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[REVIEW] Netflix’s ‘In the Tall Grass’ Requires Your Full Attention

Published

5 years ago

October 3, 2019

Netflix’s adaptation of Stephen King and Joe Hill’s novella In the Tall Grass hits the streaming service this Friday, October 4, 2019.

Adapted and directed by Vincenzo Natali (The Cube), the film focuses on Cal (Avery Whitted) and his sister Becky (Laysla De Oliveira). Becky is pregnant and they are traveling across country to San Diego where she plans to give the baby up for adoption.

After a bout of morning sickness on the side of the road next to a field of grass taller than their heads, they hear a young boy’s cries for help. Stepping inside in order to help him, they soon become separated and realize there is something sinister about this particular field.

The film boasts several good performances including Oliveira who is vulnerable without being completely helpless as Becky, giving a layered performance that quickly garners sympathy from the audience.

As her brother, Whitted also gives an interesting performance. You believe that he wants to protect his sister, but at times you’re not entirely sure what motivates his protective instincts.

The real scene-stealer here, however, is Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring). Wilson took over the role of Ross, the father of Tobin AKA the boy whose cries drew Becky and Cal into the field, when James Marsden had to leave the production due to scheduling conflicts according to IMDb.

Wilson attacks the role with gusto. You’re never entirely sure which Ross will emerge from the tall grass at any given moment, and that brings its own brand of tension to the film.

In the Tall Grass is a twisting, turning narrative with a lot of moving parts. The field twists reality so that events repeat and time and space do not move the same way for everyone who finds themselves inside its boundaries. Because of this, the plot becomes fairly intricate quickly.

All of this is to say that the film is one that fairly demands the viewer’s undivided attention. If you’re going to get up to leave the room, even for a minute, pause the film. If your phone chimes and you need to answer a text, pause the film. If you don’t, you will most assuredly miss something.

This isn’t to imply that the film is too complicated, nor is it unlike other works by both King and Hill. In fact, parts of it feel eerily similar to another of King’s stories, Children of the Corn. At points, I wondered if He Who Walks Behind the Rows wasn’t somehow related to the nefarious presence inside this field which causes the mud to hold onto your shoes just a fraction of a second too long and the blades of grass to move just a little too quickly to cut exposed flesh.

Natali is, among other things, a storyboard artist, and you can see that artist’s eye in the production’s often stunning visuals. However there are moments where he almost seems to become preoccupied with the image rather than the storytelling which slows the pacing in the film.

Sadly, it becomes so heavy-handed at times that you can almost feel him pointing at an object or scene saying, “Look at what I’m showing you!” It’s jarring and can push you out of the narrative of the film.

Despite this, Into the Tall Grass is still enjoyable if not quite as terrifying as it could have been, and easy to recommend for fans of the novella on which it is based.

Into the Tall Grass debuts on Netflix on October 4, 2019. Check out the trailer below!

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Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

10 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

^{High Desert Hell}

^{The Gemini Project}

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

12 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

^{Happy Sad Confused}

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

15 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.