the Tall-man

The Tall Man flies a false flag of sorts to market it's self as a horror movie.More often than not finds it's self walking the line closer to thriller.I almost didn't covr it for this reason, but figured I might as well to clear the air that this isn't a horror movie, though dark enough in some sense for me to go ahead and finish reviewing it.

To it's credit a scene that would be the big finisher for most movies happen at the thirty minute mark I ask what are they going to do for the next hour and a half is a good sign plot wise.Sure they screaming your child who was abducted's name while you follow a trail into the woods, is stupid victim thinking.

Then the movie fakes making you think it's a bad town conspiracy, so you re-adjust your expectations and say o.k here's what we are going with. This creates tension not scares and gets as close to Jessica Biel getting naked as we come to in this one when she changes out of her dirty/bloodied clothes.

Then the chase scene where we think we see one of the bad guys revealed and Biel is captured in a run down building which is shot in sufficient creepy effect. Here is where the tone shifts and the director remains hazy in how they wanted to communicate this. For a minute you think wait is this person just crazy is this for real and that tone continues.

Once the big twist occurs it does flip the movie up side down but once the supposed bad guy is revealed and not really reviled it slows down into what could be any crime/mystery/thriller as when Jessica Biel's character under goes this change the essence for her character changes tonally in way that just doesn't make sense.

The narrative shift at the end of the movie is a similar misstep, while it works with "the Lovely Bones" a movie this shares a few commonalities with , it's not really effective here.

The reason I kept watching this movie after a point was is the Tall Character ever going to reappear of be further explored. When one character says she wants to meet him, this is not fleshed out until later on and turns out to be a disappointment. I thought going into this a movie based on the Slender-man urban legend would be cool and creepy, while this is referenced early on in a bait and switch manner if you want anything paranormal this is not the movie for you . there is not a single supernatural element in this and as the movie unwinds it makes me wonder why the stuff with the dog truck guy even happened even though it was the best part of the film.

In interviews for "Total Recall" I wondered why she didn't say anything to promote this film and now that I made it all the way through I think I understand, not sure if this is getting a theatrical release and if it does it will be short lived so don't bother wasting your 11 dollars, it will be on USA one rainy weekend soon enough.