1922 is a 2017 Netflix original film, based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King from the collection Full Dark, No Stars.
The film stars Thomas Jane as Wilfred James, a Nebraska farmer and self-proclaimed "conniving man" who decides that Murder Is the Best Solution when his stubborn wife Arlette (Molly Parker) resolves to sell the land he cherishes. While he eventually succeeds with a little help from his son Henry (Dylan Schmid), he had no way of knowing what sort of consequences will befall him and everyone around him as a result.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Arlette slaps Henry at dinner when the latter tells her to stop talking about selling the 100 acres and moving to Omaha. Wilf isn't exactly a prize either, considering he manipulates Henry into killing her.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: Wilf's narration in the novella ends with him hearing the footsteps of Arlette, Henry, and Shannon outside his hotel room, with the epilogue revealing he was found dead with self-inflicted bite wounds. The film changes the scene so that the three of them actually appear inside the room and Henry brandishes the knife towards Wilf.
- All for Nothing: Wilfred gets his son to help him murder his wife in order to prevent her from selling the land and farm and moving into the city. By the end of the film, Henry and Shannon end up dead, the farm goes into ruin, and Wilf is forced to sell the land at a cheap price and move into the city, rendering Arlette's murder completely pointless.
- Anachronic Order: The film jumps back and forth between the framing device of Wilfred writing a confession in real time and the events he's writing about, which themselves are not always presented in order. For example, Henry's Crisis of Faith, where he wishes that God doesn't exist because then heaven and hell don't exist and he won't have to go to hell for murder, is shown very late in the film; however, chronologically it seems to take place soon after he and Wilfred murder Arlette, which takes place early in the move.
- Animal Lover: Henry is fond of cows and is visibly distressed when he and Wilfred drop one into the well Arlette's body is in and it starts mooing in pain; he insists that Wilfred "do something" about the cow, even though the entire point of the cow being there is to justify filling the well and hiding the evidence.
- Animal Motifs: Rats appear throughout the film as a symbol of decay, both physical and moral.
- Cows also appear as a symbol of the consequences of Wilfred's actions. One is buried in the well Arlette is in to justify its stoppage, one has its udder chewed off by a rat, and Wilfred shoots the last, which is freezing to death in the snow.
- Arc Words: "In the end, we all get caught."
- Asshole Victim:
- At the end of the movie, it is implied that Wilfred is about to be killed by the ghosts of Arlette, Henry, and Shannon. He 100% deserves it.
- Arlette, but to a much lesser extent. She’s just as stubborn and mean-spirited as Wilf, and she doesn’t treat her son well, but she never tries to manipulate him to hurt his father back. She had just as much right to sell her land as Wilf had to keep his, and in the end, she was murdered by her husband and son over a piece of property.
- Ate His Gun: Henry shoots himself through the mouth after Shannon dies from her gunshot wound.
- Audible Sharpness: In the middle of the movie, there's a shot of Arlette's hand holding the knife Wilfred killed his wife with, and a ringing is heard as they hold it.
- Bait-and-Switch: After a prominent shot of Arlette's hand holding the knife Wilfred used to kill her with and her following him down into the basement, she... doesn't stab him. Instead, she tells him about Henry and Shannon's new lives as an Outlaw Couple and their subsequent deaths.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Downplayed: Arlette's corpse is certainly disturbing, both from her murder and postmortem rat activity, but Henry's face is much more gory than hers. We're also told the rats got to his and Shannon's bodies both, and her ghost does seem to have a bloody lower face, but we only see her in a scene where she's standing away from the light, which masks the true extent of her injuries.
- Black Comedy: Arlette's bloody ghost is accompanied by the cheerful jazz music she played the night she died, and it stops after Wilfred tumbles down the basement stairs backwards like something out of a sitcom. When Wilfred sees her accompanied by rats at Henry's funeral and looks terrified, she just stares at him, as if insulted by the idea that she would start something at her son's funeral.
- Crisis of Faith: Henry has one after helping his father murder Arlette, saying that he's too scared to pray lest God strike him down.
- Downer Ending: Wilfred attempts to find some absolution in writing what he's done, but his soul is damned regardless. In the end, Wilfred is consumed by the consequences of his short-sighted actions that cost him his family, home, and ruined the lives of those around him. If anything, he deserves what horrible fate befalls him.
- In the movie, Wilfred is confronted by the ghosts of Arlette, Henry, and Shannon, with Henry brandishing a knife, implying that they're ready to kill Wilfred for what he did to them.
