Shudder's 'The Seed' review: A gory invasion horror that misses the mark

Horror is one of those genres where the "so bad it's good" label cheerfully thrives, and movies with an abundance of gore and limited character development can sometimes ascend to the realms of cult classic.

The Seedprobably won't be joining them.

Writer/director Sam Walker's debut horror feature — an alien invasion movie about three women on a doomed weekend away in the Mojave Desert — has lots of promising elements, but in the end it never quite manages to find its mark.

The Seedstarts out with three friends — confident social media influencer Deidre (Lucy Martin), reserved and studious Charlotte (Chelsea Edge), and somewhere-in-between-the-two Heather (Sophie Vavasseur) — driving off to Heather's father's house in the Mojave for the weekend. The plan? Drink, take drugs, and take advantage of the clear Californian night sky to watch a rare meteor shower (uh-oh) that's due to take place.

As you can probably guess, the astrological event brings more than just meteors with it, and after a strange creature crash-lands in the pool the trio find themselves battling for their lives while their phones glitch and help remains a long way off.

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Credit: Shudder/AMC Networks

All the elements are there, right? The setup might not be the most original, but with a heavy dose of comedy and/or gore, or at least a fun exposition of the central mystery, The Seedcould have had potential. The problem, oddly, is it doesn't really lay it on thick enough. There are some amusing moments ("This is not what our weekend was supposed to be like," laments Heather at one point. "Running around dealing with a dead bear. It's not cool! It's not cool at all!"), and many gory moments (Walker goes heavy on black slime, to fun effect), but there isn't really enough of either to compete in a genre that's already got plenty of both.

The other problem is the characters. Although they're different enough to generate a bit of friction, we never really get enough of their backstories for them to be developed fully. The upshot of this is that we don't care about them all that much, and when things start going from bad to worse it's difficult be all that fussed about whether they survive.

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As I mentioned above, some of these things could have been overlooked if the film's core idea was fleshed out more. And in fairness, there are hints of this — some of the movie's best moments are the entertainingly trippy flashes experienced by characters coming into contact with the lifeform — but again, it's not quite enough. A sideplot involving a ramshackle neighbour's house attempts to expand on the creature's origins, too, but it ends up being more of a dead-end than a satisfying explanation. It's frustrating.

So is The Seedall bad? Not at all. Walker's direction is solid, the actors do what they can with their limited characters, and there are more than a few entertaining moments and ideas in the film. The potential is there, and maybe Walker's next movie will tie everything together — but for now, at least, The Seedfeels more like an understandably patchy first attempt.

The Seed is streaming on Shudder from March 10.

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