The
Stephen King renaissance rolls on with Netflix tackling another
adaption. After 2017 brought us two of the best in recent memory,
1922
and
Gerald’s
Game,
the idea of Netflix becoming a home for smaller, less well known King
stories adapted by interesting filmmakers seemed like a safe bet. Two
years later they’re back at it with Vincenzo Natali adapting In
the Tall Grass,
a novella by King and his son Joe Hill.
On
their way to San Diego, brother and sister, Cal and Becky, pull over
so Becky can collect herself. Pregnant, Becky is feeling nauseous and
steps out of the car. Next to them is an endless field of impossibly
tall grass and coming from it are the cries for help from a little
boy. Hesitant at first, Cal and Becky go in to investigate and we’re
off and running.
A
film like this should take no time at all getting off the ground and
thankfully, cult-horror mainstay Natali knows this. As Cal and Becky
make their way through grass in search of the boy, time and space
begins to shift around them and nothing is as it appears. Like a lot
of King’s work, the space within the titular tall grass may have
more mystical, trans-dimensional qualities.
It
makes for an interesting premise but it’s one that Natili can’t
sustain for long enough. Almost immediately, your patience wears thin
and it’s almost entirely due to the characters and the fact that
they’re barely even one-dimensional. King’s stories, even at
their worst, almost always capture the humanity of their
protagonists. He has an uncanny ability to inject genre storytelling
with a pathos that forces you to feel for them on a deeper level than
you usually would. He can build entire lifetimes into a character
that you might only see for a few pages. Understandably, that’s
easier to do with the written word than on film but it’s just so
hard to connect with or care about anything that happens to the
people in Natali’s film. Every performance is about as boiler-plate
as it gets. Right down the creepy kid who, at this point, is a copy
of a copy of a copy. Every performance is like this save for one;
Patrick Wilson. Wilson is terrific here giving a wonderfully unhinged
turn that subverts his everyman charm in all the right ways. He preys
on the protagonists (and the audience’s) inherent trust in him and
it’s a joy to watch.
You
dont go into most horror movies expecting great characters. There’s
the expectation that even if a film can’t capture King’s deftness
with characterization, you’ll at least be treated to horrifying
thrills. This is where Natali drops the ball in the most egregious of
ways. The premise is simple and one wonders how anyone could stretch
it into a 90 minute movie. For better or worse, it’s people running
in circles trying to find a way out. If anyone could have figured out
a way to stretch it, it’s the Cube
guy,
right? He’s already proven that he’s capable of circuitous
storytelling, where characters repeat their steps to increasingly
disorienting effect. Sadly, that’s just not the case here. Almost
instantly, like the characters, you realize there isn’t anywhere to
go. You’re stuck in a 90 minute maze with people who just aren’t
that interesting encountering things that, for the most part, just
aren't that disturbing. Minus one completely bonkers moment towards
the end, In
the Tall Grass offers
nothing scary nor thrilling enough to set it apart.
As
the proliferation of King properties continues to spread across our
tv and movie screens, some are bound to disappoint. That’s the case
here as In
the Tall Grass lands
with a relatively small thud. It’s not bad enough to watch from
afar and it’s not good enough to put into your King rotation.
Instead it exists in a liminal space where you’ll find yourself
going mad, not from the endlessness of the grassy field but from
boredom. I’m not sure this story is on that could’ve easily been
adapted in the first place and this effort isn’t a promising answer
to that question.
-Brandon Streussnig
