In the Tall Grass is based on a story by Stephen King and Joe Hill that was originally published in two parts in Esquire back in 2012 and is now arriving on Netflix as a 102 minute movie directed by Vincenzo Natali. In the Tall Grass is one of those stories that when you read it you think ”there is no way this can be filmed”. In the case of this one it’s mainly because it’s both strange and quite brutal. But I was wrong. It’s now filmed, and it works. Vincenzo did it and I think he did it very well. Here is why.

The story is about Becky and Cal, who while driving to San Diego, stop by a field and while there they hear a kid, Tobin, calling them, claiming he is lost in the field and can’t find his way out. Wanting to help both Becky and Cal go into the field to find him but instead they both get lost themselves. While in there they do find Tobin and his parents, but the problem now is that they are all lost in the tall grass...

The movie follows the written story quite close. There are some changes though and changes can be good or bad. This time I think they are good. There are two major changes. The first one is that Vincenzo has included Travis in the story. Travis is the guy that got Becky pregnant and in the written story he is not included but here he plays a rather big part. In the written story he wasn’t really needed but here he earns his place.

The second thing Vincenzo changes works really well I think and that is the time jumps. I know some people don’t like things like that, but I do. I love when characters call themselves from the future or meet versions of themselves or other characters that they really shouldn’t be able to meet. I love things like that, but they need to be explained and I need to understand them, and that I do here. What Vincenzo does in the movie is nothing less than turn time into a knot and then he explains it by untying it.

That in combination with a great cast makes this yet another successful collaboration between King and Netflix.

I think that Vincenzo Natali did a great job adapting this strange and gruesome story. He kept that feeling from the story and added elements that worked really well on the screen. Good work.