The Tall Man (a Scape Review)

I went into “The Tall Man” with mild expectations. Nothing high, but it was recommended I see it and it’s from Pascal Laugier, same filmmaker behind “House of Voices” a personal favorite of mine. The first indication that something was awry was the Netflix synopsis and its name. At first I didn’t think too much about it, just thought it was a silly title and moved on. But upon reading the synopsis I seriously started to wonder if the film is based off of the Slenderman mythology.


The synopsis reads as such: “The faded mining town of Cold Rock is haunted by a lethal specter known as the Tall Man, thought to be behind the disappearance of numerous children. When Julia Denning's son David also vanishes, she sets out to unlock the chilling mystery herself.” A giant man, kidnaps children, nicknamed the Tall Man. This is essentially the Slenderman mythology, save for the name. The title itself seems directly linked to Yahtzee Croshaws’ Cabadath aka The Tall Man from the “Chzo Mythos.” A character that shares a striking resemblance to Slenderman. Both wear black, are super tall and appear to have no facial features.

Ultimately I figured, maybe it’s inspired by Slenderman and to avoid infringement or something they change the name. The Tall Man after all isn’t all that inventive a title and I highly doubt the filmmaker and the crew actually know what the fuck the “Chzo Mythos” is. While I’d like to think it was a nod to the point and click adventure titles, I highly doubt it is.

But here’s the kicker, the film is, in fact, not based around the Slenderman mythos, like at all. Instead it’s about a group of well off people who kidnap children from poor families and adopt them into richer more privileged families. I do have a creeping suspicion Pascal Laugier (the film’s writer and director) knows about the Slenderman mythos and is using the premise to trick audiences into watching the film. The film synopsis and the trailers really make it appear like an adaptation of the Slenderman mythos, or at the very least, inspired by it. That’s my best guess, because there is no tall man and the little baby children live happily ever after. It’s a serious case of “The Village” in which the film is marketed as something it is not. They both even play along with the marketing for the first half, until we realize it’s all bullshit.

Anyways, the film’s first twist I was pretty okay with. After having her son kidnapped by who we believe to be Slender *cough* Tall Man, main character Julia Denning (Jessica Biel) is rescued by FBI agent Dodd (Stephen McHattie) and brought to the local diner. (Why he doesn’t bring her to a hospital or the local police station I’ll never know, I guess he read the script) The hospitable people of the town comfort Julia and send her to the office to get cleaned up. Julia finds a shrine with newspaper clippings of all the missing children and a picture of her kidnapped son. Outside she overhears the town sheriff and local residents talking about something suspicious. She flees and it turns out the whole town appears to be in on it, as if they knowingly let the children go or are, in fact, kidnapping them for their own gain. Perhaps as a sacrifice to the Tall Man. This twist could have made for a far more interesting movie. A creepy town cult, kidnapping children to appease the monster in the woods. Not wholly original, but a helluva lot better than the end result.

But that’s not the case, this twist and Julia’s reactions to it is just a red herring, a cheap way to convince the audience of something else and it’s very, very transparent. Instead of the town being a bunch of kidnap happy cultists, it turns out that Julia is the kidnap happy one. Oh and there is no Tall Man, it’s just a lady in a coat.

The boy we believe is her son (and who also believes is her son for reasons) is kidnapped by his actual mom. Apparently Julia’s been at this for a while and has shipped the children off to richer families so they can have a “normal” life and don’t have to worry about poverty and all that shit. The film basically says people who are not of the upper class, no matter how good, no matter how much they do for their child are not worthy parents, because they’re not well financed enough to put their kids into prestigious schools. It’s also apparently okay to kidnap children against their will and put them into new adoptive families. I’ll at least give it this, it’s a pretty decent sentiment and the film does try to see both sides of the coin, but its message is essentially the same: Rich=Good/Poor=Bad.

But I have some questions. If this secret organization wants to help these children out, why not help out the whole family? It makes more sense, they probably have the money, based on all the members and they wouldn’t be horribly traumatizing these children and putting the parents on suicide watch. These aren’t good morals, no matter how much the movie wants to convince me that these children are better off now.

