In The Tall Grass 2020 Plot

Save The Cat Beat Sheet for In The Tall Grass (2019)

Opening Image: Driving near open fields discussing family needs.

Theme: Choices are our own and not influenced by others.

Set-Up: Becky is 6 months pregnant and driving cross country with her brother Cal to offer up her baby to an adoptive family. While driving through the vast grasslands of an unknown place (Nebraska or Kansas like landscape.) Becky becomes morning sick and asks to pull the car over onto the side of the road.

Catalyst: As Becky and Cal are talking a young boy is heard from the grass area calling for help, he tells them his name is “Tobin”. Cal steps up and thinks he can hear the young boy just behind a row of grass. He leaves Becky disappearing behind the grassline, and she decides to follow him attempting to call 911.

Debate: Where is the boy and how do we get ourselves back out? Does the field not work in the way we expect it too? What are the powers of the Rock exactly? Why is this other family here in the field?

Break Into Act II: Travis (Becky’s Ex boyfriend) comes driving the same path that Cal and Becky did. He finds Cal’s old car on the side of the road and decides to enter the grass field. Tobin finds Travis and tells him that Becky is dead, even leading him to her body in advanced stages of decay. Travis, distraught and tired, passes out and the next morning finds that Tobin is gone.

B Story: Tobin and his family are pulled onto the side of the road for his father to take a business call while they still have reception. Travis in the field thinks he can hear Tobin talking and shouts out for him to help him. The Tobin standing on the side of the road is Tobin in the past before he entered the field with his family and Golden Retriever. They enter the field as they hear Travis’ cries for help and the dog runs in ahead without Tobin.

Fun and Games: Dead dog allows Travis, Becky, “Mid-timeline Tobin” (before touching the rock and giving in) and Cal to find one another in the field as dead things don’t move. The four of them attempt to find the run down church that was nearby when each of them pulled over in the first place. Run into Ross (Tobins father) who tells them he can guide them out and how relieved he is to see his son. They follow him, but end up back at the large ancient Rock in the Field.

Midpoint: Ross tells the group the way out is to touch the rock and let it teach them. Tobin’s mother wanders out from the grass to the Rock. She’s horrified by her husband and expresses to the group that he tried to kill her and her son early on in the field. Ross attacks his wife, crushing her skull between his hands.

Bad Guys Close In: The group runs and is pursued by crazy Ross. They try to find a place to hide and fall into in-fighting.

All is Lost: Cal and Travis scout views from the top of the hideout bowling alley, Travis slips, Cal catches him by his shirt and then lets go attempting to kill Travis.

Dark Night Of the Soul: Becky finds out her brother Cal killed Travis on purpose and runs into the grass again to loose him. Cal gets lost again and is murdered by Ross. Becky is aslo found by Ross and dragged away unconscious.

Break into Act III: Travis is not actually dead. He stands up to go save Becky.

Finale: In Becky’s dehydration and exhausted delirium she has visions of Ross as though he were Cal and feeding her her own premature born baby. The nearby Rock then quakes and the ground beneath shows lost and clamouring souls of the tall grass personified and completing a ritual of some kind. Travis stumbles onto the scene and attacks Ross, he’s unsuccessful until Becky in a final way gangs up on Ross allowing Travis time to turn the fight and kill Ross. Becky dies, and only Travis and Tobin are left. Travis goes to touch the rock on purpose to connect with the Tall Grass Field and see all the paths to take. He then leads Tobin by the arm through a series of turns in the field and places Tobin in a time slip + Temporal rift allowing Tobin to be standing inside the rundown church near the road. Tobin runs outside as he hears Cal and Becky from the beginning scene to debate on whether to go answer Tobins initial cries for help.

Final Image: Dirtied Tobin from the future convinces Becky and Cal from the past to ignore the cries for help and drive away right then and there. Becky contemplates keeping her child and returning home. Travis, having sacrificed himself, dies in the field.