In The Tall Grass is a 2019 horror film about a sister and brother who venture into a vast field of tall grass that leaves with stranded … and not alone.
Feeling a bit woozy on a road trip to San Diego, the very pregnant Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) has her brother Cal (Avery Whitted) pull over. With an old wooden church on one side and an immense field of tall grass on the other, the two hear a young voice calling for help in the sea of green blades. They head in to rescue the kid, named Tobin (Will Buie Jr.), who seems to be running from a woman’s voice. Thinking it easy, they soon find that they too are lost. As hours pass and fear sets in, they eventually find each other and then a desperate father named Ross (Patrick Wilson), looking for his wife Natalie (Rachel Wilson), and the boy. Eventually, Travis (Harrison Gilbertson), the father of Becky’s baby arrives, himself then caught in the trap, an ancient evil at the center of it lulling them to greater darkness.
I guess at this point, anything is up for grabs as fodder for frights, with filmmakers going to great lengths to turn whatever they can into nightmare fuel. Now we have grass, a substitute for corn stalks, which let’s admit, has seen its fair share of horror. In The Tall Grass is based on a 62-page novella from Stephen King and is somewhat faithful if not stretched, with some of it compelling but given its setting, remains mostly cyclical with people running about yelling for help. That ends up keeping most of this static, where the lure of the grass soon fades into the predictable.
Travis at least arrives with some smarts, picking up early on that things aren’t right, even before he walks into the grass, the church and its lot offering up some secrets that prove he’s up against something old and nefarious. Admittedly, there’s some fun to be had in that, and the potential for some cryptic horror is well-staged, but the pay off is rather generic, made more so by a slew of horror clichés that, given where they all are, make more than their fair share of appearances.
Director Vincenzo Natali at least gives this some style with some good moments that pump life to the waves of green grass, lending this a bit of mystery as story threads loop around to each other and restart once dead ends. Unfortunately, it loses traction the more it goes on, the curiosity about what’s going on waning as we continually track over the same events from somewhat different perspectives. This pads out an experience that seems needlessly made so, even with some good performances and genuine efforts to make this deeper than it really is.