But the fucky morals and the cheap red herring with the town isn’t all that brings the tower crumbling. After the reveal that Julia is the Tall Man, or at least the person who helped inspire the myth, the entire film just collapses. Here are some more questions.

Why did David’s (the little babby thing that we think is Julia’s son) real mother dress up like the Tall Man?

How did she manage to sneak into the house, beat up Julia’s younger more capable maid without making a single noise? Is she a Navy SEAL?

Why did she turn the radio on and put it on a religious station, as if to give the implication this was something supernatural? Maybe she has a thing for theatrics?

If Julia really is the Tall Man, why is she surprised and why does she act like the Tall Man kidnapped her not-son, shouldn’t she know it’s the kid’s real mom?

Why does the town appear to be a creepy cult?

Why is Julia scared that they are going to do nasty cult things to David after seeing the shrine? Wouldn’t she know this isn’t a creepy culty shrine, but a shrine of parents remembering their children, you know, the one’s SHE helped kidnap? If it’s because she knows they want their kids back, why wouldn’t she be aware of this earlier on and why is she still acting like it has any relation to the Tall Man?

There is no reason, no logic to any of this, at least none that makes any sense within the film’s own story. The only reason any of this occurs is to trick the audience, to make us think we’re watching a supernatural horror story and not a weird misguided social commentary. The fact that the twist surprises us isn’t impressive. We’re surprised because we were tricked and because the film breaks its own logic for the sake of its twist. We’re not legitimately stunned by this reveal, we’re scratching our heads trying to make sense of it, but it just doesn't make any sense.

But wait, there’s more head scratching!

If Julia really kidnapped David how did she manage to convince him that she was his real mother so quickly and easily? He’s not a baby and it’s implied he’s only been missing for a few months, maybe a year. He’s at least seven or eight years old, you’d think a child of that age would be a little harder to brainwash in such a short amount of time. What’s worse, the end of the film shows him with, yet another family and it’s only a few months after the film’s events.

So the kid was kidnapped, convinced that Julia was his real mammy, then taken back to his for realsies mom, who then has to convince him that she is, in fact, For Realsies Mom. Then the poor sap gets kidnapped, again, by Julia and sent to another family, who in turn have to convince him that they’re his for reals family. And the fuck is unquestioning of all of this, he just kind of goes along. Puts up a fuss for a few and then just settles back into passivity and generally doesn’t give one single fuck. Do the writers realize how fucked this kid would be, the amount of psychological trauma from the initial kidnapping and brainwashing alone would completely cripple him mentally. He’d be socially awkward and probably turn out to be a crazy person. But no, the movie implies all is well and he’s better now with his rich privileged family.

Then there are the other kids, all around David’s age (a few who are a little younger) who were kidnapped by Julia and sent to different families. I’m supposed to believe none of these kids freaked out, none of these kids ran away from their new happy rich homes? They’re shipped across to Seattle, which the film shows is only a few miles from Cold Rock. So on top of believing that all of these kids are just cool with this, I’m supposed to believe that they’re taken a few miles away, go to public/private schools and play in public parks and nobody recognizes any of them? There are news reports about the children. There has to be, the town probably has the highest kidnapped baby rate in the US, guaranteed there’d be a media frenzy about this.

The fucking FBI is investigating this nonsense and they too, are completely oblivious that these families a town over have children that are strikingly similar to the kidnapped babies? Majority of these families probably didn’t even have kids to begin with, so now some random snob family turns up with an eight year old boy, strikingly similar to the kidnapped boy and no legal documentation or anything from any nearby orphanages regarding rich people adopting cute boys; and nobody questions this? Nobody thinks “Hey, maybe that family with the new undocumented orphan has something to do with the missing kids in that town that’s forty minutes away.”?

Ultimately the movie fails and it fails on pretty much every level. It fails as a horror story, it’s completely devoid of any logic or reasoning and it fails miserably as a socio-political commentary. Sure it brings up the moral questionability of what Julia and her group are doing through the character Jenny (Jodelle Ferland) but the film still implies (as does Jenny after being kidnapped as well) that she and the others are better off. It’s well-shot, well-acted and has a very strong first half, but once we find out the truth behind things the movie completely collapses under it's own bullshit.