- In the novella, Wilfred hears the footsteps of Arlette, Henry, and Shannon outside his hotel room, leaving his fate ambiguous. Though the epilogue would reveal that he was found dead with self-inflicted bite wounds, implying he was driven mad by what he did and killed himself out of grief.
- Dramatic Irony: Wilfred lies about going to the city with Arlette instead of staying on the farm in "sure misery" right before he murders her. Before he moves to the hotel, he eventually is left alone on the farm, miserable because of a gangrenous hand, a hard winter, Arlette's ghost tormenting him about Henry and Shannon's deaths, and the onset of the Great Depression.
- Establishing Character Moment: Henry is first shown learning how to drive the family car but is too focused on actually driving it to remember Wilfred's instructions, showing his impulsive streak. It also serves as one for Wilfred, who pairs his practical instruction with nudging Henry to stay close to home. Arlette's is her standing on the front porch looking out of place in her dress, reflecting her desire to move to the city.
- Eye Scream: Henry's left eye is eaten by rats postmortem, leaving only a bloody socket.
- Facial Horror: Postmortem, the area around Henry's mouth was apparently eaten by rats and is a bloody mess, and it seems to have gotten worse with his ghost. Shannon's isn't lit too well, but her lower face seems to be bloody too.
- Family-Values Villain: Wilfred murders Arlette and is generally ornery, but advises Henry against running off to Colorado with Shannon because she's five months pregnant and shouldn't be put through that strain. He also wants to keep Arlette's land in the family so Henry can inherit it and pass it to his family, and is distressed when told of Henry's new life of crime and the death of Shannon's baby after she's been shot.
- Fate Worse than Death: Wilfred considers hearing of Henry and Shannon's lives of crime, and the death of Shannon's baby after she's shot to be this, and he asks the person explaining this to just kill him.
- Framing Device: The entire movie is narrated by Wilfred, in the form of a confession he writes while staying in a hotel room. As the movie goes on, the room becomes increasingly infested with rats.
- From Bad to Worse: The entire film is one long instance of this. The moment that Wilfred murders his wife, things start a steady slide downhill for him. His son gets the neighbor's daughter pregnant, runs off with her, and they both become criminals and die. Wilfred loses his hand, his livestock, then his farm, and is forced to sell the latter to the hated livestock company at a low price thanks to the oncoming Great Depression. It even spreads to his neighbor.
- Get It Over With: Wilfred thinks Arlette's ghost is there to kill him. He asks her to do so and stop telling him about Henry and Shannon's new life of crime. She doesn't kill him then, opting instead to tell him of Henry's suicide, but returns in the finale with the ghosts of Henry and Shannon to presumably finish the job.
- Ghostly Goals: Mostly Type B. Henry shows up at the end after his death, brandishing the knife Wilfred killed Arlette with and accompanied by Arlette and Shannon's ghosts. Arlette's ghost seems to enjoy psychologically messing with Wilfred by telling him about Henry and Shannon's deaths, and she does show up at the end, but she's also the only person to attend Henry's funeral outside of Wilfred and doesn't do anything outside of sitting there.
- Gorn: And so, so much of it. Particular "highlights" include Wilfred cutting his wife's throat twice to finally kill her, Wilfred crushing a rat to death with his shoe so the insides are visible, the gangrenous hand he gets from a horrific rat bite, a cow getting its udder gnawed off by a rat, and the horrible state of all the ghosts when they come to visit Wilfred.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Played with. Plenty is shown in graphic detail, but Wilfred blowing the brains out of his last cow is taken off-camera.
- Heel Realization: Wilfred starts to realize that he's a bad person around the time of Henry and Shannon's funerals, as he notes to himself that if any father deserves to kiss his son for the last time, it's him.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Wilfred uses a knife to kill Arlette. At the end, Henry pulls out the same knife and points it at Wilfred, repeating Wilfred's words at the beginning that "it'll be quick".
- Infodump: Arlette's ghost gives Wilfred one regarding Henry and Shannon's current activity, since at this point they have absconded into their own plot thread away from the farm.
- Insane Troll Logic: Wilfred figures that he and Henry are actually saving Arlette by murdering her, since if she dies before atoning for her sins they're automatically forgiven. When Henry points out that murder is still a sin, Wilfred waves it away with pontificating about heaven being all around them, and justifies killing her because she would sin a lot in Omaha anyway.
