The Tall Man

gazzer

I watched a movie called The Tall Man last night

I decided to watch it purely based on the trailer I saw and I have to say Im glad I did because it was a great movie and totally different to what I was expecting.

The basic premise of the story is the Jessican Biel is a widowed nurse(her husband was the town doctor) in a mining town called Cold Rock which has become run down through lack of jobs and opportunites. There is also a another bigger problem. The kids are going missing and never found again.

The majority of the locals believe that an entity called The Tall Man is responsible and when Jessica Biels son is taken in the night and she sees "The Tall Man" take him .... well to say anymore would give the rest of the plot away.

The movie was directed by the same person who directed Martyrs. I only discovered this AFTER I watched the movie. So if you have seen that movie you can kind of expect that the plot twists in this movie are not your usual ones.

Enjoy.

Fysh

I was hoping this would be about Angus Scrimm and mean that Don Coscarelli had finally gotten funding for one last Phantasm film

Still, this sounds interesting and I rather liked Martyrs for being an unconventional take on its subject matter (though given what happens in it "like" might be the wrong word).

briany

Martyrs was a good film but a real slog at times. The best thing about that film is the couple of lingering ideas it leaves you with which make it worth the price of admission.

I haven't heard much good about this new one. I wonder is it just a case of bad reviews because the actual content of the film deviates from what it's being advertised as?

Fysh

Fysh wrote: »

I was hoping this would be about Angus Scrimm and mean that Don Coscarelli had finally gotten funding for one last Phantasm film

Still, this sounds interesting and I rather liked Martyrs for being an unconventional take on its subject matter (though given what happens in it "like" might be the wrong word).

Supposedly if John Dies at the End is a big enough hit we will see both Bubba Ho-Tep 2 and Phantasm 5. Coscarelli has to get a move on with Phantasm 5 as Scrimm isn't a young man and has really been showing his age in recent films. Would be a shame if he passed away without getting to play his most iconic character once more.

Skerries

"Booooooooooy!"

Fysh

RopeDrink wrote: »

Is this some sort of take on the whole "Slender Man" thing? The whole faceless 'entity' is going around nicking kiddies, aptly named the Tall Man, while Slender Man is pretty much a myth made out of the same idea/concept.

I have to say that the Slender Man is one of the better copypasta-type stories out there.

Skerries

Fysh wrote: »

I have to say that the Slender Man is one of the better copypasta-type stories out there.

theres a free creepy game about him now as well

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=79694869

briany

I admire this attempt at making a film based on a concept which is pretty deeply rooted in many's psyche. So many of us would have been afraid of a bogeyman type character when we were little. I know we had the 'kidnapper' rumour going around, which was pretty common I suppose. CreepyPasta's slender man does little for me as it's a bit overwrought.

The boogeyman is still a raw nerve that's never been quite struck dead on in a film, at least not to my mind, but it is, of course, a hugely personal thing.

Basq

Just watched this this evening..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_QqA0sDMec

Do bear in mind that the trailer is INCREDIBLY misleading.. everything in the trailer is the first 30 minutes. Everything after that is where things get more interesting!

This is the latest movie from Pascal Laugier who previously made the uber-disturbing (and one of the more impressive horrors of the last few years) 'Martyrs'.

Everything about the trailer says horror, but the movie is far from it really. You'll see the same silhouette / cloaked figure a hand full of times and that's it.

This is a film that tells me two things:

a) Pascal Laugier is NOT a one-trick-pony - he does horror well.. but can't help but think he also can provide some truly original storymaking. And I do expect the IMDb rating to shoot up a bit on release (5.8 currently), and I'd be suprised if it's not got a 7 or above.
b) Jessica Biel is suprisingly damn good in this. And it really shocked me to say that.

This movie isn't gonna change your life, but it compelled me to start a thread. Take a chance on it - it's well worth seeing!

EDIT: From a quick glance of reviews, I might be the only one that enjoyed it.. ah well! The majority of reviews seem to be disappointed at it's lack of scares... I mean it's not a horror.. at least not IMO.

EDIT 2: Although I loved The Guardian dissecting the horrible trailer and dismissing it outright.

paddy kerins

Thread here

Basq

Whoops.. missed that!

