Seed (2007)

Shouldn't have sprouted

According to U.S. law, any convict who somehow manages to survive three 15,000 volt jolts from the electric chair for 15 seconds is eligible to walk free. When notorious psychopath Max Seed is strapped into the chair and electrocuted three times, Seed is still breathing. Realizing the dangers of letting such an unrepentant menace back on the streets, the executioner and the prison doctor pronounce Seed dead. Subsequently bound and buried alive, the enraged Seed somehow manages to escape from his premature grave, and quickly sets out to prove just how alive he truly is

In 1978, John Carpenter made Halloween, a slasher film which told the tale of a hulking serial killer with utterly compelling characters and boasted little to no graphic violence and gore. Many have imitated that film, but without the compelling characters and with an endless torrent of blood and gore.

And then came Seed....which also failed.

Uwe Boll seems to believe that to make a horror film, you have to make it bloody, and then add more blood on top of that and throw in an unnecessary baby killing, which is about as effective as throwing banana skin at Godzilla. The story is a typically generic one about a hulking serial killer who leaves a bloody trail of murder and is seemingly unkillable, like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhes. Only Seed, the titular serial killer, is nowhere near as iconic or interesting to watch.

He's supposedly a sick psychopath, and we are told to go along with it while he kills and watches footage of animal killings, but we're never given a look as to what really defined him as a sick psychopath, we're just told to make a leap of faith that an antisocial kid who survived a bus crash grew up to kill people. While Michael Myers and Jason Voorhes didn't exactly have detailed backgrounds (in their first films) as to why they are what they are, they at least didn't make a leap akin to Homer Simpson jumping Springfield Gorge on his son's skateboard.

Boll clearly does not know subtlety, by showcasing the obvious in the worst ways possible. To show Seed is tough, he has him kill three prison guards that are about to rape him, and to show he's sick, the film opens with the titular serial killer watching real footage of animal killings. Couldn't the director have used something less disgusting and tasteless?

Considering the film's only 90 minutes long, it really says something that the film should've been cut down, considering how many scenes were unnecessarily dragged out. The best example of this is the scene which is one long shot of Seed beating a woman to death with a chisel for five straight minutes, with very obvious CGI present.

From unwatchable beginning to anticlimactic ending, Seed is nothing more than proof that Uwe Boll is a talentless hack. It's a film desperate for attention and an utter bore, making it seem impossible to get through the 90 minute run time. Boll remarked that he wanted to make a film that was no fun to watch, and with that, he succeeded.