- Ironic Echo: Of the darkest, bleakest kind. Wilfred convinces Henry that cutting Arlette's throat is better than smothering her with a pillow because "it'll be quick", just before murdering her that way. At the end, Henry's ghost holds up the very same knife and echoes Wilfred's own words.Henry as a ghost: Papa, it'll be quick.
- Jump Scare: Wilfred is reading The House of the Seven Gables one night when a drop of blood splats onto the page from above. Turns out it's just a water leak.
- Justified Criminal: Henry and Shannon become this as an Outlaw Couple. They commit armed robberies only because Henry helped Shannon escape a reformatory, and they can't find honest work because they're both young teenagers and Shannon's heavily pregnant. We also see a note from them apologizing for, and presumably accompanying the return of, a temporarily stolen car.
- Meaningful Name: Elphis, the cow Wilfred and Henry drop in the well and shoot for an excuse to stop the well, has a name recalling the Ancient Greek for "hope". After her death, Henry begins a downward spiral out of grief.
- Missing Steps Plan: After Shannon is sent to a reformatory as punishment for a Teen Pregnancy, Henry expresses the desire to elope with her to Colorado. Wilfred points out that this is a stupid plan and advises against it, because Shannon is five months pregnant and they don't have any money.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Henry gets hit by this three times. First, after helping Wilfred kill Arlette and drag her body out to dump down a well. Second, after he and Wilfred drop a cow down that well to justify filling it and hiding the body. Third and finally, after Shannon, bleeding out from a gunshot wound in an abandoned cottage in the middle of winter, tells him she lost their baby. This last instance drives him to suicide.
- Nice Guy: Henry is a kind young man whose main flaws are impulsiveness and listening to his father too much; he cares about his father to the point of still calling him "papa" at fourteen, is distressed over covering up Arlette's body by dropping a cow into the well, and cares for Shannon. During his time as an outlaw, he never harms anyone onscreen, preferring warning shots, and cares for a heavily-pregnant Shannon after he helps her escape the reformatory. Unfortunately, this seems to lapse after his death.
- Outlaw Couple: Henry and Shannon lead this lifestyle after eloping, calling themselves the "Sweetheart Bandits" on account of their youth and leaving people they rob apology notes. This results in both their deaths' when a shopkeeper recognizes them and shoots Shannon. She bleeds out in an abandoned cottage, and Henry commits suicide by shooting himself in the brain through his mouth, grief-stricken over Shannon's death.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Wilfred outlives Henry, his only son, when the latter shoots himself out of grief at Shannon's death. By the same token, Shannon's father also outlives her.
- Paparazzi: Wilfred becomes surrounded by news reporters once his son and girlfriend commit a series of armed robberies, then subsequently die in an abandoned cottage from gunshot wounds. He refuses to answer any questions and silently walks away.
- Pet the Dog: Wilfred, terrible person and murderer that he is, is saddened at Henry's death and horrified at his postmortem state. He pays top dollar for the mortician to prepare the body, even though he can't really afford it, and attends his funeral. He also attends Shannon's, even though he didn't really know her. Arlette's ghost also shows up to Henry's funeral and sits there in silence, even though earlier she found joy in tormenting Wilfred about Henry and Shannon's lives of crime and eventual deaths.
- "Psycho" Strings: The soundtrack is like this when Wilfred and Henry make up their minds to murder Arlette, and at other times in the film when the consequences of Wilbur's actions are dwelt upon.
- Rat King: Implied to be the essence of Arlette's ghost.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: A winter storm blowing a door open and shut and Arlette's ghost, shown with blood stains and rat bites are accompanied by snatches of cheerful jazz while the door is open.
- Swarm of Rats: And how. When a rat swarm appears, you know nothing good is going to happen. The biggest one of all invades his hotel room, as a vanguard for all three ghosts appearing there.
- Teen Pregnancy: About halfway through the movie, it's revealed that Shannon is five months pregnant with Henry's child. It's implied that Arlette had one with Wilfred as well.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Implied. On the farm, Wilfred sees blood drop onto a book he's reading and is startled, but it turns out to be a normal water leak. It's also implied that rats in the hotel aren't real, as the signs of a supposed infestation appear incredibly quickly and in the funeral scene, the ones accompanying Arlette's ghost aren't noticed by the pastor giving Henry's eulogy.
- Villain Protagonist: He may have a few sympathetic moments here and there, but overall, Wilfred is an utter shit.
- Vorpal Pillow: Discussed. Henry suggests smothering Arlette to death with a pillow instead of cutting her throat, but Wilfred rejects the idea because it's "too slow" and she would struggle.
