old man movie review 2022

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“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer,” British-born D.H. Lawrence asserted in his seminal 1924 book Studies in Classic American Literature , in which he considered writers ranging from Franklin to Poe to Melville and others. Lawrence had a point, to be sure, but his remark seemed to have opened a Pandora’s box of self-consciousness for subsequent writers and artists.

So when this movie opens, and the title "Old Man," played with the energy, inventiveness, and commitment we’ve come to expect by protean actor Stephen Lang , awakens from a night of apparently uneasy dreams, and we see his face in a closeup that renders him in perfect focus while distorting the light around him, we can guess a lot from that vibe alone.

This old man, who we learn has a name, is definitely isolated and hard, but he sure is not stoic. He’s muttering imprecations and puttering around his rather well-kept cabin in the mountains/woods when there’s a knock on the door. The old man greets his visitor, shotgun in hand. Rather than immediately turn tail and run, the younger man, named Joe, and played by Marc Senter , says he’s a hiker and that he’s lost. Eventually the old man pulls him inside, and the conversation, pretty hostile from the old man’s side, begins. And so the viewer realizes that the "killer" part of the character is bound to emerge.

“I ain’t too convinced that what you’re saying ain’t a heaping pile of shit?” the old man says, going on to further ask “How do I know you’re not some kinda goddamned psycho killer?” The younger fellow is flustered but manages to keep up. There’s some talk of cannibalism. The younger man says he’s not one, and the reason he gives is “It’s against the law.”

“It’s against the law,” the old man agrees. “And besides, eatin’ people is gross.”

The writing, particularly the dialogue, is the weakest portion of this picture directed by Lucky McKee . The screenplay by Joel Veach includes such chestnuts as “That’s the trouble with you young people nowadays.” At a later point, the old man speaks of drugging a prior visitor, saying he “put a little something something” in the man’s drink. I don’t think that idiom is something a rural quasi-hermit would pull out of his conversational kit bag but there you have it.

In the first half hour or so one fears this two-hander is some kind of allegory with a genre twist. McKee’s staging in the confined cabin can’t be faulted, and the mise-en-scene, as they used to call it, is similarly well-thought-out. And the story does eventually get to a point where it leaves allegory and becomes a kind of horror film. The tables turning in the power dynamic between the two characters is predictable, but McKee handles this adroitly and applies some Lynch-inflected discomfort to the proceedings. The movie builds up enough steam, and has a sufficient supply of jolts, to make “Old Man” stick to the ribs at least a little by the time it’s over. 

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Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Old Man (2022)

Stephen Lang as Old Man

Marc Senter as Hiker

Patch Darragh as Bible Salesman

Liana Wright-Mark as Genie

• Lucky McKee

Cinematographer

• Alex Vendler
• Zach Passero
• Joe Kraemer

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Old Man offers a compelling performance from Stephen Lang, but not much else

Stephen lang is deliriously creepy in the disappointing cat-and-mouse thriller old man.

Old Man is a film that feels like it should work a lot better than it does. It’s an example of filmmaking that makes use of its minimal resources to great effect, a testament to the power of budget productions to create an entertaining experience as marshaled by director Lucky McKee. Writer Joel Veach has crafted a scenario that is both mysterious and engaging, and Stephen Lang’s titular performance is a tightrope walk of hilarity and menace. So why does Old Man still feel like a disappointment when the credits roll?

In the single-room cabin that comprises the entirety of the film’s setting, an unnamed old man (Stephen Lang) wakes up in a disoriented fog, grumbling to himself about how that dastardly dog Rascal has pissed on his floor and left him alone yet again. A knock at the door pulls him out of his angry ruminations, as the mild-mannered Joe (Marc Senter) comes calling, having stumbled upon the old man’s cabin while lost hiking in the woods. The old man invites Joe inside at the barrel of a shotgun, expressing a paranoid reluctance to let the younger man into his home without assurances of safety that gives way to a blatant desire for company. But the old man’s erratic and unpredictable behavior begs the question of whether Joe will survive the encounter.

The moment-to-moment draw of the film is the cat-and-mouse interplay between the old man and Joe, with Lang serving as the mood-swinging, storytelling madman to Senter’s combination of mollifying victim and comedic straight man. Lang’s performance is a joy to behold, one moment away from violence at all times, but also lonely, tortured, and shockingly funny as fitful bouts of hospitality overtake his overeager instincts for self-preservation. It’s a feat for Lang to come across as terrifying and affable in the same breath, with his character acting as a livewire that jolts life into the film whenever it threatens to slip into tedium, and the commitment to not turning the character’s eccentricities into an arch caricature is an achievement when his personality is written to be so much larger than his meager frame.

Senter is less up to the task of extensive monologuing than Lang, delivering his lines with a slow and drawling cadence that sounds less thoughtful than painstakingly memorized from the film’s script, and if this is a conscious acting choice, it certainly doesn’t come across as such in the moment. Thankfully, Lang is compelling enough for both of them, even making up for the camera’s occasional lack of dynamism. Granted, there isn’t much space within this tiny set for the camera to move with the characters—and an occasional shot does highlight important production details through careful framing—but overall the cinematography focuses on the conversation with simple reaction shots and uninteresting compositions that don’t place the characters in frame with much care. This gives the film a rather stagey quality, raising the question of whether live theater is a better venue for this story than a feature film.

And it’s that feature length that most greatly diminishes the impact of the film, both in terms of pacing and in having sufficient substance to fill the time. Even running at a meager 97 minutes, Old Man spends over an hour being frustratingly coy with its story, focusing on Lang’s rambling diatribes while drawing out the mysteries central to its premise with few bones thrown to the audience in the interim. The respective identities and motivations of the old man and Joe, the missing Rascal, and the questionable reality outside the old man’s cabin are interesting mysteries in a vacuum—worthy of an episode of The Twilight Zone if not a feature film—but their resolution is simultaneously too simplistic and too suddenly revealed to make the journey to the climax retroactively satisfying. It’s not that the pieces of a puzzle slot together with satisfying revelation, but more that the most obvious solution is sledgehammered home with excessive force and an unearned turn into surreality.

