Studio: Shudder
Director: Sam Walker
Writer: Sam Walker
Producer: Chris Hardman, Matt Hookings, Paul Parker, James Norrie
Stars: Lucy Martin, Chelsea Edge, Sophie Vavasseur
Review Score:
Summary:
An Instagram influencer’s friends go to the desert to stream a rare meteor shower and end up becoming custodians of an unusual alien creature.
Review:
Before self-centered words start spitting out of her malicious mouth, Deidre reveals everything about her predictably pretentious personality by the way she confidently struts in her hot body wardrobe. Cutoff tank top. Cutoff denim shorts. Studded belt. Studded purse. Huge hoop earrings. Rings on every finger with a manicure to match. An Instagram influencer to the extreme, if Deidre can’t witness the world through a cellphone screen streaming to a legion of lusting followers, then did it ever even happen at all?
Somehow, of course, the conceited rich bitch archetype always accessorizes with a comparatively reserved wallflower for a friend. That dishonor falls to Charlotte, who covers her quiet heart of gold with a one-piece bathing suit while Deidre sports a stringy bikini. She doesn’t have any social media either, so Charlotte just has to grin and bear Deidre’s mean girl jabs and jeers about being out of touch with hip trends.
Heather bridges the gap between the two. Like Deidre, she also overdresses with jingly jewelry and a face full of wedding-ready makeup for an afternoon of lounging where no one else will see her. But like Charlotte, Heather can be compassionate, though that’s more motivated by a non-confrontational desire to avoid conflict than anything altruistic.
Virtually all films go through a requisite “get to know everyone” phase, except “The Seed’s” first act quickly becomes redundant since everyone’s simple characterizations are crystal clear from their first two minutes onscreen. Nevertheless, we get cornered with the mildly gabby gals as they soak up some sun, pass a joint, and blather, I mean banter, about nothing particularly important. We already have more than enough to move on, yet the movie still lingers here for a bit.
The reason these women have come to a remote house in the desert is to record a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower. Not sure why an online model’s ardent admirers would want to watch pixilated dots streak across a four-inch screen, but that’s the setup.
Unfortunately for Deidre, the cosmic storm wreaks havoc on their phones, sending her big plan to be a sexy Carl Sagan up in smoke. Also up in smoke is the meteorite that crash-lands in the pool. At first, the women assume it’s a foul-smelling space rock. They soon learn it might actually be a dead animal they identify as a mixture between a bear and an armadillo in a running joke that keeps running long after it uses up all of that joke.
For another ten movie minutes spanning the rest of that evening plus the following morning, Deidre, Charlotte, and Heather talk about the possibly extraterrestrial entity with no more concern than one might give a cold bowl of oatmeal. The only music throughout this saggy stretch comes from sustained, subdued electronic keyboard strains. So even though “The Seed” comes billed as a horror-comedy, there aren’t any humorous cues in the commonplace conversations or in accompanying audio that might insert energy into unhurried action.
The next ten minutes are occupied by a diversion where the women try bargaining with a pimply teenager, who wandered in from a completely different comedy than “The Seed” is on either side of his scenes, to get the alien creature out of their yard. From there, the movie moves on to a montage of the main trio slugging shots, wearing wigs, and posing playfully in slow-motion for a poolside photo shoot. Due to this droning drag that pacing can’t quite pull itself out of, “The Seed” has an uphill battle pitched at 90 degrees for instilling any eagerness in the audience to see where this story goes.
Where does the story go? Into a listless limbo between “Critters” and something more serious as a pint-sized puppet preps an alien invasion by possessing the women like pod people. It’s hard to put a finger on because “The Seed” never finds whatever quirky tone it aimlessly searches for. I would have taken “Lost in Space” campiness, “Creepshow” kookiness, David Lynch weirdness, Troma crudeness, or something, anything that might add more frights or more fun to give “The Seed” a distinct identity instead of the flavorless feeling it ends up with.
“The Seed” gains no good ground on its hamstrung technical merits either. I don’t know exactly what kind of camera was used to shoot the film. End credits include an Arri logo. Whatever model it might have been, to say the cinematography appears “off” would be putting it charitably. Whether it was the camera, inferior lenses, or terrible technique, anyone and anything that isn’t in the center third of the frame wears a blurry halo of distortion, like “The Seed” shot in front of a green screen and couldn’t digitally brush away the seams. Either that or shots were poorly exposed and then color corrected to within an inch of their life in post-production.
Suffice it to say, “The Seed” only stands out as a fizzling filler film on the wrong side of the median line for Shudder’s usual streaming screamer standard. It might meet the expectations of a lesser label since it falls more in line with the lower budget releases of a banner like Dread Presents. But I’m not sure if they’re even in the distribution game anymore, so maybe this is where those movies now land too.
Review Score: 40
If you want to see impossible amounts of blood explode crimson colors like the world’s worst version of a gender reveal, well, “Abigail” at least has that.