In the Tall Grass (2019)

In the Tall Grass (2019)

Dir: Vincenzo Natali

Writers: Vincenzo Natali; Based on the novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill

Cast: Laysla DeOliveira, Avery Whitted, Patrick Wilson, Will Buie Jr.

As a horror fan you can’t at least appreciate Stephen King’s contribution to the genre. I, for one, adore his work. It’s brutal, emotional, and fiercely unapologetic. There’s no fear in shoving something completely screwed up in our faces and forcing us to enjoy it after we grit our teeth through the ordeal. It’s horror at its very best and the basis for many of our own scary tales. What King’s literature has given us is not only frightening reads, but blueprints for film adaptations that come to be some of the most recognizable imagery in cinema, let alone the horror genre. Now, I’d be naïve to say that King’s works—and subsequently the adaptations that follow—are all perfect. No one with a catalogue so vast can hit homeruns every time, and not every adaptation is as good as its source material. In the Tall Grass, an adaptation of the novella of the same name (a collaboration between King and his son Joe Hill) was one of those adaptations that kind of missed the mark. I say “kind of” because even after the credits rolled, I wanted to like it. I really did. I’m going to review this as a film alone and not as an adaptation in understanding that not everyone has read the novella.

In the Tall Grass is the story of Becky (Laysla DeOliveira) and Cal (Avery Whitted) DeMuth, a brother and sister who find themselves trapped in a field of tall grass after trying to find a lost boy (Will Buie Jr.) crying for help. This had so much potential. It had lesser known actors (for the exception of Patrick Wilson), which I love in horror movies that take place in close quarters with a small cast, as it allows us to focus on performances and story and not get so caught up in the familiar faces that we refer to the characters by the name of the actors who played them. It had a decent premise and sense of creepiness. However, it struck out when it came to the writing, which will always make a film suffer, no matter how scary you try to make it. The story felt a bit confused, suffering from unnecessarily long moments of calling out while running through the grass between important scenes as a means to fill space and achieve a desired run time. While I do understand that being lost is part of the plot, there was a bit too much of it. That time could have easily been used to develop the one-dimensional villain, Ross Humbolt (Patrick Wilson) who falls victim to the Rock within the tall grass that turns whoever touches it into a murderous worshipper of its consuming power. The Rock itself had more depth than Ross, and it’s a shame because I never feared him, nor did I feel for his position as a family man who lost himself and became a murderer after touching the Rock, a position that would have been deeply unfortunate had I given a crap about him.

There’s also a blatant religious allegory that was a bit too on-the-nose. It easily could have kept itself subtle and I would have picked up on the idea that radically and blindly following a deity to the point of murdering in its name those who choose not to follow is insane. There’s a speech that Ross gives in an attempt to get his family and the siblings to join him in worshiping the rock that was so preachy that it ceased to raise the stakes of the story and instead prompted eye rolls at its achievement to perpetuate the spoon feeding. Thing is, this was time that could have, again, been spent getting me to dig this villain, but of course all I got was a boogey man who acted with shallow purpose.

It’s true that performances will suffer if the writing is bad, and that’s definitely the case here. The fortunate thing is, while the story suffered from being lost in the tall grass, the cast members knew exactly where they were. I enjoyed the performances from everyone, even though it was obvious that they were doing their best with what they had, and I was impressed with what I got. Genuine depictions of confusion and anger and fear made it easy to get into these characters as people and collectively they kept my attention better than what was actually happening to them. They were solid for most of movie, even through the scene where Cal and Travis had an immature exchange and fight that brought the momentum of the movie to a dead stop right in the middle—not that it was moving very quickly to begin with.

In the end, I’m on the fence with this movie. The performances grabbed me and kept me watching through a story that seemed like it didn’t quite know where it wanted to go. I know I said I wouldn’t make any comments to this as an adaption, but I feel that it’s necessary to make at least one: This might be a movie worth assessing for yourself, but in my opinion, if you want to really enjoy In the Tall Grass, read the novella.

In the Tall Grass is available to stream on Netflix.