This makes Old Man hypnotic in the moment, but deflating in the aftermath, as the climax will most certainly invite discussion but little insight into the old man’s character beyond the most superficial observations. It’s not a bad ending, per se, but it is underwhelming for all the preceding build-up. While still recommendable for Stephen Lang’s compelling eccentricities, Old Man bears that endorsement with a major caveat for surviving almost solely on that offbeat charisma.

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Old Man Reviews

Old Man is a unique thriller with what is arguably the best performance by Stephen Lang to date.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 11, 2023

If you’re looking for a traditional horror movie with reliable frights doled out in a recognizable pattern, well, McKee’s name alone should have been warning enough that you’re in the wrong place.

Full Review | Jun 13, 2023

McKee’s camera, which moves around like a living presence and always seems to be on the brink of discovering something terrible, makes it impossible to relax for long.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 31, 2023

An unexceptional psychological horror from director Lucky McKee that feels dated and clunky, with some fairly ropey acting – or maybe that is down to the shaky lines put into the actors’ mouths.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 29, 2023

A clear project of dedication from all involved, Old Man shows a new side to McKee’s directorial talents, teasing more exciting projects to come.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2022

Old Man is a mysterious cinematic chamber play that tackles the weight of guilt. The film revolves around male possessiveness—the urge for men to lay claim and ownership to people, places, and things, though especially women.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 6, 2022

'Avatar' alum's incendiary performance turns stage-like tale into a keeper.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 22, 2022

In Lucky McKee’s claustrophobic psychodrama, two men must cohabit in a cabin in the woods – and in their own poisonous masculinity

Full Review | Oct 19, 2022

For a film about two men in a tiny cabin, there’s never a dull moment... From there it either gets silly or interesting, depending on one’s preference for such things – but it never gets old.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 18, 2022

Lang and Senter keep it afloat. They’re nice fits for Veach’s off-kilter story, and McKee smartly leans on his two actors and their weird yet fascinating chemistry.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 17, 2022

Lang can go through gruffness, self-pity, menace, warmth, grief, and pretty much every other aspect of human emotion in a split second without us ever once wondering how he gets from one to the other.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 17, 2022

More pretentious than provocative...while it’s nice that Lang was allowed to take the wheel for a change, it’s a pity the vehicle he’s driving wheezes along the way and sputters to a stop.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Oct 16, 2022

McKee delivers something we probably did not see coming, something that's bizarre and unsettling, and a bit disappointing all at the same time, given that our imaginations have been constantly buzzing up to the last stretch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 15, 2022

While not entirely original or unpredictable, this dark look into a character’s soul is held together with excellent acting by Stephen Lang.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 14, 2022

McKee’s darker genre touches are sorely missed in Old Man, which is too reliant on performances that outshine a story seen coming like an asteroid the size of Mars.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Oct 14, 2022

The movie builds up enough steam, and has a sufficient supply of jolts, to make Old Man stick to the ribs at least a little by the time it’s over.

A superior example of how flavorful dialogue, talented actors and excellent staging can make something familiar really pop.

Full Review | Oct 14, 2022

The (un)reality of what’s happening beneath the surface is hardly unique or secretive, but [how] Veach writes its revelations and McKee films its visual labyrinth spanning past, present, and purgatory ensure the drama unfolding is never without intrigue.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Oct 14, 2022

It’s essentially a two-character story where we are not quite of how much of a grip on reality one of them has. It’s worth a look primarily due to an intense performance by Stephen Lang as the otherwise-unnamed title character.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 14, 2022

Stephen Lang and Marc Senter have some tense chemistry together, but Old Man is primarily a slog that leaves you feeling like an old man when you come out the other side

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 14, 2022

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Old Man review – wilderness horror as cranky codger faces off with mysterious hiker

Lucky McKee’s psychological horror starring Stephen Lang feels inauthentic and flat

H ere is an unexceptional psychological horror from director Lucky McKee that feels dated and clunky, with some fairly ropey acting – or maybe that is down to the shaky lines put into the actors’ mouths. It only comes alive after a freaky plot twist at the end, but even that left the hairs on the back of my neck unprickled, the carpet under my feet unpulled.

Stephen Lang plays a cranky codger known only as Old Man who lives in the remote Smoky Mountains wilderness. The set design of his wooden cabin is distractingly inauthentic; it’s like an Ikea store display that has been done up in hicksville chic. Old Man has woken up in a filthy temper; first his dog, Rascal, pees on the floor, and then there is a knock at the door. Old Man shoves his shotgun into the face of the stranger standing outside. “Do as I say, or you’ll end up like her,” he growls, jabbing the gun at a stuffed wildcat on the wall.

The rest of the film is a two-hander between Old Man and the young guy, a hiker – or so he says – called Joe (Mark Senter). It plays out as guessing game, leaving us to wonder which of these men is a dangerous psychopath. The obvious choice is bitter, deluded Old Man with his toxic rants about everything from his ex-wife to Bible salesmen. But then, you wouldn’t bet against Joe: his clean-cut wholesome politeness makes him an ideal movie psycho-killer.

Both men are hiding something, evasive and shifty-eyed. Everything falls into place after the plot twist ending. But the trouble is that for the hour-and-a-bit of running time before that, the movie lacks anything like the intensity or claustrophobia required to carry off a two-hander. Still, I didn’t see the twist coming, even though others have described it as being so glaring you can see it from space.

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> Old Man (2022) Film Review

Reviewed by: Jennie Kermode

The arrival of a new Lucky McKee film is always a reason to sit up and pay attention. This one begins with a gorgeous ink and watercolour painting of tree covered hills, which we zoom into over the course of the opening credits, until we enter the little wooden house hidden away amongst the trees and creep around the form of the old man (Stephen Lang), in his brick red onesie, lying on his bed. He abruptly sits up, alerted to the presence of an intruder, and we wonder for a moment if he is somehow aware of our own presence, watching him.

