Watched March 27, 2009
SYNOPSIS
Serial killer Max Seed is electrocuted twice and buried alive, but digs himself up and returns to have his revenge on the people who tried to kill him.
SHORT REVIEW
"Seed" is pretty damn bad, but nowhere as bad as Uwe Boll haters want you to think it is.
REVIEW
I have no problem with Uwe Boll. This may be because I haven't seen the films that are considered his worst (I've only seen this and "In the Name of the King", which really wasn't that bad). Maybe I'll hate him as much as every other film fan in the world if I see "Alone in the Dark" or "House of the Dead", but at the moment, I think there are much worse directors in the world. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (director of "Disaster Movie", "Epic Movie", "Date Movie"), for example, make Uwe Boll look like Kubrick by comparison. I also think Boll's d-bag antics are pretty damn funny.
That being said, "Seed" is a pretty bad movie. But I've seen much worse. Much, much worse. I honestly think the only reason "Seed" is so despised (it has an abysmal 2.4 rating on IMDb) is because Uwe Boll directed it. If the exact same film was released without Boll's name attached, I'm betting it would have gotten at least a somewhat better response.
But, I'm not saying it's a good movie. It's actually really stupid. The killer, Seed, has no on-screen presence, and is not scary at all. The entire film has no suspense whatsoever. The only scares are dumb "jump scares" that you'd expect from PG-13 crapfests like "Prom Night".
The blood is mostly pretty bad CGI, and looks very fake most of the time. Not only that, but the deaths you do see are way too long and drawn out. A prime example of this comes about an hour in. In a scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, you see a woman tied to a chair and then for literally 5 minutes, Seed takes some hammer-axe thing to her head. 5 f'ing minutes. It's quite possibly one of the most ridiculously drawn-out death scenes in horror movie history. The scene also isn't shocking, as neither of the actors are convincing, and the CGI blood is so god-awful that it almost makes it laughable. The scene is also so sporadically shot, it's ridiculous. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Seed was filming himself kill this lady. So, he sets up a camera to catch all the action. So why does the camera keep zooming in and out and shaking as if the cameraman had cerebral palsy? It really doesn't make any sense.
Unfortunately, that aforementioned kill is the best shot out of all of them; mostly due to the fact that the whole rest of the film is so fucking dark, you can't make out what the hell is happening. It's as if Uwe Boll decided to save money by just going ahead and not hiring a lighting crew. The police raid of Seed's house is ridiculous, as it's basically just 10 minutes of complete darkness and some grunting noises. Plus, I think the cameraman was also having some sort of seizure, because of the parts I could see, the camera was shaking around so much, I thought I was watching "Cloverfield".
Also, the characters are the definition of cardboard cutouts. You learn absolutely nothing about any of them, to the point that you can't tell any of them apart. But, most of them are actually competent actors, except for the main policeman. Just watch the dream sequence including this actor that's about five minutes in, where he gives such a bad performance, it's laughable. "DOES ANYONE SEE THE KILLER? NO! THAT'S THE KILLER! STOP THE BUS! DON'T GIVE HIM YOUR BABY! NO!" It's ridiculously bad.
But, I gotta give Boll some props for actually having the balls to kill off people you don't expect to die.
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
The ending sequence is uncompromisingly brutal, where the main guy's daughter sees her mother get killed before her eyes, and then watches her dad graphically shoot himself live on a TV screen. To add insult to injury, Seed then locks her up with dead daddy to watch him decompose. Not many filmmakers would have the balls to do that.
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
The thing that has gotten the film most of the attention its getting is its graphic depiction of (real) animal killings at the beginning. While it has virtually no point to the rest of the film, the footage is pretty shocking. Another potential shocker is the scene where police officers watch Seed's filmed footage of a baby decomposing and being eaten by maggots. Like I said, not many filmmakers would have the balls to do that.
But all of the brutality is to make a point that humans are awful beings. Don't you all just love horror movies with morals?
After reading some reviews on Netflix (by the way, the film is one of many available to watch instantly on Netflix) afterwards, I actually gained some respect for "Seed". There were many one-star reviews, saying that the film is "absolutely revolting" and "despicable", and there were many reviewers that said they could not finish watching it because it was so sickening. While I had no trouble finishing it (I guess I'm just a bad person), I realized something. Isn't horror meant to shock? Doesn't this mean that "Seed" is a great horror film? Horror films like "Inside" and "Martyrs" are praised for being truly shocking, disturbing and hard to watch. So I guess "Seed" actually made its point well. There are truly awful people in this world, and the film may have opened people's eyes to that. This epiphany of mine didn't make me change my mind that the film was bad, but it did make me understand the point of the movie. And, since I guess it did its job well, I'll give "Seed" an extra chainsaw and give it:
2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)
P.S.:I almost considered giving it 3, but then I remembered that the actual film was damn awful. But 2 out of 5 is pretty good considering the director is considered the worst in the world.
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