Sad Professor

Merged.

Grasshopper89

I actually seen the poster and was going to get it, then decided against it purely for the title "Tall Man" - haha What's next "The Bad bad man" haha but seen as a few seem to say it was good, I will get it and watch it open minded!

But if it sucks I'm comin' back to complain!! haha

Cheers anyways, I liked that film "Shrooms" , I dont really know why but I did ha

Tipsy McSwagger

Watched this tonight on US Netflix. It's so awful I don't even know where to begin. The film is a mess, are we supposed to believe that the US Government doesn't care that 18 kids are missing in one small town? Jessica Biel is miscast and I kept thinking Julianne Moore would make this film a lot more believable and way more watchable. The actaul Tall Man is barely even in it. Worst film I have seen in a long time.

briany

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

Watched this tonight on US Netflix. It's so awful I don't even know where to begin. The film is a mess, are we supposed to believe that the US Government doesn't care that 18 kids are missing in one small town? Jessica Biel is miscast and I kept thinking Julianne Moore would make this film a lot more believable and way more watchable. The actaul Tall Man is barely even in it. Worst film I have seen in a long time.

There is no actual 'Tall man' in the film whatsoever, at least, not one of the evil boogeyman variety.

People complaining about the lack of a 'Tall man' are falling victim to the mis-marketing of the film, I think. That concept is just the setup for a look at a bigger picture which, unfortunately for the studios, takes it a little bit outside the realm of your common forgettable popcorn flick. The film is not a horror. It's ambitious and it's quite a bit messy but it's getting people talking.

jaykhunter

I thought it was an awful film with barely any horror and some horrible dialogue. I hear the actual myth is far more interesting and after sitting through it, I don't doubt it. Waste of time for me unfortunately.

Tipsy McSwagger

briany wrote: »

There is no actual 'Tall man' in the film whatsoever, at least, not one of the evil boogeyman variety.

People complaining about the lack of a 'Tall man' are falling victim to the mis-marketing of the film, I think. That concept is just the setup for a look at a bigger picture which, unfortunately for the studios, takes it a little bit outside the realm of your common forgettable popcorn flick. The film is not a horror. It's ambitious and it's quite a bit messy but it's getting people talking.

I never even heard of this film and didn't see any marketing at all. The concept is clearly stolen from Gone Baby Gone but carried out in a ridiculously stupid way.

johnny_ultimate

This was ****ing appalling. I kinda wanted to like it, because it at least tries to twist and subvert genre expectations and iconography. I admire that it's a horror film that actually isn't really a horror. But no, admiration doesn't cut it, because this is absolute cack, just straight up ridiculous and only grows worse as the minutes drag on. I spent the first half of the film distracted at how badly it was made. Maybe it's just the HD transfer (I can't find details of what stock it was filmed on) but the whole thing looks like it was just lazily blanket lit and then ungraded. Ugly, ugly cinematography, not helped by an incessant score that literally never lets up for the entire running time. But then the film takes a detour to crazy town, and wow. When it first started to go a bit nuts, I was curious to see where it was going, as it took a slant well away from the standard horror route it had been trundling down for a good 3/4 of an hour. But got increasingly baffled as it just grew more absurd and ultimately even sort of offensive. The social message

(arthouse socialist anti-adoption horror, or something?)

was heavy-handed yet also kinda nonsensical and hypocritical. The last five minutes or so are beyond poor. Just shamefully, insultingly dreadful.

I saw Resident Evil: Retribution last week and that was a shoe-in for my worst film of the year. This is worse, because it actually tries something a tad more interesting and than ****s itself at every opportunity. Can't believe the director of Martyrs is behind this tripe. Over $18 million dollars (disclaimer: might be Canadian dollars) was spent on this. How depressing.

