Genre Research 'In the Tall Grass' (2019)

Camera angles:

Throughout the movie they use a variety of camera angles. To start off, when the movie begins they use and aerial shot of the car and field of tall grass. They also use a tracking shot of the car and a few close ups of the faces of two of the main characters. They also use panning and tilting to show movement in the grass. There are also a lot of low angles and medium shots used.

Costumes, lighting, actors, makeup, props, setting: 

The characters wear normal clothes, with the pregnant woman wearing a dress and everyone wearing casual attire. The clothes get increasingly more dirty to show passage of time in the field. The characters don’t ever change costumes because of it taking place in the same day. The lighting is pretty natural, only changing when it turns to night. Though when the characters see visions the lighting turns red and green to show it is unnatural. The props the characters have are the things they brought with them into the grass, for example the necklace the pregnant woman had on her that her ex gave her. Other than that they didn’t have many props. The setting is a large neverending field of tall grass next to a church.

Sounds:

At the beginning of the movie they used non-diegetic and diegetic sound. There was a song playing from the start of the movie that was revealed to be playing from the car’s radio. In the background there was yelling from the people in the tall grass which would get louder or quieter to show the distance between the characters changing. When it cut to the car the song became background noise. The movie also relied on the sound of grass moving throughout it. Some of the sounds were also just the sound of the characters walking in the mud. They also played whispering and chanting whenever it reached a climatic point to show suspense.  

Editing:

One of the main things they used in the movie was blurring and focusing. It would slowly reveal what was happening by slowly focusing on the subject in front of the camera, leaving you to want to know what was happening. They also used slow motion on the grass in some parts to show the rain or blood dripping on it. They also used a lot of cuts from scene to scene. 

Elements of thriller in the movie:

The movie kept the viewer in constant suspense and never really gave too much information, leaving those watching on edge. There were a few points where you would think you understood something only to be revealed that something else entirely was going on which would surprise you.

What elements of the genre did the movie have that you liked?

I enjoyed some of the suspense and getting to see if what I thought would happen would happen.

What elements of the genre did the movie have that did not appeal to you? 

The constant shift from point to point left me a little confused so I didn’t particularly like that.