Review of The Tall Man (2012) by John M — 12 Sep 2014

Worth a look if you are a fan of the genre. In the town of Cold Rock, there is an urban myth of a mysterious, seldom seen man, who is responsible for all of the local children gone missing, and this is that story.

I really thought from the synopsis that this sounded suspiciously similar to the recent video game phenomena Slender, but after the first twenty minutes, I was able to discern that it wasn't going in that direction, so I stopped looking for him in the background.

This is from the director of the twisted French film Martyrs, and while it never gets as brutal as that movie does, there is still the basic core understanding present of what makes horror work, even though there is a bit of a reliance on jump scares.

The thing I appreciated most here was the twisty storytelling; because of that, I was never 100% sure where it was going, and I was always engaged and guessing. There are some nice camera shot choices, some good make-up effects, and the atmosphere gets established just right (the latter being the most important in any horror movie).

It isn't like this is a knockout script or anything, but they definitely made the effort with what they were working with.