Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Sam Walker
Starring: Charlotte Edge, Lucy Martin, Sophie Vavasseur
1980s low budget sci-fi comedies were filled with bikini babes bouncing
around while battling invading aliens and the like. Writer/director
Sam Walker's The Seed is so indebted to such movies
that you could easily imagine its central trio being played by Kelli
Maroney, Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens had it been made a few
decades past.
The set-up is straight from a video store lower shelf circa 1987, but
with some modern social media satire thrown in for good measure.
Instagram models Deidre (Lucy Martin) and Heather (Sophie Vavasseur) head out to the latter's family holiday villa in the Mojave desert to
livestream an upcoming meteor shower and take some pics of themselves
sporting bikinis to boost their online profiles. Reluctantly tagging
along is their friend Charlotte (Chelsea Edge). Unlike the
others, Charlotte has no social media accounts and still reads books –
she might as well sport a t-shirt that reads "I'm the Final Girl!"
The meteor shower brings a surprise in the form of a cute but stinky
alien that lands in their swimming pool. Well, it's cute at first, but
it appears to possess a telepathic ability to seduce Earth women. Pretty
soon Deidre and Heather are under its spell while Charlotte tries to
figure out how to get out of this scenario.
Walker plants a potentially fruitful narrative seed in his film's
opening act. The three actresses – two Brits (Martin, Edge), one Irish
(Vavasseur) – certainly had me fooled into believing that they were
authentic Californian Valley girls, and they share a fun chemistry.
Martin is particularly watchable, relishing her role as the "mean girl"
of the bunch. There's some witty repartee between the three, with some
laughs generated by Deidre's narcissistic world view and elevated sense
of self.
But that seed ultimately never sprouts much for us to feed on. The film
appears to run out of ideas as to how to utilise its limited location
(Malta standing in for the Mojave desert), and it takes too long for the
horror element to finally kick in. When it does, it never quite gels
with the comedic tone the film has established, lurching into a straight
piece of sci-fi horror in the final act.
As a calling card for its leading ladies,
The Seed certainly gives Martin, Edge and Vavasseur plenty
of opportunity to display their comedic chops, but once the laughs run
out the movie becomes as dry as the desert where its action plays
out.
