Welcome back to Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show you a 2017 American horror drama film called,
1922. Spoilers ahead. Watch out and take care.
The movie starts with random noises from a woman in a deep well then. An old man named
Wilfred James going into a hotel room and writing about a confession. He states that the very start
of the crime is the 100-acres of good land in Hemingford, Nebraska willed by his wife,
Arlette. He added his 80-acre land together with her wife’s to be passed on to his son, Henry.
A flashback plays wherein back in 1922, his pride was his land and his son;
they are working every day to keep the land healthy, but her wife does not participate
in the farming life because she wants to sell the land and move to Omaha or St. Louis. Wilfred says
cities are for fools and his son agrees with him. The couple is now talking about selling the land
and the husband disagrees again. He ought to buy the land and pay for it in 10 years but
the wife declines. She proposes to split the money if they sell it together with his land
and then they will divorce. However, their son will go to Arlette and so they argue again.
Wilf says to give him time to think about the matter but as he ponders,
he comes to hate his wife. He says to Arlette that he
has decided to not sell the 100-acres land; she defends that the Farringtons, whom she’ll sell
the land to, will bring the fight to him. Henry is blooming love into a girl named
Shannon; Wilf finds this as an advantage in his pondering plan.
As they are talking in the field, Wilf says the only thing they can do is to fight for the land
even if somebody dies. Henry gets shook but the father continues to persuade him;
after she’s gone, they can live peacefully. The next day, Henry goes to school without
kissing his mom. Arlette calls him to give a peck and asks him what’s wrong.
The husband looks at the window thoroughly as he can see his wife and son.
Wilf continues to persuade his son about murdering Arlette as he cites various cons that Henry could
go through. When dinner comes, Henry only stares at the food so his mom gets mad. He talks back
but Arlette is still going with her decision to sell the land and Henry will be with her at Omaha.
The next day, Wilf talks to his wife, and Henry convinces him into being with them in the said
city. He says he can work as a mechanic and the likes, maybe he’ll like it there.
Arlette got so happy she kisses his husband. They throw a party at night and she is now being drunk.
She becomes to say words that are inappropriate to hear of a fourteen-year-old.
Later on, his husband leads her to the bedroom as she grasps the toxicity of alcohol.
The wife is now on the bed, lying asleep and Wilf goes outside and sees Henry being frustrated about
the things Arlette has said about Shannon. The son asks if they can afford a lawyer to fight for the
land but they cannot, and there’s no other way but to kill the wife for them to save the land.
After the talking they decided to continue the mission; Wilfred is now sharpening the knife,
his son meddles in and asks if he can use a pillow or something;
but the father says it will be too slow. They are now entering the room
and the son innocently asks if they will send her to heaven;
the father shushes him up and says that it’ll be quick. Wilfred then stabs his
wife multiple times while his son is covering her entire face for her to hardly breathe.
They are having a hard time because Arlette keeps on screaming so, the husband decides to cut his
neck. They finally killed her and they both sit as tiredness comes within them, running for breath.
The scene returns to the present wherein Wilfred confesses that he murdered his wife and his son
aided him. He states that there is this thing he regrets more bitterly than the crime itself.
Getting back to 1922, the father and son are now dragging the corpse towards the well. However,
his son disagrees saying that it is not grave for his mother and eventually fainted. Wilfred
successfully puts his wife inside a well; he drags his son after and tells him to get buckets and
soap as they have plenty of cleaning to do. With the help of cold water and soap, they
are now scrubbing the bloodshed places in their territory. The bedroom where the murder happened,
the balcony where they drag Arlette to, and other places that have a bloodstain.
They finished until morning; Henry tells his father that he will not go to school that day
as he is still terrified of the happenings and the people might see it, especially Shannon.
Wilf checks the well and his wife is now being food for the rats. Plenty of them are on her,
even in the mouth. He tells the rats to get off her, then goes home to change the bed foam. He
cleans the room and gets rid of some of her wife’s clothes to not make it too obvious.
While working on the farm, a car approaches the attorney for The Farringtons,
looking for his wife. Wilf declines the attorney really hard as he is looking for Arlette.
Together with his son, they explain that she decamped and got tired from everything. The
attorney decides to just get off and says that it isn’t over because it seems very strange to him.
A few days after, the father-and-son decides to fill the well in so the corpse won’t be seen.
They use a big cow and kill it, thus, filling it after with mud and soil. Not long after,
the sheriff comes and investigates the house. Henry helps with covering the crime with some
excuses that definitely convince the sheriff. They are having a beautiful summer. Eating
and working together as well as cleaning the field for the father-and-son bonding. One day,
Shannon is in their house and she decides to talk to his lover’s father. She says that Henry is not
like his old self and brooding and quiet. Wilfred then tells her that maybe he’s just lovesick
and they’re also busy with works in the field especially since Arlette’s now gone in the house.
They continue to leave alone having a peaceful life but one night, cows cannot stop mooing;
Wilfred decides to go to the barn and sees a huge number of rats biting cows’ breasts and
other parts. He shoos them off with a gun and discovers that they came from a pipe,
which is from one place only, the well. He comes home exhausted from blocking
the pipe with a cloth when suddenly he sees his wife’s shadow and gets really scared,
but it’s only his son asking what happened he excuses that there’s a fox.
Another day has come, Henry comes home from school with some news, He made Shannon pregnant
at fifteen. He lectures his son and gets frustrated about him; Henry says his mother
wouldn’t be that mad and will also help him. They continue to argue about it saying that Arlette
used to say to keep his willy in his pants. In the end, Wilfred says he’ll do his best for him.
