Evengyny
Thanks for the memories!
SeeQuant
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
begob
Angelic nurse struggles to help in a white-trash town where children mysteriously disappear, but the devil's gonna get 'em anyway ...Difficult to describe this. It starts well - conventional, comprehensible - with good acting, direction, photography. The lead actress is scented honey, but then she doesn't react quite as you'd expect when the horror strikes - energy without passion, no screaminess.Weirdly this is followed by a full blown chase scene that feels like the end of the story at about 40 mins. Bizarre pacing. Then the improbabilities pile up, with lots of exposition and declaratory dialogue, and I spent most of my time frowning at the screen: "What the fewk?" I guess what's happened here is somebody mixed up politics with horror and forgot to decide whether it's Marxist or Capitalist or Elm Streetist. No idea whether it's the writer or director. If you step back it seems the theme is the brain drain from rural to urban, which might work well in contemporary China, but not Washington State. Horror is not the way to tell this story, made obvious by the conspiracy theory reveal.The music and sound are restrained.Overall, the highly professional ineptness saved me from boredom, so not an epic fail.
tieman64
Some fine atmosphere, and some beautifully wintry British Columbian locations, are wasted in "The Tall Man", a thriller by writer-director Pascal Laugier.The plot? In a poverty stricken mining town, children have begun disappearing. These kidnappings are blamed on "the Tall Man", a mysterious figure who may or may not exist. To say anything more about the plot would be to spoil things. Suffice to say that "The Tall Man's" final act consists of a series of massively unexpected twists, all of which have vaguely political overtones. Silly, implausible and not conducive of excitement, the audacity of these twists is nevertheless something to be marvelled at. "The Tall Man" stars a struggling-to-be-taken-seriously Jessica Biel.6/10 – Worth one viewing.
bowmanblue
Tall Man has come in for a fait of criticism from people expecting one thing and getting another. If you've seen (Director) Pascal Laugier's previous film 'Martyrs' then you may be a little more prepared for a film that deliberately leads you in one direction, only to almost switch genres midway through and go off in a totally different direction.Tall Man is about a woman (Jessica Biel) whose child goes missing in a town where this sort of kidnapping is commonplace and put down to the legend of the 'Tall Man' - a shadowy figure who steals children. From there, she has to unravel the mystery behind the kidnappings.Most people (including me) expected a straight horror film. What it turns out to be is more than that. Perhaps 'thriller' would describe it better. Everyone turns in a solid performance and, if you're in the mood for something a little different, with a few twists and turns, then you could do worse than this.Just know that this isn't simply your average 'horror.'
Aristides-2
Suggestion for French director Pascal Laugier's next film: Set it in the Ile-de-France section of Paris. Have a wealthy white French doctor and his white wife set up an organization that covertly steals 3 to 6 year old Moroccan children from poor families and then places them in sympathetic upper middle-class white French families. Once placed, they will be given opportunities their birth parents can't provide. Focus somewhat on one Moroccan family whose father is a pedophile. (After all, these are lower class people who wallow in degeneracy and don't want their children to escape their place in French society; the featured family will suggest it is actually representative of this group).