Tipsy McSwagger

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

This was ****ing appalling. I kinda wanted to like it, because it at least tries to twist and subvert genre expectations and iconography. I admire that it's a horror film that actually isn't really a horror. But no, admiration doesn't cut it, because this is absolute cack, just straight up ridiculous and only grows worse as the minutes drag on. I spent the first half of the film distracted at how badly it was made. Maybe it's just the HD transfer (I can't find details of what stock it was filmed on) but the whole thing looks like it was just lazily blanket lit and then ungraded. Ugly, ugly cinematography, not helped by an incessant score that literally never lets up for the entire running time. But then the film takes a detour to crazy town, and wow. When it first started to go a bit nuts, I was curious to see where it was going, as it took a slant well away from the standard horror route it had been trundling down for a good 3/4 of an hour. But got increasingly baffled as it just grew more absurd and ultimately even sort of offensive. The social message

(arthouse socialist anti-adoption horror, or something?)

was heavy-handed yet also kinda nonsensical and hypocritical. The last five minutes or so are beyond poor. Just shamefully, insultingly dreadful.

I saw Resident Evil: Retribution last week and that was a shoe-in for my worst film of the year. This is worse, because it actually tries something a tad more interesting and than ****s itself at every opportunity. Can't believe the director of Martyrs is behind this tripe. Over $18 million dollars (disclaimer: might be Canadian dollars) was spent on this. How depressing.

One thing I didn't understand was

the red headed woman who was searching for her son every night in the woods, she somehow comes to Jessica Biel's house and spots her son in the window. Instead of (a) going nuts and grabbing her son or (b) convincing the cops or the locals that her son was in the doctors house, she dresses up as the tall man, breaks in and grabs him back and brings him to an abandoned asylum.

fluke

Ye know...as uneven as it is I liked it, only because I find the whole slender man thing kind of interesting. It borrowed elements from that and molded into something else. That something else is pretty batshit but I was watching it late a few nights ago, almost falling asleep and then at some point early in the film the pace stepped up and I was on board.

I can see why a lot of people don’t like it and I would struggle to recommend it to a lot of people but I’ve seen other horror movies around the same time that were crushingly disappointing (Twixt and Silent House). However flawed this was at least it had some sort of ambition.

As for the cinematography, I enjoyed some of that too, I’m a sucker for movies shot in woodland territories.

Josey Wales

I watched this last night based on some of the comments I read in this thread. I really wish I had never clicked into this thread in the first place. I have to side with Johnny_Ultimate on this one.

On my phone do I'll keep this brief. Just after watching this and it's one of the most peculiar things I've seen in a long time. It's not quite the worst film of the year as there are some interesting ideas but theres also something inherently insulting about it all. The set up hits all the expected genre cliches and for the first 45 minutes appears to be you basic every day horror but then it gets interesting and for all of 20 minutes it looks like the film could actually be something special before the entire thing just falls apart. The final 5 minutes
are amongst the most insulting things I've ever sat through.

It may be an over used metaphor but The Tall Man is like watching a car crash. The whole thing makes absolutely no sense and the overall message/attempt at social commentary is childish and offensive. It really is hard to take any of it the least but serious.

Visually it's one of the dreariest, flattest and down right ugly films in a long time. It's like watching some early 2000s shot on handy cam student film.

Basq

Jesus.. was I watching it with rose tinted glasses?

johnny_ultimate

Basq wrote: »

Jesus.. was I watching it with rose tinted glasses?

Or we were all watching it through **** tinted glasses

I'm still baffled as to what the point of the film was, since it seemed so desperate to make a point. That fourth-wall demolishing ending particularly insinuates that this is a film to make you think rather than an attempt at providing a balanced debate. But it's so contradictory and hypocritical with what it's trying to say. Most importantly, are the topics it fails to convincingly address even worthy of discussion in the first place?

I don't know, it's genuinely been a while since a film left me so annoyed and frustrated, especially given that I approached the film with hope and optimism, only for its ridiculousness to slowly destroy any residual good will.

Also second only to The Expendables 2 as the worst made film (technically speaking) of the year. Morbidly curious to find out what it looked like on the big screen.

Miguel_Sanchez

I had no interest in this but now I kinda want to see it to see if it really is that bad.

johnny_ultimate

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

I had no interest in this but now I kinda want to see it to see if it really is that bad.

It is probably worth a watch - even having hated it, I have to admit it's completely unlike any bad film I've seen before.