Corn can swallow a person the way quicksand does. Silo, a 2019 American drama-thriller from director Marshall Josh Burnette, builds its whole story on that danger, following a farm town through the hours after a teenager is trapped inside a grain bin.
What is Silo about?
Cody Rose is a teenager in a small American farming community where almost everyone's living depends on the harvest. During an ordinary working day he ends up inside a silo that stands roughly fifty feet tall, and the grain beneath him begins to shift. Stored corn does not behave like solid ground; once it starts to flow it pulls downward, and Cody is caught in it with the level rising around him. Word spreads quickly. Neighbours, farm workers and local responders gather at the foot of the structure, and many of them arrive carrying old quarrels and grudges with one another. None of that can matter while the boy is sinking. The townspeople have to work out, under pressure and with limited equipment, how to reach him before the crop they grow for a living buries him.
About the cast
Jeremy Holm, Jill Paice and Jack DiFalco are the first names in the cast list, joined by Jim Parrack, Chris Ellis, James DeForest Parker, Danny Ramirez and Daniel R. Hill. It is an ensemble piece by design, since the story concerns a whole community rather than a single hero. Marshall Josh Burnette directs.
Context & significance
At 76 minutes, Silo is a compact feature, and its short length suits a plot that unfolds around one location and one emergency. Grain entrapment is a real agricultural hazard, and the film treats it as the subject rather than as a backdrop: the drama comes from the physical behaviour of stored corn and from the people who have to respond to it. That places Silo somewhere between a rescue thriller and a rural drama about neighbours who depend on one another whether they like it or not. Audiences who enjoy survival stories set in confined spaces, or films about working life in small-town America, are the natural viewers here. The production is from the United States.
Watching Silo on Ktime
Silo is in the K-Time catalogue with both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles, so you can choose whichever suits you. K-Time is a Persian-focused streaming service for the Iranian diaspora with a Farsi interface. This page is free to read; to start the film, log in with your K-Time account.