I guess I'm a fan.
While I still haven't seen his debut, Laugier impresses me as a director. Martyrs is perhaps the only horror film in recent years that managed to shake me to my core. His follow up suffers from (intentionally?) misleading marketing and a tiny identity crisis, but does what it needs to do. It is different and managed to keep me intrigued for its runnig time.

If you go looking for another Martyrs, you'll be sorely disappointed. There is no gore here. None whatsoever. And it isn't disturbing at all. What it is is a thriler with a central mystery that needs to be solved. This sounds a dime a dozen, but trust me it isn't. If…

There is a weird dichotomy to be found in The Tall Man.

On one hand, it is sort of a muddled, incomprehensible mess of a film that bounces around from point to point in a haphazard manner that attempts to be twisty and secret, unveiling the truths piece by piece as the film goes along. In reality, the twists and turns that the film take didn't seem warranted outside of just shock material and put in to simply confound the viewer. I am not sure that they are earned.

On the other hand, I couldn't look away and was riveted by the story that the Laugier is trying to tell. The central concept of a small town that worries about…

Pascal Laugier's followup to his controversial second film Martyrs (2008) sees the French director take his twisted, psychologically focused style to Canada. The Tall Man is a much more traditional genre film compared to its ultra-violent, audaciously artistic predecessor. Set in the small town of Cold Rock where children are mysteriously vanishing. Like all small towns, the community is crippled by fear that expresses itself in the form of gossip. The story the entire town seems to have embraced is that the children are being kidnapped and murdered by someone referred to as the Tall Man. This eery urban legend hints at an ulterior motive, and Laugier has already proven that he can effectively tell a story that keeps the…

There are certain actresses that I have a soft spot for regardless of their dodgy output. My main guilty pleasure is Amanda Siegfried but Jessica Biel is a close second. Both have made a few stinkers over the years and although I've watched a fair bit of their shit I did draw the line and will never watch " Mama Mia".
In a true give-it-a-go for Biel's sake "The Tall Man" is an odd little film. It starts by taking you down a path towards being an interesting little chiller. Children disappearing,local legends of a "Tall Man" kidnapping kids never to be seen again,this had potential. That potential was pissed away within 40 minutes or so when the film took…

Thinking about watching this movie? Just go ahead and do it without reading anything more about it. Good or bad, it’s a movie best seen cold.

Thought-provoking, albeit ridiculous, premise that’s ultimately undermined by its need to trick, mislead, and fool its audience.

While The Tall Man should certainly be applauded for attempting something different by challenging our perceptions, it’s reveal of certain elements crucial to its story is handled much too clumsily to be engaging or exciting.

In fact, don’t be surprised if you spend most of the second act thinking that maybe you hit the remote with your butt and skipped ahead a few chapters. That’s how confused you’ll be.

Points for some great aerial shots of British…

The way this movie has been marketed you would think it was a horror movie. Don't be fooled, it turns out this is a clever thriller, with a nice sinister twist, which makes you think and probably deserves repeat viewing to pick up the early clues. Jessica Biel plays widowed nurse, Jenny Denning, in a run-down ex-mining community. There's no work, and the children lead very meagre lives in run-down trailer parks and ramshackle houses. The townsfolk all congregate at the town's only diner to chew the fat, make dodgy deals and talk about The Tall Man, the 'mystical' presence that has been taking away their children over the last few years. Then one day Jenny's own child is abducted…