Seeds (New England Insect Incest)
Take a psychological creature-feature thriller and throw in inappropriate sexual desire so that it’s clear keeping it in the family is not always best and you get Seeds, a haunting debut from writer-director Owen Long. When a night of debauchery spirals out of control, a young man named Marcus retreats to the isolation of his New England coastal family home, but is disrupted when asked to look after his nephew and niece. Unbeknownst to them Marcus is baited by a dark force, but is the threat real or mental? Maybe also incestual? The insect legs wrapping one of the character’s body (see above), kind of says it all.
Trevor Long is convincing as the troubled Marcus, whose visions of spider legs and tentacles protruding from the shadows lead him to pop pills like a 90s raver. Like so many elements of Seeds there’s a cloudy ambiguity regarding what’s real. The same can be said for the relationship with his niece Lily (Andrea Chen), whose naive seduction creates an awkward sexual charge as Marcus tries to restrain himself. However, as Lily reminisces about their past and the film flashbacks you start to question the relationship. Marcus may show signs of a caring uncle, but he’s the last person you’d want babysitting and probably crossed the line already.
The fantastic cinematography of Seeds presents a contrasting vision. Picturesque shots create scenes that unfold with simply the tranquility of the classical score. This is a contrast to moments depicting the instability of Marcus’s sanity with erratic camera movement, quick editing and an unsettling freight train mixture of sounds. Seeds is a powerful and often-surreal experience, leaving you with more questions than answers, though you probably don’t want to answer that incest one either way, because as Lily says “there’s no help for what you have.”
Seeds Official Facebook (Dark Star Pictures)
Written by Phil the Reviler
Seeds (2019)
Owen Long (director), Dark Star Pictures and Uncork’d Entertainment (distributors)
4.4 / 5
