**½/****
starring Lucy Martin, Chelsea Edge, Sophie Vavasseur
written and directed by Sam Walker
by Walter Chaw A spirited if familiar body-horror comedy, Sam Walker’s hyphenate debut The Seed showcases a sharp, clean writing/directing aesthetic that doesn’t do anything particularly novel but does the old stuff with verve and economy. Here, a trio of pals decamps to a mod-mansion in the middle of nowhere to watch a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower. At least, that’s why “geek-hot” Charlotte (Chelsea Edge) is there. Her influencer buddy Deidre (Lucy Martin) is on hand to livestream the weekend’s events, while yoga instructor Heather (Sophie Vavasseur) wouldn’t say no to a few new clicks for her business, either. The sunbathing, margaritas, mild eruptions of personal grievance, and almost-immediate interruption of cell service are all taken care of in the first 10 minutes. Then it’s on to the uncomfortably-close meteor shower that leads to them wondering if “it’s supposed to do that?” Probably not. Suddenly a thing falls into the pool, starts gooping, is fished out by our heroes (lest Heather’s dad “kill” her), and, of course, resolves itself to be a very stinky alien. “I think God took a shit in your pool, Heather,” observes Diedre, the mean one. The rest of the film is what happens when this divine excrement wakes up.
With its Night of the Comet repartee and Ghoulies/The Blob origin story, The Seed soon becomes a “How’s the Night Life on Cissalda?”/Possession conceit, with a little bit of The Brood for good measure; if you’re a fan of the genre, in other words, you’ll recognize where it’s going. It’s fun to imagine people stupid enough to think what is obviously an alien is a Frankenheimer’s Prophecy mutant-armadillo/bear creature, and there are moments the picture’s exceedingly mild critique of how social media has murdered our attention spans while gratifying our narcissism lands a gentle barb or two. But really, The Seed is about hot chicks getting in over their head at the beginning of the apocalypse. Much depends, then, on the level of engagement of the actors and their willingness to go all-in, and The Seed is blessed with a wonderful cast and what seems like a lack of interest in being anything more than what it is. It’s a throwback, in that sense: a new horror film that keeps whatever subtext it has firmly in the subtext. Though it’s possible to read the film as a commentary on PETA activism, or new-age veganism, or different types of femininity, or sexuality and reproduction, or motherhood, or, as I said, social media, the script doesn’t waste any time ventriloquizing things that are either manifestly evident, endemic to the text, or otherwise too embarrassing to articulate.
The flipside, of course, is that while The Seed can be read as many things, it doesn’t have all that much on its mind. The practical effects are fun, the pace is fleet, and the movie’s funny when it means to be. There’s a moment worth mentioning where the women are dragging the alien on a tarp and give up because the beastie is heavy and it’s hot out. As they walk away, Walker lingers on their strides, which tell where their characters are at that point in time: Diedre is haughty over being asked to work; Heather is scared about what her dad will think; and Charlotte is reluctant to abandon what she sees as an injured animal needing help. All of that behavioural information is communicated silently, ending with a shot of the monster in the extreme foreground that serves as both a punchline as well as a hint that the creature is in the process of evolving. Although the vibe is entirely different, the scene reminded me of how each member of the crew exhibits a different response to an unknown threat in the immediate aftermath of the chestburster in Alien. Walker has what I have to think is an innate flair for visual storytelling–I say “innate” because his script isn’t nearly as interested in giving these characters much depth beyond attitude, quips, and comebacks. Walker the writer ultimately hamstrings Walker the director. In short, The Seed is fine, though I think the filmmakers might be capable of better than fine.
