The opening moments of writer/director Barnaby Clay’s feature debut, The Seeding, call to mind extreme desert-set horror films like The Hills Have Eyes. A small child toddles through harsh, sandy terrain as he contently gnaws on a severed finger. The camera then watches overhead as a man parks his car and heads out to photograph a solar eclipse overhead, far from the bustling city and oblivious to any danger. It’s here where The Seeding quickly leaves familiar territory behind in favor of psychological arthouse fare.
The man, Wyndham Stone (Scott Haze), nearly makes it back to his car safe and sound until he comes upon a crying boy claiming to be lost. Wyndham knows something is amiss, but his guilt at the possibility of abandoning a child in peril overrides all warning signals. Before he knows it, he’s drawn into the wild and becomes lost himself. Dehydration and exhaustion set in, and hope comes beckoning from an ethereal voice singing from the bottom of a large pit. He climbs down to find an isolated woman, Alina (Kate Lyn Sheil), living alone in a makeshift cottage. Wyndham also discovers that it’s a trap; he’s been purposefully corralled there by a feral pack of boys. Why these violent kids have placed him with their other captive, Alina, and finding a way out of his crater-like prison becomes Wyndham’s top priority before he befalls a grisly fate.
It’s here that The Seeding falls into a repetitive pattern earmarked by chapters named after lunar cycles. Clay leans into the contrasting imagery of the blazing sun and frigid lunar glow to underscore the strange push-and-pull between Wyndham and Alina. Wyndham is all explosive panic and rage against his current predicament, the stark opposite of the skittish yet nurturing Alina. Wyndham frantically searches for ways to escape, bewildered by Alina’s calm acceptance. Despite being trapped together, the pair frequently struggle to connect or forge common ground. Clay withholds any overt answers about their predicament to instead explore the contrasting masculine and feminine psyches under extreme duress.
Because The Seeding is far more interested in the philosophical and existential repercussions of this unhinged setup and the psychological state of its two captive leads, the horror comes sporadically via the feral pack, led by unsettling, deranged older boys Corvus (Alex Montaldo) and Arvo (Michael Monsour). But their effectiveness lessens the longer the distance between them and their captives is maintained, as they taunt from the cliff tops, and the more Wyndham’s petulant, brash behavior drives the story forward. The longer we spend with Wyndham, the more grating he becomes, even as his harrowing plight inherently earns sympathy.
Scott Haze and Kate Lyn Sheil in THE SEEDING, a Magnet release. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.
That’s not Haze’s fault, but the heavy-handedness of the storytelling. The Seeding seeks to explore themes of masculinity and being trapped by life cycles, but it’s obliquely rendered and shallow in its examination. Much like the desert setting, the barebones narrative leaves everything even more exposed. Clay’s eye for framing and imagery and Robert Leitzell’s artful cinematography provide visual interest that elevates the shallow narrative. It’s the quiet, meditative, yet superficial observations that make the runtime feel far more sluggish than it is. With a title like The Seeding and overhead shots of a dusty desert road oddly shaped like sperm, to pinpoint a few examples, this slow-burn’s payoff gets telecast far too early in the proceedings to warrant the lethargic descent into madness that follows.
Clay’s eye for composition and Sheil’s beguiling performance are highlights in an arthouse horror story that plays it too safe with the horror. Despite Alina’s elusive nature, there’s no real sense of mystery here and not much depth beyond simple observation. It robs the proceedings of any tension, compounded by Wyndham’s increasingly erratic behavior. The Seeding plays better as a haunting visual poem than a horror feature, but one that’s far more shallow than its central chasm setting suggests.
The Seeding releases in theaters and on VOD on January 26, 2024.
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