Horror Movie Review: The Seed (2021)

Promising a gory body horror experience, The Seed takes way too long to get going to hold the attention when the nasty bits start. A real shame, as it has some impressive effects.

Written and directed by Sam Walker, The Seed stars Lucy Martin, Chelsea Edge, and Sophie Vavasseur as Deidre, Charlotte, and Heather. Three friends who are spending the weekend together at Heather’s father’s holiday home in the Mojave Desert. Aside from having a weekend of fun, the three are planning to watch an upcoming meteor shower.

That is until one of the meteors crash lands on the property and they find it is some sort of creature. It appears harmless, almost babylike, so the three friends disagree over how to handle it. With Charlotte in particular, unwilling to just kill it. A decision she will come to regret.

Utilising elements of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Slither, and traditional body horror movies, The Seed excels at one thing – letting your imagination go wild. Needed too, as the film is slow moving and dull for a lot of its runtime. A lot of that falls at the feet of the writing, in particular, the three characters who are cliches and extremely unlikable. It’s hard to get behind anyone, least of all the bland ‘hero’ character. No fault of the actors though, who do what they can with the basic outlines thy are given.

Which means most are expecting the alien/body horror aspect to do the heavy lifting. Something that just doesn’t satisfy as the film initially plays it coy with if the alien is threatening or not. When it does begin to cause bother, its abilities are wide-ranging and unclear. It seems incredibly powerful for what it is, able to hypnotise and impregnate after being seemingly dead a day or two before.

Considering the story, it’s surprising just how unbelievable a lot of it is.

Then, as the movie officially runs out of ideas, we get a rushed finale where the gore and body horror options are turned on and The Seed enters gross territory.

It’s impressive looking stuff and the cast really turn it on here. Now imagine this with characters we actually cared about or an alien threat that had more time to grow. It would make The Seed much more memorable.

Not a good film. Not a bad film. The Seed sits squarely in the middle. Most will get a kick out of the gruesome body horror aspects and enjoy its initial setup, but don’t expect a wild ride. It’s a slow moving experience when it really shouldn’t have been.