The old man is not used to receiving guests. He assumes that the presence he has sensed must be that of his dog, Rascal, and goes stumbling round the house in a fruitless search for him, accusing him of disloyalty. There is a penalty for leaving, he says, and that penalty is death. It’s a line which you may find your mind returning to during the course of what follows. When there is a knock at the door, the old man is shocked. Rifle at the ready, he opens it to find Joe (Marc Senter), a hiker who looks lost in every sense of the word. The conversation between these two men, each one wary of the other, will form the bulk of the film. If that sounds dull, it’s anything but.

McKee’s camera, which moves around like a living presence and always seems to be on the brink of discovering something terrible, makes it impossible to relax for long. There’s a stuffed mountain lion head on the wall which seems to watch everything, and a large chest in the middle of the room which doubles a coffee table and may make viewers think of Rope . Joe Kraemer’s gloriously creepy, skirling music adds to the effect, and is well deployed, supporting the ebb and flow of tension. The wonderfully detailed set is convincing as somewhere a man might be able to manage for a long time with no outside contact, yet it’s also full of sly surprises.

The men are not continually at odds – or at least, not overtly. As rain thuds on the roof, they share glasses of throat-scorching hooch and the old man tells stories, reflecting on unsettling things he’s done in the past or on the mysteries of the surrounding landscape. Joe talks about his wife Eugenia – everybody calls her Genie – and his small ambitions. There’s a moment of tenderness when he articulates his more mundane fears and the old man provides the kind of patriarchal reassurance which comes from remembering what it was like to be in that position, long ago.

Nothing is what it seems here. When the ground shifts, it plunges us into a different kind of horror, and yet a familiar one. McKee’s typically tight direction and fondness for narrowing the viewer’s perspective makes a sense of inevitability the worst thing of all. What we don’t learn but might expect to is every bit as important as what we do. Both actors are fantastic, though Senter has to work hard, in the less showy role, to keep up with Lang at the top of his game. Joel Veach’s script gives them a lot to play with, ranging from gleeful cruelty to pathos to hopeless abjection. A textbook example of what can be achieved with minimal material resources, it’s brimming over with creativity, and for all its simplicity, it will haunt you.

Director: Lucky McKee

Writer: Joel Veach

Starring: Stephen Lang, Marc Senter, Patch Darragh, Liana Wright-Mark

Runtime: 97 minutes

Country: US

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Movie Review – Old Man (2022)

June 7, 2023 by Robert Kojder

Old Man , 2022.

Directed by Lucky McKee. Starring Stephen Lang, Marc Senter, Patch Darragh, and Liana Wright-Mark.

When a lost hiker stumbles upon an erratic old man living in the woods, he could never have imagined the nightmare that awaits.

An old man is jolted awake agape, presumably by a nightmare. That’s how director Lucky McKee opens Old Man , which benefits from a scenery-chewing gonzo performance from Stephen Lang.

Living in an isolated cabin cooped up in the mountains, the nameless titular old man frantically scrambles about, searching for his dog that must have run off in the night. It’s an extended sequence that allows Stephen Lang to establish the unhinged kookiness of the character while viewers survey the cramped, dusty, and dirty surroundings filled with shelves and bottles.

The above goes on for nearly 10 minutes but, like most of Old Man , remains engaging only because Stephen Lang is aware giving an unapologetically nutty performance that plays into senility, paranoia, and crazed menace is the only possible way to save Joel Veach’s transparent script.

A lost hiker named Joe (Marc Senter) arrives, with the old man putting up his guard and retrieving his shotgun to question him on various topics. Even though Joe is confused and scared, there’s also something unmistakably off about him as he is forced to continue listening and interacting with the old man.

For the first 30 minutes, these conversations are relatively compelling, touching on whether or not the old man intends to hurt Joe and a vague summary of what brought Joe out here. After a small level of trust is established, Joe believes the old man that a nasty storm is coming and that there is no choice but to stay the night.

Director Lucky McKee is coaching these actors to get the most cinematic turns possible for all of the material, but Joel Veach’s script is so talky that once the two characters get into a deep discussion or to, it’s laughably obvious what game the movie is playing here. Then it becomes painful, considering there are no intentions to reveal those cards until the final 20 minutes.

Old Man is a 97-minute movie that drastically needs to be cut down into a lean 70 minutes that ramps up the intensity of these dialogue exchanges so that the plot twist is masked. The twist is unquestionably telegraphed and easy to pick up, doubly so what the film’s lethargic pacing. There’s also a case to be made that this would work better as a stage play, albeit with a serious writing overhaul.

Without saying too much, there is a turn into mysticism that feels hollow and barely developed. It’s one thing for the big picture of this story to be picked up on relatively early, but other elements of Old Man feel as if everyone is making things up as they go. An attempted message about spiritual healing falls flat, as does commentary on religion.

Stephen Lang and Marc Senter have some tense chemistry together, but Old Man is primarily a slog that leaves you feeling like an old man when you come out the other side.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★  / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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WhichFilm | Film Reviews | Audience Film Reviews

Old Man (2022)

Director: Lucky McKee 97 minutes

Release Date: 14th October 2022

A lost hiker bumps into an old erratic man who lives in the woods that quickly escalates into a living nightmare.

Create your own review

Old Man was good even though hardly anyone in it. I was confused though with who he actually killed and why. I understand the ending but a few parts should be made clearer.

It'll be hard to review Old Man without giving anything away. It is worth watching. From the very start it is tense, you will question what is going on at every moment and there is some very tense dialogue in some very tense moments. There are not many characters in this which makes it what it is and you do feel sorry for the old guy from the outset. His whole day only makes sense at the very end which I have to tell you is sad but makes the whole story clear. I worked it out quite quickly, my partner didn't. It's one of "those" type of films. If you do decide to watch it I hope you enjoy it as I can see many won't.

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The Ending Of Old Man (2022) Explained

There's something otherworldly, and if we're honest, a bit unnerving about an old log cabin in the woods with smoke coming from its chimney. What should be seen as a quaint and comforting retreat from the madness of crowds and ills of civilization is all too often the domain of a witch or a killer — or even a portal into a realm of neverending horror. At least it is in fairytales and films. Director Lucky McKee uses the trope of an unhinged outsider living in a remote cabin to great effect in his 2022 movie "Old Man." Stephen Lang is on fire as the title character, who keeps both the hapless hiker Joe (Marc Senter) and the audience on the edge of their seats with his paranoid, psychotic, and powerhouse performance.

"Old Man" has no star-studded cast, special effects, or stunning locations to keep the audience sidetracked or engaged for the duration. What it does have is two actors on top of their game, some cracking dialogue, and a director looking to do something different. As McKee explained to ComingSoon.net , working within the confines of a small space excited him because he wondered if the interaction between two characters and their constant probing of each other could grab and hold the audience's attention.

"Old Man" not only keeps the audience guessing but pays off their commitment with a tasty little twist that makes you want to rewind to the beginning and go again. Let's take another trip to the cabin and uncover what the ending of "Old Man is really all about.

What you need to remember about the plot of Old Man

"Old Man" begins with the title character waking from a nightmare and angrily lurching around his cabin looking for what we presume is his dog, Rascal, who has gone walkabout. Stephen Lang's character is unnerving from the get-go, not just because he's dressed in an outfit that resembles a red prison jumpsuit from the Depression era, but because of the threats he begins to mutter about his pet dog. As he paces, the old man rants that the penalty for leaving him is death. He barks that when Rascal returns he'll throw him in the fire, pick his bones clean, and wash it down with a little hooch before peeing on his ashes. It's clear he's not well, and has abandonment issues.

Into this cauldron of simmering menace walks Joe, a hiker who has lost his way and come to the cabin seeking help. What he gets is a shotgun in his face and accusations that he is either a serial killer or has been sent by the old man's wife on a mission of ill intent. After being soundly interrogated by the old man, Joe reveals marital and employment troubles led him back to the wild country where he used to feel safe as a boy — yet he has no real recollection of how he came to find the cabin. The two characters settle into easy conversation but the old man continues to alarm Joe with his erratic behavior and stories until he finally flees the cabin and Rascal, who is not a dog but a kind of grizzly outlaw figure, returns. It's at this point things get really interesting.

What happened at the end of Old Man

When Rascal (also played by Marc Senter) enters proceedings, looking like a character dragged screaming from the darkest bowels of the Old West, the old man's persona changes from alpha male to a beaten and broken beta in the blink of an eye. Rascal is far from a scolded dog, but instead a vicious bully who has been out hunting for food. Whimpering like a wounded animal, the old man asks Rascal what he's done with Joe. When the old man threatens to shoot Rascal unless he tells him, the cowboy challenges his strength before snatching the gun. He then calls the old man weak, and says "It's no wonder she left you." Rascal then says he's tired of reminding the old man what really happened and offers him a bottle containing water from the fabled purple lake.

The old man drinks and a box in the room opens by the interior push of a woman's hand. Rascal forces him to enter the box, and the old man steps into a past he has been running frantically from. It's revealed that Joe was simply a younger version of the old man who killed his wife (Liana Wright-Mark) and her lover, a Bible salesman ( Patch Darragh ). Upon returning to the present, the old man sees the ghost of his butchered wife standing in the box and begs her forgiveness, to which she replies, "It don't work that way."

The movie ends with Rascal saying, "You're looking tired old man. You need to rest now." The beaten old man climbs into bed and Rascal says, "I'll come back later, I always do." The final shot sees the old man falling asleep, waking from a nightmare, and crying out for Rascal — and the cycle begins again.

What the end of Old Man means

In a bid to find some sort of salvation and forgiveness for killing his wife and her lover, the old man has conjured up a younger version of himself from his imagination. Joe the hiker is simply a projection of the old man in a more idealized and innocent form. The old man holds conversations and asks questions of Joe in a search for understanding and atonement of his crimes. He congratulates Joe on working for a living and doing the right thing, because he is enhancing the positives he believes can be found in his own character. However, the old man is still unable to face the full weight of his actions and hides from them in half-truths, fairytales, imaginary scenarios, and bravado.

The old man will stay perpetually trapped in the cabin in the woods, which is a metaphor for a mental prison of his own making, as long as he continues to run from his actions. The ending symbolizes how the power of denial can shape reality and how the worst hells are the ones we create for ourselves. When the old man's torment is over at the end of the film, in a sense it is just beginning. He goes to sleep unforgiven and unredeemed with the terrible knowledge of the full magnitude of his crimes. Plagued by nightmares, the film ends at the beginning with the old man waking up, alone, confused, and oblivious to the neverending horror that is his existence.

Another possible explanation of the ending

Although the old man could have fled to the cabin straight after killing his wife and lived there for years, it could also be seen as a kind of purgatory or hell. Is the old man destined to live the same day over and over again until he atones for his sins? It's not explained exactly what the old man did in the aftermath of killing his wife and the Bible salesman. He could have fled the scene and returned to an area where Joe confesses he always felt safe as a child. Did he live there alone in the wilderness slowly going insane with guilt and remorse? Or did he kill himself in the immediate aftermath of his crimes and the cabin is merely a drawn-out and tormenting afterlife?

The moans both the old man and Joe said lured them to the cabin are those of their wife making love to the salesman, but after that, they can recall nothing but the fairytale appearance of a cabin in the woods with smoke coming from the chimney. Is the old man rotting inside a psychiatric prison somewhere, whilst living a vivid fantasy life inside his mind because he is unable to acknowledge the enormity of the act he's committed? Did his imagination transform an all-too-human crime into the stuff of myth? The cabin is both a sanctuary and a prison. It is a place where all time folds in upon itself and defies reason or rhyme. Did Joe commit the murders, flee to the cabin, and imagine an older version of himself crazed with time and guilt talking to him before the passing of days made that nightmare a reality?

What is the significance of Rascal?

For a large portion of the film, the viewer is left believing Rascal is the old man's badly mistreated dog. However, in the end, we see Rascal is a high plains drifter and domineering type of figure who the old man is terrified of. His sole purpose seems to be tormenting and abusing the old man, and it is telling that he is played by the same actor who also plays Joe. Rascal is a sort of rugged cowboy who lives by his wits and shoots from the hip. He's the male figure that the old man always aspired to be in his younger years and who he pretends to be to Joe. It's his macho and misogynistic side that makes him unable to let go of the anger that fueled the murders. He tells Joe that the trouble with the younger generation is that they have no taste for violence and refers to himself as a spartan.

There is also a part of the old man who desperately seeks salvation, as he tells Joe, "It's nice when you're lost and someone can help you find your way." Although Joe is at face value the polar opposite of the old man, you can see the anger that will fuel his transformation when he laments how he can't understand why everything has gone so wrong when he's done everything right. He feels the world is weighing heavy on his shoulders and life is conspiring against him but he's powerless to act. Rascal is the character he must become to commit murder and also the one he needs to scapegoat his crimes as an old man.

Why does the old man pretend he tortured the Bible salesman before letting him go?

When the old man recounts to Joe his hatred for salesmen and gleefully explains how he drugged and tortured a Bible peddler before letting him go, it suggests a wilful rewriting of the past. The old man knows in reality he shouldn't have gone as far as killing his wife's lover but is unable to let go of the hatred he feels for him, along with his burning desire for vengeance. And so he invents graphically detailed stories that feature him as a wisecracking protagonist who is always in the driving seat. In the old man's tale, the Bible salesman is a bumbling and odious fool who is easily outsmarted and outwitted by the superior and cooler old dude. In reality, he was bedding the old man's wife behind his back.

The conflicted emotions that the old man has regarding the Bible salesman become evident when Joe is visibly aghast at the old man's brutality towards him. He asks, "What did you do?" and is obviously alarmed. The old man just snickers and in one of his most callous moments does a gross caricature of the Bible merchant by reciting "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." This savage impersonation takes on a much darker tone at the film's end when the viewer realizes that in reality, the Bible salesman frantically repeats the Hail Mary before Joe shoots him. The old man never tortured him, never taught him a lesson, never forgave him, and never showed mercy — he just shot him in cold blood. As long as he tells the story with such savage glee he remains in denial.

What do the purple lake and wooden chest symbolize?

As someone trapped in a cabin in the woods after killing his wife and her lover, the old man's plight is like the fairytale the Brothers Grimm never wrote, rich with symbolism. It has the cabin with smoke coming from the chimney, the old hermit of the woods, the innocent traveler who may not be all he seems, and the sense of something unspoken and hidden. The supernatural aspect of the story develops further when the old man reveals to Joe that it was the quest for the fabled purple lake that led him to the cabin. He recalls that along the way, he encountered an angry leopard whom he had to kill heroically. The head of the leopard with the eyes of his dead wife hangs on his wall as a trophy and tribute to a man who won't be messed with. Its symbolism is evident, but what about the wooden chest and the purple lake?

In his story, the old man mentions the purple lake as a place where wounded animals go to restore their health and vitality. He doesn't mention the wooden chest, but the camera tracks it constantly when he's talking about his wife and it's the place he enters to revisit the past. It's likely that after killing his wife he placed her in the box and then took it to some high and lonely lake in the smoky mountains where he disposed of the body. Her blood may have turned the water in the immediate vicinity a strange shade of purple. Hence, the purple lake — a place in reality where bloated corpses float obscenely, but in the old man's warped mind, a fabled place where noble creatures go to lick their wounds.

What has Stephen Lang said about the ending?

When actor Stephen Lang was asked by Screen Rant how he viewed the big reveal at the ending of "Old Man," he explained that, "The entire film can take place within the blink of an eye behind the eyeball of the man who's kind of within this fevered dream." In other words, the ending of "Old Man" is open to interpretation. Lang added that he doesn't feel it matters how real the events are in the movie, because the character is like a gerbil on a treadmill with no end in sight and his descent into madness is the driving motivation behind everything. He described the ending as both creepy and sad and called the atmosphere in the film paramount.

In an interview with ComingSoon.net , Lang also confessed that when he first read the script he was scratching his head in puzzlement and asking, "What the hell is going on here? What's happening here exactly?" However, he admitted that the same confusion was what intrigued him and convinced him to play the part. He said, "I found it very, very difficult to put my finger on exactly what was going on. It was like trying to capture mercury in your hand, this thing."

What director Lucky McKee said about the ending of Old Man

When a twist at the end of a movie works well, it's almost compulsory to give it a repeat viewing just to watch everything that preceded it in a different light. It's something that director Lucky McKee had in the back of his mind when making "Old Man." In an interview with ComingSoon.net , he explained, "I think that any movie that hinges on a twist being the thing that gives it success is doomed to failure." However, McKee believes the twist at the end of "Old Man" works because it's the film's mystery and tension that drives its momentum upon first viewing.

However, its twist invites the viewer back in for a second watch because, "When you do watch it again, you start to see all of this layering and all of this subconscious stuff that we were putting in there that ultimately all makes sense with the way the thing turns out." Mckee revealed that the thing in Joel Veach's script that made an immediate impression upon him was how familiar he was with the type of character "Old Man" featured and the unjudgmental nature of the story. Mckee said, "I'd grown up in very rural kind of country environments. I knew those characters." He also added, "I don't want to be imposing my view of right and wrong and put this moral stamp over it."

Old Man: Plot, Cast, Release Date, and Everything Else We Know

Old Man is a 2022 psychological thriller starring Stephen Lang. Here's what to know!

RJJE films will soon introduce unsuspecting audiences to Old Man . Old Man is a 2022 horror/mystery/ thriller under the direction of Lucky McKee . The nondescript title makes the offering seem simplistic. However, given the breadcrumb teasers and action-packed trailers, Old Man is anything but simple.

In fact, the Old Man trailer has Stephen Lang terrorizing a hiker, proving this is a film viewers will not forget. It might just transform how filmgoers look at hiking, cabins in the woods, or old men.

Old Man: The Plot

A lone hiker forms the nucleus of Old Man. In a most unlikely turn of events, Joe, a hiker who isn’t exactly a stranger to the woods, loses his way. A cabin appears to be his saving grace until he meets the cabin’s inhabitant. As it turns out, an old man is in residence. But he isn’t just any old man. He turns out to be quite a handful and certainly much more than Joe bargained for.

This old man is a die-hard cynic with a lot of paranoia. He trusts no one. And it is not long before Joe discovers sometimes, not all help is good help. Perhaps on some occasions, being lost is better. The old man and Joe try to feel each other out. But with tensions high, moments of interchange evolve into a highly pressurized standoff. As the official synopsis reads,

“What starts as a cordial conversation soon turns dangerous as it becomes clear one or both might have a terrifying secret.

In this situation, the only question remains: who exactly is the villain, making for an exciting watch?

Old Man: The Cast

While many movies have an extensive cast of characters, Old Man will be carried by a significantly small cast comprising four characters. The main characters in the film are the old man and hiker Joe. A Bible Salesman and a woman by the name of Genie round out the cast. Stephen Lang stars in the role of the old man. And Marc Senter plays his opposite. Patch Darragh is cast as the Bible Salesman, and Liana Wright fills the role of Genie.

Related: Avatar: The Way of Water Reveals First Look at Stephen Lang’s Return

One positive of the cast of characters is the fact that each brings nuanced experience to their roles, only adding to the movie’s attractiveness. Some filmgoers will recognize Liana Wright from her role in Ocean’s Eight. Patch Darragh has honed his chops in quite a few familiar roles in television and film. His filmography includes the likes of Succession, CAM , The First Purge, and Mr. Mercedes . Marc Senter fits nicely into the piece, given his background in horror thrillers. His filmography consists of credits: The Lost , Tales of Halloween , and Cabin Fever 2. But finally, there is Stephen Lang , the showstopper and the draw.

Everything Else We Know

Lang Is a veteran in the industry with an extensive body of work. He is known for his role in several blockbusters and popular films, including Avatar, Tombstone , Mid-Century , and The Lost City . However, he is well-known for his epic portrayal of the Blind Man in Don’t Breathe 1 and 2. When looking at Lang’s immense body of work, many things can be said about his impressive depictions. However, one thing rings true: Lang does well in the roles of complex older men with a psychotic bent. His portrayal of the blind man in Don’t Breathe was iconic, making the film must-see. As a testament to his successful portrayal, according to a 2016 issue in Variety , most unexpectedly, Don’t Breathe Smothered the competition.

Lang worked his magic once again with the sequel Don’t Breathe 2. Unlike many sequels, Don’t Breathe 2 was recognized for its strength. In an interview with Forbes , the film’s co-writer and director sat down to this question, “How they pulled off what many others have failed to do by creating a sequel as good as, if not better, than the original?"

Related: Old Man Review: Stephen Lang's Good in Lean Psychological Thriller

Multiple factors must align for a film series to maintain its appeal, However, there is one thing that Don’t Breathe and its sequel has that many other films do not. Stephen Lang is that common denominator. Thus, it's reasonable to conclude that with Lang in the driver’s seat, audiences can expect a high level of performance. He doesn’t disappoint. And this gives Old Man quite the edge.

Release Date

Filming for Old Man was reportedly completed in September 2022. It will be released in the heart of the nightmare season. And it will share a release date with another highly anticipated film Halloween Ends . So, on October 14, 2022, viewers can look forward to meeting an old man they will not soon forget. This mid-seasonal treat will be released simultaneously in theaters and On Demand.

Old Man (2022) Movie Ending, Explained – Why Did Joe Kill Genie and the Bible Salesman?

The film unleashes a very unhinged Stephen Lang, who plays the titular mood-swinging, storytelling old man who may remind you of his menacing character as the “Blind Man” in  Don’t Breathe  (2016) . Still, this sinister thriller deals with cycles of violence, guilt, and regret and the way memories can haunt us for a lifetime. McKee’s best films are centered around outcasts and eccentric characters, and  Old Man  continues with that tendency in which he shows ample empathy for them. This mysterious and puzzling story is so elongated and stretched that it becomes tedious and monotonous until it reaches its almost predictable revelation in the climax, when the movie unfolds to release the sense of dread and isolation.

OLD MAN SYNOPSIS & SUMMARY

Exposition – the reclusive old man.

Old Man  begins with a title sequence accompanied by dramatic and somber music playing in the background that establishes the setting and tone of the film. In the background of the titles, the camera zooms into the landscape painting of an isolated log cabin tucked far away in the woods with a smoking chimney and lighted windows. The scene shifts to a single-room cabin that comprises the entirety of the film’s setting and focuses on an unnamed old man (Stephen Lang) lying in bed wearing red overalls. He is jolted awake agape, presumably from a nightmare, and the camera lingers in extreme close-up to capture his disoriented and perplexed state. 

WHO TURNS UP AT THE OLD MAN’S CABIN OUT OF THE BLUE?

A hapless hiker named Joe (Marc Senter), who had gotten himself lost in the woods, picked the wrong place to ask for help. All of a sudden, he hears a knock at the door, and it pulls him out of his angry ruminations. He grabs his shotgun, jolts out of his stupor, and approaches the door. The deranged old man threatens Joe with the gun and pins him against the window while demanding to know where his dog is, who he is, why he’s here, and if his wife had sent him. The raining series of questions leaves Joe understandably confused and terror-stricken, and he tries his best to calm the old man by assuring him that he is lost and has no ulterior motive. 

