Movie Review: The Seed

There are various elements of any horror movie that can attract plenty of people simply because they happen to see something worthwhile in the story. Initially, The Seed looks like the type of movie that could go either way, meaning it could be an interesting and mind-boggling experience with plenty of gore, or it could be the type of movie that looks as though it might be interesting, but never goes any deeper than what it is seen in the trailer. The movie falls somewhere in the middle to be certain since it’s not so horrible that it can’t be watched, but it is bound to leave a few audience members anxious and perhaps even frustrated since it does fall back on certain habits that can make a horror movie great or keep it mediocre. Unfortunately, the movie tends to stick to the latter since the overall story had a chance to be something insanely terrifying. But the execution makes it clear that stepping outside of any boundaries is a temptation that many would take, but not everyone is going to capitalize on. 

Things start simply enough as three friends, which is a loose term when applied to the three women in the story, head out to a home in the Mojave desert to stay at a home owned by one of their fathers. Heather, Dierdre, and Charlotte are out in the middle of nowhere to witness a meteor shower that is about to happen, but it becomes a kind of easy to tell that there isn’t a great deal of harmony between the three of them as Dierdre is revealed to be a very materialistic, vain, and downright mean individual. Charlotte comes off as the type that’s not perfect but has a lot more heart than Dierdre, perhaps to the point that she’s a bit of a bleeding heart type of character, while Heather is by far and large the mediator between the two. Heather comes off as a woman that is still focused quite a bit on fashion, glam, and her own popularity but has a soft spot for Charlotte. In other words, the three women have three distinct personalities that the audience should be able to see will seal their fate at one point in the movie. 

During the meteor shower, the three women note that a couple of meteors appear to be on strange trajectories that don’t appear normal, but being more about fashion and fun they let it go, at least until an object crashes into the pool not long after the meteor shower. When they fish it out of the pool the women find that there is a strange creature stuck in the rocky substance. Deciding to leave it alone, they go about their own business once again. The next day, it’s found that the creature has shed the rocky exterior and has crawled off. When the women find it they discover that it’s still alive, and while they don’t kill it, they try to get their young gardener to haul it away. When he runs off, the women discuss killing it again, but instead, they leave it alone again. And then the expected stupidity happens as Charlotte, the bleeding heart character, brings the creature into the house, and even feeds it. 

When Charlotte and Heather head out one day to see if they can find someone to take the creature away, the alien hypnotizes Dierdre, who was planning to kill it with rat poison. Upon returning, Heather and Charlotte note that Dierdre is acting strangely, but of course, they do nothing. Eventually, Heather is hypnotized by the creature, and changes as well, while Charlotte is nearly hypnotized, but breaks free of the control after she sees a vision of what the creature means to do. The creature means to impregnate those that come under its influence and then spread its seed until its species dominate the earth. It’s simple and horrific, but it works. In any case, Charlotte tries to get her friends to realize what kind of danger they’re in. But by that time it’s too late as both Heather and Dierdre start vomiting a black substance as they also start to bleed from the eyes. Their bellies swell, proving that they’ve been impregnated, and at one point they both fall under the creature’s control.

Once Charlotte tries to kill the creature, she is in turn attacked by Dierdre and Heather, who then run after Charlotte does kill the alien. Charlotte ends up killing Heather, then goes after Dierdre, who is saved by a cowboy out scouting the area. While he doesn’t kill Charlotte, he does knock her down with a shot to the collarbone. When she regains consciousness, Charlotte finds that Dierdre, whose body is changing due to her exposure to the alien, has killed the cowboy before collapsing against the back of his truck. Charlotte kills her with a shot to the head, and upon looking up to the sky sees that another meteor shower has started as the sky lights up with a swarm of falling objects. In all honesty, the ending was one of the best parts of the movie and could have been better as the beginning.