Moreover, Shannon’s father, Harlan, is his good neighbor; but he’s starting to hate him
not because of his taxes about his son, It is due to his shiny blue Cadillac, new barn,
indoor plumbing, and his wife who always follows him. Harlan comes to his house saying that Shannon
will go to a Catholic Home for Girls in Omaha. Harlan says for him to help and take a share of
the responsibility because that home will cost him $300. He says he knows he can’t afford $150
but he must at least give $75. Wilfred states that he cannot do not because Arlette cleaned
them out when she left. They have no money but the very land itself. Harl also contradicts that they
should’ve sold the land; in that case, Arlette would still be there and they’d have money.
Wilfred states the news to Henry and he gets pissed off as they cannot send Sharon to that
home. He then thinks that they should run away; his rebut is if they escaped from what they have
done, maybe them, lovebirds, can do so as well. Wilf gets mad at his idea and says they cannot
run off because they have no money; the son goes the other way saying he can’t tell him what to do.
Henry blames everything on his father saying he cursed it all
because there could have been another way. The next day, Henry goes off to school without
any argument; Wilfred then starts to look for some money around the house, he sees
it on various sides. However, there is still a missing $35 for him to give his share to Harlan.
He goes to Hemingford Homes to load $35 but they decide to give them a business talk
and persuade them to loan $750 as value for money and they could fix their house with that. Wilf
says he’ll talk it out with his son and come back. Hank, as Henry likes to be called from now on,
has taken the truck and decided to run away; he sees his letter as soon as he left the loan
home. He says that if Wilf will investigate him, he will tell the Sheriff everything they did.
Wilf has no choice now but to leave alone, together with his defended land.
He is now alone in his house, reading a book, but still, everything is vivid in his mind.
He hallucinates that there is blood somewhere; he decides to take the dress in a mannequin to
the basement. He tries to sleep that night but the crime happenings creep him out really bad.
One morning, the sheriff goes into his house stating something. Three days ago, in a place
not far from the river where he founds his truck, someone stole in a grocery store and took $23.
He wears old cowboy clothes with a bandana in his mouth and a hat, they suspect it is Henry.
Wilf decides to cover his son saying that he left school in a flannel shirt and corduroy trousers.
The Sheriff says maybe the clothes are also stolen; thus, it made Wilfred mad,
saying that his son is not a robber. He knows that he and Harlan may be going into a club and all
but Henry don’t treat women badly; let alone be mean to people. The
Sheriff gets off his house and shrugs the issue. The next day, he takes out that mortgage for $750.
He will fix the leak in the house to get him through the winter. As he is
taking something in a closet, a rat bites him really hard. He immediately steps it
out but his hand is sore and the bite is very deep. Wilf decides to wash it off.
A clip of the present him writing the letter comes again and as he is inside a hotel room;
he sees a rat from his hallucination and begins to be scared.
Back in 1922 again, he cleans off the bloodstains left from the rat he killed. Wilf covers his wound
while freezing because it’s now winter, plus his leaking roof. He opened the cloth covering
his wound and it has gotten worse. He tries to start a fire while shaking because of coldness.
While putting himself in heat, the door keeps on creaking and opening to itself. He hides and tries
to look a little bit, There, he sees his wife, full of blood, walking to him. He falls into
the basement while freezing; together with the rats, her wife comes to him whispering things.
She whispered secrets only a dead woman will know. Their son went off and stole in a grocery
shop then used the money to buy a gun. He opens Harl’s Cadillac and used it to get her lover,
Shannon, out of the Catholic home. They became the talk of the town and the main
issue in various cities’ newspapers. They went off into a place very far where they can settle in
but Henry got into a lot of fights. He used his gun against them but one day, in a restaurant,
while they are about to leave, a man shoots a bullet to Shannon right through her stomach.
Henry hastily gets the vehicle to get her girlfriend healed and fixed up but a lot of
blood is coming out. She began to freeze and be pale but the fetus inside her is now dead.
Wilf cannot stand the information anymore and he keeps on saying that he wants himself to be gone
dead. He begs Arlette to kill him and cut open his throat, he pleads and pleads. However, she still
goes on and tells him the stories he deserves to know; she’ll never stop not until she’s satisfied.
Henry tried to get some wood to make a fire but it was too late. He saw Shannon with an opened eye,
pale, and freezing, now dead. He was shocked and did not know what to do. He wrapped his girlfriend
with his coat and then, later on, killed himself. They are now lovers left dead in a snowstorm.
Onto the following days, the Sheriff helps Wilfred with his freezing self,
wound, and body pains from falling in the basement. He’s now at the hospital
and has his left hand cut off. The Sheriff goes to him and tells that two days ago,
a farmer noticed something in a ditch, remains of a woman with her back teeth missing.
The Sheriff concludes that it was Arlette, robbed in the road, picked up, and killed.
On the 18th of December, Henry’s body was dropped off by the train. Wilf goes there and a couple of
reporters come running into him. He sees his son's corpse being all torn up because of the rats.
He cries as he mourns his boy. He tells the man to fix him up and get a fine coffin;
he kisses him as he accepts the reality. He goes to the funeral of Shannon where
there are many people. In Henry’s funeral, it is only him and his wife full of rats.
He continues to live alone, with a cow; he goes to Harl and decides to sell the 100-acre land to
him for $500. He says that they are both in the broken wagon. Both with no wives and children.
Harl ragingly tells him to never come back. When he goes back home,
the cow dies from the cold. Back in the present where he is writing
the confession in a hotel room, the rats are now in there eating his hallucination. He states that
he was forced to sell his land at a very low price; Harl also sold his. He went to Omaha and
worked in construction but stopped because of the rats in his mind. He admits that Henry was right,
there’s always another way. The movie ends with him finishing
the letter in a hotel room and soon as he’s done, blood-stained Arlette, Henry,
and Shannon go to him telling Wilfred that “it’ll be quick,” which haunts him to death.