On questioning, a tense Joe tells the hard isolated old man that he came alone and he wouldn’t believe him if he told him why he went into the woods. The old man counters by saying that the cabin is built way off the beaten path so that he wouldn’t be bothered and asks how he found the cabin. When Joe mentions that he lost his way and saw the smoke from the chimney, the old man retorts and says, “I ain’t too convinced that what you’re saying ain’t a heaping pile of shit?” He goes further to ask, “How do I know you’re not some kinda goddamned psycho killer? How do I know you’re not some maniac madman on the loose?” Joe is flustered but manages to keep up with his accusations of ordinary-looking people like him, harmless on the inside but crazy inside, turning evil and cannibalistic. Joe swears that he is not and that he is not going to kill or eat him. The reason he gives is, “It’s against the law.”

WHY DID JOE TRY TO RUN OFF THE CABIN?

Felling scared and afraid for his life, Joe tries to run off from the cabin, but the old loner shoots, putting a hole in the floor near where Joe is standing. Joe confesses that he might be better off on his way and wants to leave as he believes the old man to be “a little crazy.” The loner agrees that they will not hurt each other, offering the olive branch. A visibly shaken Joe is so alarmed that he feels like he will piss himself. The old man shows him the pissoir and muses, “That’s the trouble with you young people these days. You got no fight in you, no taste for violence. Your blood doesn’t boil lie those who come before.” He talks about his generation, who was brought up like ancient Greek warriors who had no room for weakness, and mocks Joe for being meek and cowardly.

WHAT DID THE OLD MAN REVEAL ABOUT HIS PAST?

Now, the old man is a welcoming host offering him coffee. He talks about salesmen and how he distrusts the lot who have forking tongues and only care about making their monthly. The old man reveals that he had the unfortunate experience of dabbling in sales when he was younger. He quit the job because he was tired of deceiving people and himself. For him, it was a burden, a waking nightmare going door to door selling things just to satisfy his wife with some new appliance. He becomes upset when asked about his wife and, as if to distract himself, starts to tell what is supposed to be a funny story.

WHAT DID THE OLD MAN DO TO THE BIBLE SALESMAN?

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Joe asks the old man whether he hurt the salesman. The old man speaks of drugging the Bible seller by putting “a little something something” in his coffee. The sedative made him sleepy, and he nodded off. The old man then tied him to the front of a burning stove, took the necktie, and tied that around his eyes like a blindfold. He kept the salesman there for a couple of hours while he burned. He intended to scare him because when one is scared, one tends to be honest. He found it entertaining when the salesman started saying gibberish in pain and then proceeded to pray for God’s mercy and kept repeating, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners.”

WHAT DOES JOE TELL ABOUT HIS LIFE AND GENIE?

When the old man asks Joe about his life, he divulges that he is from New Albany, Indiana, grew up in Chattanooga in Tennessee when he was eight years old, got married to Eugenia, aka Genie (Liana Wright-Mark), a second-grade school teacher, and shifted to Knoxville a few years back when he got a job working for her family’s moving company. Genie procured a job at a primary school. Joe, in an impulse, opens up about his anguish over the feeling that sometimes life is conspiring against him. Joe continues to tell him that he feels like standing in wet cement with nothing else around him, feels the cement tightening and hardening around the ankles, and finds it set and unable to move. The slow suffocation starts at his feet, moves up the leg and the back of his spine, and settles at the back of his throat, cutting off his air. He believes that this weight, the paralyzing and choking feeling is the result of his compliant and acquiescent nature, as he has never rebelled or opposed anything. 

OLD MAN ENDING EXPLAINED

How did joe reach the cabin.

The old man asks Joe to retrace the steps to comprehend why he came into the woods. He came to the woods because he wanted to take a hike along the Little River. It has always been his favorite place, and he associates it with the fond memories he had at one point in his life. Since he wanted to get his mind right, he started walking and heard something, a moan, deep breaths coming from somewhere. When he started walking deeper and deeper into the woods, the moan got louder, so he ran until everything went black. He lost consciousness, and when he awoke, he started walking and came across a waterfall and a clearing and then the cabin and the smoke coming from the chimney. 

WHY DID JOE KILL GENIE AND THE BIBLE SALESMAN?

When the old man goes to prepare dinner, Joe takes his knife and opens it to find it covered in blood. He runs away from the cabin, but Rascal returns soon after that. Rascal is not a dog but a person, the old man, is terrified of. Rascal has come back from hunting with food for both of them. When the old man asks Rascal about Joe, Rascal tells him that nobody else is in the cabin except for them. Petrified of Rascal, the old man pisses himself. When Rascal remarks that there is no wonder his wife left him, the old man asks Rascal to remind him about what happened. Rascal gives him water from Purple Lake, asks him to drink it, and commands him to enter the wooden chest.

Also, Read – Pig Movie Explained: Ending, Themes & Existential Dilemmas Analyzed

What do the wooden chest and the purple lake symbolise.

In the climax, the ghost of Joe’s wife, Genie, appears standing in the wooden box with her stabbed neck. The box is significant as it has a connection with the murder of his wife. He might have either stored his wife’s belongings in that chest or used the box to dispose of her body, which is why the old man sees Genie standing in it. There is a picture of a red-haired woman with penetrating eyes in the box. The box function like a portal or a gateway through which he visits and understands what happened in the past. When Rascal makes him enter the box forcefully, he relives the past and remembers killing his wife all over again. 

After the murders, Joe might have got rid of the bodies in the woods; maybe in the Little River, he used to visit with his grandfather. Since his brain was hardwired to make distorted stories to do away with guilt, he made up a Purple Lake with healing properties. He searched for it to atone for his sins but couldn’t find it. When Rascal gives him the water from Purple Lake, it puts him back into the hellish cycle of violence and guilt instead of casting it aside. He is still carrying the heavy burden of his actions, reliving the memories so often that he has descended into a state of madness and oblivion. Now, Joe is under the control of the ghosts of his past, which seems to make him feel guilty and regretful as often as they please. 

The film’s final sequence is a sheer repetition of the opening sequence. After Rascal leaves him, he goes to bed and lies down, as walking down memory lane takes a toll on him. Rascal promises to come back later, as he always does. We see him lying in his red overalls, and suddenly, he is jolted awake agape, to relive his past once again, to see his younger self, and to beg mercy from his wife. 

