In criticism, horror movies need to be judged by an entirely different set of rules. When reviewing a drama, there are certain things one can generally look for as a litmus test: believability, relatability, well-written dialogue, characters worth caring about, and so forth. A horror movie, on the other hand, can have absolutely none of that and still be worth seeking out– indeed, might actually stand as a masterpiece. Good horror works on a more ethereal level than other genres. If it effectively gets under your skin, just about anything else can be forgiven. On paper, Barnaby Clay’s The Seeding might not sound like much to write home about; its premise strains credulity, its dialogue is often stilted, and I’m still not entirely sure I understand the implications of its big reveal or how its characters relate to each other. But, in execution, The Seeding is such an overwhelming sensory experience that it will take me a good long while to shake it off. It got to me, and for a movie like this that counts for just about everything.

We open on a scruffy young man (Scott Haze) driving deep into the southwestern desert to photograph a solar eclipse. No sooner has he gotten the shot than a strange teenage boy appears; the man attempts to talk to the boy and reunite him with his parents, but soon finds himself alone, miles from his car, and with no cell phone reception as the sun goes down. Desperate for shelter, he finds himself in the cabin of a mysterious young woman (Kate Lyn Sheil) at the bottom of a chasm. Naturally, when he awakes, the ladder he used to descend into the pit has vanished, leaving him to make homestead with the woman– and fend off the taunts of the marauding youths who occasionally show up at the chasm’s rim.

I have no doubt that The Seeding was shot on a limited budget (its limited cast and single location are classic shoestring cheats), yet from the opening drone shot of Haze parking his car in the vast expanse I was struck by its sense of scope. Clay’s wider-than-wide camera makes you feel just as lost and dizzied as our protagonist, aided in no small part by the woozy, psychedelic score by Tristan Bechet. Clay is a music video veteran who has worked with such acts as Rihanna, Danger Mouse, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (that last one should come as no surprise– Clay is Mr. Karen O), and it’s clear that he knows how to combine visuals with music to evoke sensations with surgical precision. Watching The Seeding makes you feel like you’ve been hit in the head– and I mean that in a good way.

Folk horror– of which this most certainly is an example– draws its power from the spooky sense of encountering something older than you can comprehend. I don’t know whether Sheil’s cabin was built for the film or simply discovered in the desert (neither would surprise me), but it looks authentically weatherbeaten and lived in. Her possessions seem to have been picked up piecemeal over the years– possibly centuries– ranging from tintype photos and an antique loom to circa-’80s oscillating fans. Likewise, Sheil plays her part as a woman not necessarily out of time, but certainly out of step. