist which is infuriating because the post-twist film is the only thing worth talking about. The pre-twist film is as follows: There's a little rural town where kids are disappearing. The populace blames a mysterious figure known as "The Tall Man." A kinldy nurse is introduced as the protagonist along with her adorable moppet of a son (who has "victim" written aaaalll over him.)

The film is busily trying to trick you into believing it's an action-horror. It gives a news-coverage montage introducing the back-woods mythology of The Tall Man, there's useless, panicky females, hatchet-faced FBI agents, sudden loud noises, and all of the other trappings of a cliche horror. And yet the film soft-peddles all of these elements. The jump-scares are never really jumpy, the townspeople make ominous reference to a mysterious altar built in the forest but when it's finally shown, it's only glimpsed out of the corner of the screen and is anyway not so much scary as just strange.

I thought the film would turn out to be merely the tamest horror ever made, but the Big Twist Reveal shows that the film's heart was never really in the horror. The twist reveals that what's really going on is grotesque and kind of horrifying but you kind of understand the motives of the bad guys. They are monstrous, but perhaps they are not monsters. This film makes an interesting and very political conversation-starter. It relies on a big central gimmick (ie the twist (although honestly, it doesn't completely blind-side you. You can sense that something is definitely up after about half an hour in)) and so might not bear up under repeat viewings, but it's good the first time around. An interesting film.