Forests have traditionally been the go-to location when horror movies want to add suspense, but there has been a rise in the use of grass fields as the scene of horror movies, and this trend has not been confined to Hollywood. Most American films use maize fields as the usual staple, but Stephen King’s venue for his novella (which was later made into a movie) was in a vast field of Miscanthus spp.
I have recently started following Hindi and other non-American films (and love it, so much so that I haven’t watched a single English language movie in a month already!), and one of the offerings in Amazon prime drew me in. The cover of the movie depicted a woman lost in a maze-like field of towering grasses, and that was enough to draw me into watching the film.
The film tells the story of a couple who flee the city and stay in a rural home hidden deep within a vast sugarcane field (Saccharum officinarum). The wife is 8 months pregnant, and it turns out this is crucial to what happens next in the plot. I won’t spoil the crux of the story, but it was a low key but effective horror film, with lots of eerie moments and even a few times when I literally jumped in surprise.
Suffice it to say there were a ton of scenes involving the sugarcane field, whether it’s the people being lost in the towering grasses, or simply as background to the drama that unfolds as the film progresses. In all cases, the field is portrayed as something ominous and even evil. Perhaps it is even a metaphor, in that the wall of grasses signifies their “walled off” status and isolation from the outside world. The frequency with which the characters get lost in the maze of grasses and have to find their way back can also be said to signify their confusion about the horrid events that swirl around them.
I enjoyed the film, not only for the numerous scenes involving the sugarcane field, but because I empathized with the pregnant wife, and her frantic efforts to save her unborn baby. The film currently is in Amazon Prime, although it may also have been uploaded to youtube.
ps. Chhorii means “girl” in Hindi.
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