In the Tall Grass, based on the Stephen King novel by the same name, begins with an opening scene of endlessly high blades of grass, covering the entire screen, as the camera zooms in, sounds of screams and whispers become louder and louder.
Just after, it cuts to jolly music coming from a minivan driving down a long straight road. Inside the minivan are newly-pregnant Becky and her brother Cal. After pulling over to the side of the road after a bout of nausea and vomiting, distant childlike screams can be heard from the tall grass on the side of the road. Feeling the weight of her new motherly instincts, Becky gets out of the car to investigate the cries for assistance.
“I’ve been stuck in here for days!” screams the unknown little boy. “Where are you? Are you coming?” After the pair finds themselves slowly creeping into the seemingly never-ending blades of tall grass, suddenly, Becky can no longer hear anyone’s calls, and neither can Cal.
As their cries get lost into the daylight, they both decide to jump, in order to see each other through the grass. On the first jump, they are no more than 3 arm lengths apart. On the second jump from the same place, they are at least a football field apart.
Feeling trapped, Cal decides to start running, after a minute or two, he trips and falls. Upon landing, he hears a fly buzzing near him, but not seeing any other wildlife for miles, he traces the noise to hundreds of flies swarming the body of a dead dog lying in the mud, alone. He finds the dog’s name on its collar, Freddy. Scared, he immediately gets up and calls for Becky.
As night-time approaches, their fear grows exponentially, hearing questionable noises and getting more lost as time goes on. Ever so suddenly, a man appears in front of Becky. “Come with me if you want to survive,” he says. Why? How is he there? She had just previously heard her brother’s voice coming from the man, but he was nothing but a stranger, who claims to have a wife, child and dog also stuck in the field.
Cal, on the other hand, is on the verge of giving up. “Becky..! Becky..!” he calls. In a fit of hopelessness, Cal splats on the ground to recover from hours upon hours of walking through what feels like a loophole. “I’m never gonna find her!” the brother says, and without hesitation a voice comes from behind him. A childlike voice. “You can find things, but it’s easier once they’re dead.”
“Your sister…she’s going to die soon,” says the little boy, no older than 10. “Do you want to see her?” Cal shoots up, because of his care for his sister, and follows the little boy back into the field.
The scene cuts back to Becky, who finds some strange pills on the ground. The next second she looks up, she is alone once again. “Cal?!-” is the last word she was able to get out before seemingly being taken by a force hiding in the grass.
We go back to Cal, who, after following the little boy for quite some time, makes it to an open patch still surrounded by tall grass. A gigantic mysterious rock lays in the middle of the patch. The little boy seems to know a lot about it. He convinces Cal to touch the rock. For what reason? A million thoughts are running through Cal’s head, but to save his sister, he will do whatever it takes.
The rock begins to whisper in an unknown language, and as Cal’s hand comes closer to touching it, the wind blows faster and faster.. But before he can, “HELP ME!” can be heard in Becky’s voice, in agony, screaming for help.
It then cuts to a pickup truck driving near the same kind of long winding road, never ending, in the middle of nowhere. “Do you know who these people are? I’m trying to find them.” He says, showing the gas station clerk a picture of Becky and Cal standing together. After continuing down the same road for a while, he suddenly slams on his car brake as hard as he can, realizing that Becky’s car is on the side of the road, rotting and tarnishing.
The currently unknown man begins to walk around, realizing that her car is parked in front of some rundown church. He decides to explore the church. Opening the door, the green stained glass windows produce pure green lighting all throughout the church. The once chestnut brown church benches now have a green hue, making the setting foggy and unsettling.
After finding nothing, he exits the church, and finds a book with Becky’s name written on the first page, sitting there on the ground. Unknowingly, he walks into the tall grass, attempting to make a trail by tying clumps of grass together. We see it unfolding after it leaves his view. The hot sun is blazing down on the man at first, but in the blink of an eye the sun is no longer in his viewpoint, despite the man not moving an inch.
After walking for hours, lost in the maze of grass, he lays down to get a good night’s rest. SNAP, he hears someone walking near him, and the little boy appears once again, alone. “SHHHH! Do you hear that?” the little boy says, as the grass begins to blow in the wind.
“Travis,” the boy says, despite meeting him for the first time. “You really don’t remember?” asks the boy after Travis acts confused. “I’ve never met you before!” Travis exclaims, but he follows the little boy once the boy says he will take Travis to Becky. After a while of following the boy, he pauses, out of breath, and the little boy shoots his head in a certain direction. “There.”
Travis finds Becky lying there, dead, feeling sick. “The field doesn’t move dead things. It makes it easier to find.” The next second Travis looks back, the little boy is nowhere to be found. It suddenly cuts to daytime, a water droplet falling from a blade of grass onto Travis’ face, waking him up. Becky, merely skin and bones, lies next to him.
In the Tall Grass shows the depths of repetition and the human fear of loop holes, it provokes an uneasy feeling onto the audience, and while to me it didn’t seem like a horror movie, it definitely made me feel uneasy. The rest of the movie rapidly gets confusing and creepy, making it one uncomfortable watch, still, it was an interesting movie.
