Stephen King's In the Tall Grass a Netflix movie a Mysterious Kind of Evil
In The Tall Grass by Netflix is another victory for the renaissance of the movie Stephen King.
Just like Charles Dickens and Christmas, Halloween is inextricably linked to the Master of Horror, Stephen King. Since the 1980s, film adaptations of King's works have had an anxious and excited audience (with varying degrees of success. Now, just after the: Chapter Two Netflix has produced a new spine-tingling entry for the canon, adapted from a story by King and his son, Joe Hill Directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice), In the Tall Grass remixes some of the author's favorite elements for a familiar spooky - but not too scary - yarn.
On the way west, Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal (Avery Whitted) stop on the side of the road somewhere in Central America. The timing is not great; Becky is pregnant and still suffers from morning sickness. But in the distance somewhere on the lawn along the road, she hears a panicked child calling for help. Becky and Cal wander in but cannot find him, and in the end they are too divorced and imprisoned with another family: Tobin (Will Buie Jr.), his father Ross (Patrick Wilson) and Natalie (Rachel Wilson).
The Tall Grass is a mysterious child of evil, a place that does not adhere to the laws of physics and space, trapping the victims in a continuous loop until it pulls them into an old dark force in the middle. After weeks without news from Becky, Travis (Harrison Gilbertson), her best friend, goes looking for the two missing brothers and sisters and falls into the clutches of the Long Grass.
It is Natali's merit that these stems or grass can look threatening. He plays with close-ups, optical illusions and wide-ranging shots that rotate and give the labyrinth in which our poor characters hold a hellish soul. In the distance there is an abandoned bowling alley inexplicably on the edge of the grass and an eerie-looking church that holds the grass above every child or god. Perhaps it is to connect modern religion with the ancient cult that adores the grass, but the film never touches too deeply. It is a simple premise that keeps the surface level level, no deeper than your average haunted room with mirrors.
On top of the scare, King fans should enjoy the handful or nod to his earlier adjustments. There is a hint of Children of the Corn in the painful isolation of the environment and the unknown evil presence that creeps through the grass. There is an old car that looks like Christine in the parking lot of the church on the side of the road. Wilson's father character seems to be undergoing a similar descent into madness that Jack Torrance in The Shining and Dr. Louis Creed comes across in Pet Sematary. King also favors scenarios that cannot escape, whether from an evil car in Christine, a crazy fan in Misery, a supernatural murderer clown in it or tied to a bed post a la Gerald's Game. A field of undulating grass feels right in its nightmare alley.
Although not the sharpest of King's stories, the cast of Natali reasoned the shortcomings of the film. Patrick Wilson is delightful as a father in real estate who has become angry because of the poor source of the grass. His disturbed expressions and the unpredictable nature of the grass give him everything he needs to be a fantastic villain. Of the victims in the grass, the character of Gilbertson has the most expressive bow. After thinking he has lost his girlfriend forever, he now has a chance of redemption - and saving everyone's life.
The emotional core of the film lies with Travis and Becky, who are debating whether or not to keep her baby prior to entering the grass. At this point the film stumbles as it dives into clichés about endangering pregnant women and their babies, but remains unclear about the final effect. With regard to defects, however, it is not fatal and does not distract too much from the real evil of the film: the threatening but peaceful-looking grass that gently swings in the wind.
