1922

by Stephen King

[thepunktheory]

Full book vs. movie review on my blog!


Although Netflix filed the film as horror I would refer to it as a thriller. Except for maybe one scene at the very end, there is nothing scary about this in the traditional horror movie sense. However, on a psychological level, 1922 can be chilling at times.
While the story starts out interesting enough, it gets too far fetched after I while. I'm dancing on my tippytoes around spoilers here, so forgive me for this vague paragraph. The main event is credible, but some of the stuff that got triggered by that (and happens mostly off-screen) was over the top and ruined the film a bit for me.
Furthermore, the characters were all a bit gruff and I had a hard time connecting with them or even caring about them. They remain a bit blunt throughout the entire film, so, unfortunately, there's nothing really memorable about 1922.
As for the book, we also start off mostly with a thriller but horror elements come up about halfway in and you really get the typical Stephen King vibe very soon. I am still skeptical about a few things following the main event, but mostly it feels more credible in the novella. In the adaptation, the second half of the story was a bit rushed and maybe the lack of time to unfold is what gave me the feeling that something is a bit off.
The characters are still rather gruff in the novella (and I still don't really care for them) but they come across better in the book. I did get annoyed by some of the things the main character says (especially about women) which obviously were there to underline the time the story is set in, but whatever.
All in all, I found the written version more intriguing and certainly more memorable than the film.