Also, Read – The Rings Of Power (Season 1 Finale), Episode 8: Recap, Review And Ending, Explained – Where Does Sauron Go, And What Do The Rings Mean?

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An unapologetic feminist and vocal critic of sexism. A moody, caffeine-dependant, procrastinating disaster striving for perfection. Believes in the transformative power of any art, especially Cinema and Books.

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Stephen Lang-Led Horror Movie 'Old Man' Sets Fall Release Date

The upcoming horror movie will be released just in time for Halloween.

A patchwork of artists with their hands in horror have come together on a film titled Old Man . This brand-new horror thriller, starring Don't Breathe 's Stephen Lang , has been acquired by AMC's RLJE Films, and is set to premiere in October, just in time for Halloween.

From Tim Burton 's return to his classic aesthetics in Netflix's upcoming series Wednesday , to Laurie Strode's ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) final stand in Halloween Ends , horror fans are feasting well in 2022. Now, RLJE Films is bringing back a genre favorite, Lang, who portrayed the misguided blind veteran in 2016's Don't Breathe . Lang is tapped to portray the titular "old man" in Lucky McKee 's ( May ) return to the director's chair, Old Man . The movie is said to follow a hiker who finds himself off the beaten path. Lost, the hiker stumbles onto the isolated property of an erratic old man. When the two strike up a conversation the man reveals a terrifying secret, and the hiker finds himself in a living nightmare.

Chief Acquisitions Officer for RLJE Films, Mark Ward , said:

"We’re excited to work with Lucky McKee, Stephen Lang and the film’s producing team on another project that is certain to thrill audiences. The incredibly talented team behind this film has entertained genre film enthusiasts over the years and Old Man is no exception."

RELATED: New 'Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities' Images Show Off Practical FX and Haunting Horrors

Lang has a penchant for playing villainous characters. While he's been in a number of films and television shows throughout his career since the early '80s, Lang is most recently known for his portrayal of the one-track minded military antagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch in James Cameron 's Avatar . Other notable credits include his recurring role as Norman Nordstrom in Don't Breathe and Don't Breathe 2 , Freddy Lounds in Manhunter and Cowboy's member Ike Clanton in Tombstone , opposite Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer .

Joining Lang are Marc Senter ( Starry Eyes ) possibly starring as the hiker, though his role has yet to be specified, Liana Wright-Mark ( Ocean's 8 ) as Genie, and Patch Darragh ( Succession ) as Bible Salesman.

Old Man is writer Joel Veach 's screenwriting debut, and is directed by McKee who's known for genre films like 2002's ode to Frankenstein, May , about a socially awkward girl, played by Angela Bettis , who pieces together her own friend; as well as The Woman which reunited the director with Bettis; and black comedy All Cheerleaders Die . Paper Street Pictures' Aaron B. Koontz , Cameron Burns and Ashleigh Snead and Senter produce.

RLJE Films have produced a number of films within the genre including McKee's All Cheerleaders Die , The Tall Man , Wolf Creek 2 and Fangoria 's Satanic Panic , based on the screenplay by My Best Friend's Exorcism author Grady Hendrix .

Old Man is set to be released in theaters on October 14 this year, as well as on Digital and Demand.

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The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

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• Amy Winehouse

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‘DogMan’ Review: Crackers for Animals

An electrifying Caleb Landry Jones plays the damaged heart of this oddly wonderful tale of resilience and revenge.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

Drag queens, disability and dozens of canines converge in Luc Besson’s “DogMan,” which opens with a quotation from a 19th-century French poet and closes with a symbolic crucifixion. In between is the strangest, possibly silliest movie of the veteran director’s idiosyncratic career. It is also borderline brilliant.

On a wet night in New Jersey, a bloodied man dressed as Marilyn Monroe (Caleb Landry Jones) is arrested while driving a truck filled with agitated dogs. An empathetic prison psychologist, Evelyn (Jojo T. Gibbs), learns that the man is named Douglas, the dogs are his “babies,” and that his horrifying story resonates more than Evelyn would like with a predicament of her own. Flashbacks to Douglas’s past expose a childhood terrorized by a Bible-thumping brother and brutal father, who caged the boy alongside a team of fighting dogs. He also delivered the gunshot wound that would consign Douglas to a wheelchair for most of his life.

That life, unfolding in scenes that run the gamut from sweet to bizarre to heartbreaking, is a dark fairy tale of survival. Hunkered in a dank, abandoned building filled with books, security cameras and four-legged companions, the adult Douglas maintains an almost psychic bond with the only creatures to ever show him sustained affection. From his booby-trapped lair, he provides vigilante services to local supplicants, operating as a kind of godfather (dogfather?) with a pack that obeys his often wordless commands. Gigantic or tiny, fearsome or cuddly, stealing from the rich or subduing gangsters, they scamper through the film with lolling-tongued delight and discernible personalities. Not since “Amores Perros” (2000) and “White God” (2015) have so many movie canines impacted the lives of so many characters.

Besson, to his credit, recognizes the wackiness in his screenplay, and plays into it without reducing Douglas’s pain to a joke. Even so, it’s doubtful if the movie would work without Jones’s astonishing commitment to, and understanding of the character. (If you saw him two years ago in Justin Kurzel’s “Nitram,” you already know he excels at playing deeply damaged individuals.) He’s mesmerizing here, skirting easy pathos to give Douglas a touching dignity that stabilizes the movie’s kooky premise. When he discovers a talent for cabaret and debuts a performance of Édith Piaf’s “La Foule,” the moment is both sad and sublime: a bona fide showstopper.

People get hurt in this movie, but “DogMan,” loping along like one of its pups, doesn’t linger over the violence. Scenes flow smoothly from chilling to cute, buoyed by a cheekily over-the-top soundtrack. This isn’t a maudlin, triumph-over-adversity yarn: Douglas might be in a wheelchair, but he’s easily the most able body onscreen.

DogMan Rated R for a brutalized child and a chomped crotch. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. In theaters.

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