In the Tall Grass is based off a novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill, and is distributed by Netflix. Directed by Vincenzo Natali, it stars Laysla De Oliviera and Avery Whitted as Becky and Cal, a brother and sister driving down a country highway, who stop, and are lured into tall grass when they hear a boy shouting for help from within. They meet the small boy Tobin (Will Bule Jr.), and his parents, Ross (Patrick Wilson) and Natalie (Rachel Wilson), and find it very hard to get out. The grass sends them turvy, shifting up their location and making it impossible to find one another. They are later joined by Travis (Harrison Gilbertson), Becky’s baby-daddy who comes looking for them.
In the Tall Grass starts out as a pretty generic horror movie; there’s eerie music that gets louder over the shot of the menacing field as a standard beginning. The grass is set to be the antagonist of the situation, there is no question. I did love how quickly we got into the grass after meeting our lead duo. The movie doesn’t dilly-dally around getting rolling. The first act was quite enthralling, following Becky and Cal through the maze. The way the grass would throw off their voices and shift endlessly made for an unnerving predicament. The tall grass worked for me at keeping everything in tight and making me feel claustrophobic. When finally came a shot of the grass overhead and I could feel a sense of released tension. My favourite spooky element of the grass was when Travis noticed that the sun could be behind him and in front of him at the same time. There was no way to track your direction through that lawn! I felt the power of the grass again later on, when the grass stood still, seemingly on Ross’ command.
Eventually though, the plot could not support its own weight. The movie messes with time-travel, the grass having some deep mystical power, and also there are people with grass heads. Becky’s baby seems to be part of some mystical prophecy, yet after it is fed to her (gross) we never hear of it again. Even after Travis touches the stone, he is blessed with the knowledge of the grass but never says anything to pass any information on to us, other than if Tobin doesn’t stop Becky and Cal entering the grass then they are destined to repeat themselves over and over again. Basically, if you’re not Terminator or The Time-Traveller’s Wife, I’m sceptical of a time-travel plot. Here’s why – What happened to the storyline involving the kid touching the rock? Or the shock of the brother seeing his sister dead? Those versions of the characters seemed to change as soon as Travis entered the grass. Could it be that the ending was changed? Perhaps Tobin was supposed to take them back into the tall grass since he has touched the rock and was evil all along. It would explain why he is shouting at them to come in, in the first place, as we never see his perspective whilst he is interacting with Becky and Cal from inside the grass.
I would have liked to have seen more of the grass defending itself. I thought it was cool when the grass slit Becky’s leg, making her tired, and then went inside her, even though we never know why. I don’t understand how Travis was able to go against the grass and win, when Ross totally succumb to the grass’ might. The movie is also unnecessarily gory in parts too; I refer to the dead baby first. Then, I know it can be common in horror movies, to make the person you are about to kill unpleasant, but I don’t know why Cal had to be attracted to his sister – it was just creepy and he was a likeable dude before that. Cal’s death might have meant more to me if not for that.
You don’t expect much from a horror movie where the grass is scary but In the Tall Grass does a great job working with what it has. It goes to show that not all nature-horror needs to be The Happening; at least the grass here is claustrophobic and intimidating. But grass aside, unfortunately the story within it fails to be as captivating as one would hope. Take a hedger to that field for a true massacre.
2.5
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