In the Tall Grass Review
A Mysterious Waste of Time - Netflix Failed to Ignite with “In the Tall Grass” (2019)
In the Tall Grass - Review
In the Tall Grass follows a brother, Cal DeMuth, and sister, Becky DeMuth, on a road trip that gets stunted after the sister Becky has to halt the car to throw up, but things are only just beginning as there is a young boy screaming for help from within a tall grass field leading the brother and sister into the tall grass to help rescue the young boy.
Like most Stephen King adapted novels to the screen this movie adaptation is sinister feeling with a hint of character drive, as it is the lead characters that truly drives the movie along. After entering the long grass field it isn't long before things become rather clear that something is askew in the eye concealing depths of the forest like long grass stretch of land.
Cal and Becky are soon split up in the long grassy field with time and space seemingly never ending, as before long the two although they can hear one another cannot place one another's whereabouts. The young boy that led the pair into the grass is a mysterious entity within the long grass, as he appears and then disappears almost within the blink of an eye.
That's when things get truly strange when a confident, unassuming man appears out of nowhere after crossing paths with Becky offering his help to find their way back onto the road and off the long grass land. However, things are not all as they seem as the never ending long grass field has no out, but appears to have quite a mysterious forest-like feel to it.
Trapped in a long grass field maze, the brother and sister are seemingly on two separate continents with no way of ever possibly finding one another, but then like in almost a blink of the eye the story switches time and space to introduce new faces and possible answers to questions that have been haunting the mind to this point.
This is where the movie truly ends for me as it did not satisfy my need for curiosity and neither did it alter time and space in ways that might have intrigued me. The whole movie is a simple mash-up of characters that we don't really care for, nor want to succeed in escaping. It is perhaps the worst Stephen King movie adaptation that has ever come into existence, but it is still watchable if seen without high expectations.
The pluses for the movie is that the acting was above par for a simple Netflix Original movie, the story was thought provoking, the twists were slightly surprising therefore a good side note for the movie, and the long grass field was an intriguing setting for a horror movie.
Watch with low expectations and it might feel more enjoyable. Enough said.
Why I Hate This Movie!
Up to this point I’ve been pretty fair in expressing relatively everything that is positive about this movie, but it’s a mediocre blemish of a movie. End of.
The movie starts out weak, follows through weak, and has little to no redeeming qualities that could have made the movie bearable from a critique standpoint.
Watching this movie was almost like not watching a movie, and through some mysterious passage in time nearly 2 hours of my life was wasted.
Spoiler ALERT. The movie ends the same way it began, and that irritated me, but what near destroyed me was the useless changing of time while someone (or everyone) is stuck in the long grass maze. Poor writing and a bad story, or the lack thereof, made this a movie I quite honestly and wholeheartedly hate.
The characters are linear, the story is confusing without enlightenment, and the movie truly had no exceptional qualities that might have left a few people eager to defend the experience watching it. Patrick Wilson (starred in The Conjuring) was probably the worst part about this movie, as his character was mostly just bewildering and annoying, which leads one to believe the actor made a mistake starring in the movie.
Overall, the movie was baffling, convoluted, and had way too many time lapses for the movie to feel generally entertaining. Watching In the Tall Grass feels like a bad experience when all is said and done, and the so called evil within the tall grass is nothing more than an evil (spoiler alert!) giant alien-like egg that has power over the tall grass land, and nothing beyond, which is strange.
In the Tall Grass is a bad movie, but if someone was seeking out a movie that is so bad its good then this wouldn't be the right approach either, as 'Tall Grass' really isn't that bad, but cannot be stated as good either, so its a mediocre B-movie at best, and for some that might be enough. However, I have had one too many encounters with mediocre, middle-of-the-road movies, and that in itself is why I hated In the Tall Grass as much as I do since it had no real attempts at becoming an all-rounded good movie.
Netflix Mediocre Trash That Better Belongs On Amazon Prime Instant Video
Netflix has become a cinema all of its own accord in recent years, with mostly decent to exceptional Netflix Original movies, but just like with the cinema there are times when the studio house simply isn't pulling their weight and a terrible movie passes through the green light, and "In the Tall Grass" is one of these movies.
In the Tall Grass is a simple movie, but tried to go complex and the whole movie overlaps itself into the oblivion, making way for errors and mistakes to plague the movies ever-waking moments. Amazon Prime is used to making trash movies without any forgiveness for the unsuspecting audience, and In the Tall Grass feels like a rip-off in comparison to the amazing works we are seeing in the actual cinemas and just because this is a Netflix Original movie doesn't mean the movie won't be judged any differently.
2/5 Rating
- In the Tall Grass is currently streaming on Netflix UK.