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Film: The Seeding
Year: 2023
Director: Barnaby Clay
Writer: Barnaby Clay
Starring: Scott Haze, Kate Lyn Sheil and Alex Montaldo
Review:
This is a film that I heard about earlier this year. It went on a list of ones that made their wide release in 2024 so now that I’m watching what I’ve missed to form my best of the year, this was near the top. I’ve heard good things so I was intrigued to see what we’d get here. I knew just a bit ahead of seeing this as well, trying to temper expectations.
Synopsis: a man finds himself trapped in a desert canyon with a woman living off-grid who is captive to a pack of sadistic boys.
We start this seeing a dirty toddler walking across the desert. It then shifts over to a car that comes to a turnaround and parks. This is also happening in the desert. Wyndham Stone (Scott Haze) gets out and heads out to a rock formation. He’s there to take pictures of a solar eclipse. Afterwards, he heads back. He comes upon a boy, named Orion (Charlie Avink). This boy says he can’t find his parents. Stone asks if he can help. He wants to have him come back to his car where he gets cellphone service, but Orion wants to head deeper into the desert. Stone is then left behind, after following for a stretch.
He's too far from his car and tries to sleep on the ground. He hears a woman singing. This leads him to a canyon where there’s a makeshift cabin. There is also a rope ladder that leads him down. He takes it and it leads him to meet Alina (Kate Lyn Sheil), who lives here. She offers him food and he tells her that he’s not hungry. He just wants water. Stone is too tired to continue and sleeps here for the night.
The next morning, he discovers the rope ladder is gone. He asks Alina about it, but she isn’t forthcoming with information. Stone goes about finding a way out of this canyon. This leads to him injuring his leg. What he discovers is that this might be planned more than he realized. There are a group of boys here, led by Corvus (Alex Montaldo). He asks them to help him out and they lower a rope with a winch. This goes from his hope of getting out turns to a nightmare when he hits his head, knocking him out.
This weekend being stuck down here turns into a month and even longer than that. Stone gets to know Alina and keeps his hope about getting out alive. We see the level of depravity from the boys above and Stone also learns more about those that are keeping him captive. Alina also seems to know more than she’s letting on.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that this is doing something a bit different with a concept that we have seen before. I’m going to tread lightly to not spoil it, but we are using the backwoods family idea. Stone gets suckered into helping this boy and then finds himself trapped. We don’t know who we can trust or who is involved. It would be terrifying, because how they capture him is effective. I did want to give credit there.
Now there is an interesting side to this story. Alina wants to get to know Stone, but he’s angry that he’s trapped there. He doesn’t want to get to know her, because he believes that he will be out soon. He assumes that Alina is also trapped there. They do play with this idea a bit and it made me wonder if she was also stuck here or is she a member of the group. I’ll leave that ambiguous since this doesn’t get answered until late. Stone is also smart so he keeps himself busy by planting crops. This gets one of the captors, Lepus (Thatcher Jacobs), to ask what he is doing and want to learn more. It is through this interaction that we see how far the group will go.
I did want to discuss this group of teens a bit that are holding both captives. I’ve already said that I like what they do with Orion to get Stone close to this canyon. Everything that happens to lead him there is strategic, which I loved. Then going farther here, they are sadistic in the way that they give this captive hope before they dash it away. That pushes him into despair faster and I thought it added tension. We know that they’re probably not going to let him out, but we hope that they do. There is also a variation on Stockholm syndrome where Stone breaks down and befriends Alina since he will go crazy if he doesn’t. We also see that this group of teens will come down at night and mess with Stone. That was something else that added to the tension as well.
That should be enough for the story so let’s go over to the acting performances. I thought that Haze was good here as our lead. We see that he’s just a normal guy. It is through this ordeal that we see him tested by this group. There is such an array of emotions he displays and I thought he did well in conveying them. Sheil works as his counterpart. She seems simple, but I don’t know if that was due to her growing up here or she’s just been here for so long that she’s now content with this life. Montaldo, Avink, Jacobs, Harrison Middleton, Michael Monsour and the rest of the boys were solid. I didn’t necessarily know all their names, but they each display a distinct enough character. The acting here was solid across the board.
All that is left then is filmmaking. I’d say that the cinematography was good. It captures the desert, which is good since we meet our lead soon after. There’s an interesting element here that Stone brings up how the soil is oddly fertile in this canyon. It creates a microcosm of an eco-system. That also describes this group of teens that are living in this area as well. I found that creative to include. The framing was solid as well. They went practical with the effects which is a perk to me. I love that this is told in chapters, naming the different moons. We see a plate of food that is different stages of rotting each time. This was another good allegory for Stone’s deterioration during his captivity. Other than that, the soundtrack and design fit what was needed.
In conclusion, this is a film that I’m glad that I could tick off my list ahead of my end of year. I liked the story that we’re telling here. It is a different variation on people living off the grid. It feels like they might be borrowing from ideas like Sawney Bean or Jack Ketchum’s wild characters. There is even a vibe of The Hills Have Eyes. I’d say this is more inspired than directly ripping off. I thought the setting was good, the acting was as well across the board and when they had effects, they looked realistic. An interesting watch that I would recommend seeing for sure.
My Rating: 7.5 out of 10