Sean Parker
One of the films I most anticipated at this year’s FrightFest was undoubtedly Seth Daly’s The Rows. A film about a kid in a cornfield avoiding a group of murderers was like drawing a moth to a flame. Sure, the cornfield is getting a little overcrowded these days with a lackluster reboot of Children of the Corn, 2023’s Dark Harvest, 2022’s Escape the Field, Netflix’s In the Tall Grass, Shudder’s Clown in a Cornfield, and I am only covering the last few years. Cornfields are unforgivingly creepy places. The visibility between rows is low, and every sound instills paranoia, and in the case of our young protagonist Lucy (Brindisi Dupree), what you can’t see or hear can kill you.
The audience is introduced to Lucy already in the middle of the cornfield, waking up from an apparent headwound and happy to discover her missing boot not far from her. A row or two away from where she’s awoken, she finds a body with its face covered by a make-shift hood, giving it something of a scarecrow-like quality. After investigating the cause of his death, she takes the man’s gun and continues through the corn. It’s a surreal start that plays out like a f*cked up Wizard of Oz, awaking to the need for footwear, discovering the body of a man with something she’ll need on her journey, and having a loyal canine companion in Petra (Bragi). Maybe she isn’t in Kansas anymore, but she’ll have to wake up from this sun-soaked nightmare to find out.
The hooded men are led by an unnamed character, listed in the credits as Leader, and Marcus Woods plays this part with brilliant, brutal force. The performance builds an added sense of anxiety into the film, knowing that this guy is one mean mother*cker. It helps us root for Lucy as he directs his crew, which includes equally eccentric members: Hammer (Rynn Reigns), Pump (Hans Heilmann), and Denim (Daly).
As The Rows’ story progresses, the center section of this tale provides the setup. The film moves slightly out of sync like Strange Darling or Pulp Fiction, but it all interlocks by the start of the third act. Though Daly starts you in the middle of the action, the plot really doesn’t change much as the story jumps backward for act two. The audience is given a little more to work with on the “why” and “how” sides of things, but the idea of survival is almost intrinsic to the viewer, and the reason this young girl is in the middle of this mess becomes arbitrary as a result. The reasoning is a little obscured anyway; there are a million reasons that four masked men with guns might be breaking into this farmhouse, and none of them are good.
While the story suggests that this has something to do with the absent patriarch of the family, Clay, numerous contextual clues suggest alternatives. The books on the shelving unit Lilia (Mary Montoya) is setting up, the supportive and nurturing nature of Lucy and Lilia’s mother, Calia (Lara Pictet), and the fact that there are three women alone in a house against four burly, Carhartt and Duluth-adorned men with masks and guns. Are we sure they weren’t always the targets? There are also ruminations of some other, more racially charged motivations. The imagery of men in hooded masks stalking a young Black girl through a cornfield is pretty powerful, even if the people wearing them are themselves Black. But there’s also a line of dialogue toward the end of the film that gives this theory further credence.
The Rows’ first act really sets it apart from most modern horror films. Like No One Will Save You, there’s little to no dialogue, and the film’s sound design is heavily on display. Every corn stalk sway, twig snap, and bated breath Lucy takes adds to the heightened atmosphere before Brandon Maahs’ score completely shreds your nerves. Seriously, the score is so good, Waxwork or someone needs to put a The Rows vinyl in my hand like yesterday, because I’m going to spin the hell out of it.
As Daly’s first feature, The Rows is a terrific effort that shows the emerging auteur’s patience and aptitude for atmospheric horror. Something difficult to do in a movie that mostly takes place during the day. There are some brilliant and unforgettable images lurking in this cornfield, and the nail-biting suspense only adds to the experience. The violence itself is rather grizzly to boot, adding a dark realism to the film, while other elements are staunchly surreal. That being said, it’s also easy to get a little confused by some aspects of the film. While the film relies heavily on using your senses to gather information, some viewers may be thrown off by the surface-level character dialogue, which is designed to manipulate and instill fear. To that end, the film is exceptionally visceral and pays off for any moviegoer looking slightly deeper than believing Leader and his gang were ever actually here just for Clay.
I had high hopes for The Rows before FrightFest, and I have to say they were met and surpassed at many turns. I initially thought The Rows might end up being a bit of a Town That Dreaded Sundown, but the homage works while providing something slightly more original. While there are some things I’m still a little unsure of, such as a man draped in gold from head to toe, simply known as The Moon Man (Douglas Fries), I have to admit that there’s a fascination in what he may represent. Regardless, the film managed to exceed all my expectations and deliver a disquieting rush of heart-pounding excitement that does not let up, and it’s among my favorites of the movies I saw at FrightFest this year.
The Rows held its World Premiere at FrightFest on Monday, August 25. For more information on this and other films playing at the festival, please see the FrightFest website.
