Plot: After hearing a young boy's cry for help, a brother and sister venture into a vast field of grass in Kansas but soon discover that there may be no way out
Review: Stephen King and Joe Hill fans have been eagerly waiting for the film adaptation of IN THE TALL GRASS since it was announced as a Netflix film. The terrifying novella, which debuted in Esquire magazine in 2012, is one of the scariest works by either King and his son. With CUBE director Vincenzo Natali behind the camera, the trailer looked like it was going to be one hell of a claustrophobic horror film. While the look of the film certainly will keep some viewers up at night, the overall movie is underwhelming due to an unbalanced narrative and some performances that feel like they are coming from very different movies.
Sticking fairly close to King and Hill's original story, IN THE TALL GRASS follows a group of six characters who get trapped in the malevolent field of titular grass. Siblings Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal Demuth (Avery Whitted) are on their way to San Diego to start a new life. Becky is six months pregnant and questioning what to do with her child. At a stop in the middle of rural America, Becky and Cal pull over and hear Tobin Humboldt (Will Buie Jr) calling for help from the field. When they enter, things are not what they seem. Distances change on a whim and the brother and sister stumble across all sorts of terrible things. They also find Tobin's parents, Ross (Patrick Wilson) and Natalie (Rachel Wilson) as well as the father of Becky's baby, Travis (UPGRADE's Harrison Gilbertson). As they try to find their way out of the grass, truths come to light about some nefarious reasons for being stuck there.
What works well in IN THE TALL GRASS is the labyrinthine nature of the field itself. Even before supernatural elements come into play, the concept of getting lost in something as innocuous as grass is an experience many of us have likely felt before. By ratcheting up the impossible nature of how this grass bends logic like distance, sound, and time, Vincenzo Natali manages to give us a first act that is unsettling and very disorienting. As Becky and Cal struggle to find each other in the grass, we are introduced to the rest of the characters. The only character here who did not appear in the original story is Travs, Becky's ex, who helps expand the plot to a full length film. But, by adding another element to the mix, Natali's adaptation ends feeling even more decentralized which leads to a lackluster ending.
Of the cast, Patrick Wilson is by far the most recognizable actor and he seems to be the only one not taking the material as seriously as the rest. Wilson plays realtor Ross Humboldt as a smarmy and pulpy antagonist in the vein of some of Stephen King's most memorable villains. Wilson also takes things far more over the top than how the movie is directed. I thoroughly enjoyed Wilson's performance, but it feels tonally different than everything else in the movie. And that is the same problem with the second and third acts as well. What starts as a story reminiscent of CHILDREN OF THE CORN and even Natali's own CUBE begins to shift into something straight out of H.P. Lovecraft complete with some terrors from beyond our world.
At the point where the film reaches what feels like a natural conclusion, I noticed there was still half an hour left in the movie. There is a grotesque sequence involving Becky's baby that may turn off some viewers and a showdown that would have made a great ending, but by the time you reach the actual end of the film, you will probably feel underwhelmed and even more confused. IN THE TALL GRASS tries to construct a horrifying scenario and one that comes with some pretty scary imagery which ends up being neutered by having rules that the story doesn't stick to. The ending is far too convenient and left me wanting a better explanation as to what was going on.
As far as a weekend Netflix binge goes, you could do worse than IN THE TALL GRASS. But the promising introduction to this story never pans out and you are left with several really well executed scenes that just don't work together as a feature film. IN THE TALL GRASS certainly will make you wary of walking into any sort of vegetation that you cannot see your way out of, but the movie fails to capitalize on such a strong premise. This is a movie that is not quite ambitious enough which ends up making it feel pretty generic. You aren't missing much by not watching IN THE TALL GRASS, but if you do you will certainly be left wanting more.
IN THE TALL GRASS premieres October 4th on Netflix.