In 1922, Wilfred "Wilf" James is a farmer living in Hemingford Home, Nebraska with his wife, Arlette and their 14-year-old son Henry. Wilf is strongly opposed to Arlette's plans to sell the farm and move to Omaha. Wilf decides to convince Henry to help murder Arlette, holding Henry's girlfriend Shannon, whose relationship Arlette opposes, at stake. Henry reluctantly agrees to assist his father in carrying out the murder. Wilf pretends to agree to the sale, appeasing Arlette. As she celebrates, she becomes inebriated. After carrying her to bed in a drunken stupor, Henry covers her face while Wilf cuts her throat with a butcher's knife. Wilf dumps her body into a dry well where her corpse is soon fed upon by rats. The next day, they drop a cow into the well to hide Arlette's body and provide a reason for filling in the well. Sheriff Jones is suspicious following her sudden disappearance; he searches the house, but finds no proof of a crime, tentatively believing Wilf's story that his wife absconded. As time passes Henry becomes brooding and isolated, regretting the crime that he and his father have committed. His girlfriend Shannon grows increasingly concerned and is subsequently discovered to be pregnant with their child. Her parents decide to send her to a Catholic institution in Omaha until the baby is born and can be given up for adoption. Henry steals Wilf's car, arrives in Omaha and runs away with Shannon. As the winter passes, Wilf appears to be going insane, being constantly harassed by rats. He takes out a mortgage on his house to fix it up, but never actually does the work. The roofs on his barn and his house cave in, but he is too consumed by guilt and alcohol to fix them. His house falls in to a state of total disrepair and becomes completely infested by rats. One rat bites his hand, which becomes infected and must be amputated. In a climactic scene, Wilf is confronted by the ghost of his wife, surrounded by the rats which ate her corpse. She corners him in the basement and sadistically whispers to him. She recounts, as the viewer sees, the fate of Henry and Shannon. They became robbers, known as the "Sweetheart Bandits". During one of their heists, Shannon is shot, causing her to lose the baby and ultimately die from massive blood loss. Henry lies down next to her and commits suicide with a handgun. Later, an unidentified woman's body is found on the side of the road which the sheriff assumes is Arlette. Henry's body is delivered to Wilf, which, like his mother's body, has been chewed through by rats. No one attends Henry's funeral except for Wilf. He turns, and again sees the ghost of his wife, surrounded by rats. Wilf attempts to sell his land to Shannon's father, who bluntly tells Wilf to leave his property and never come back. Ending up selling the land to the livestock company at a low price, Wilf moves to Omaha and finds a job hauling pallets, but cannot escape being followed by rats. Eight years later, in 1930, Wilf writes his confession, concluding "In the end, we all get caught." By the time he finishes, dozens of rats have swarmed his room. Arlette, Henry, and Shannon's corpses have appeared in front of the frightened Wilf. Brandishing the same butcher's knife used to kill his mother, Henry tells Wilf that his death will be quick.
1922 received positive reviews. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 91% based on 43 reviews, with an average rating of 6.85/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "Thanks to director Zak Hilditch's patient storytelling and strong work from lead Thomas Jane, 1922 ranks among the more satisfying Stephen King adaptations." Metacritic reports an aggregated score of 70 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews". John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter stated " film is not lurid in its scares, and instead depicts its protagonist's suffering mostly as a slow rot." Critics appreciated Thomas Jane's portrayal of Wilfred James. "The bulk of the movie's appeal, however, comes from Thomas Jane, delivering his most effective performance in ages. He plays tortured would-be lunatic Wilfred James, who lords over 80 acres of Nebraska farmland that his family has owned for generations. Within five minutes, a disheveled Wilfred establishes in voiceover that he's confessing a crime, and by 10 minutes, it's clear what he's done." said Eric Kohn on Indiewire.
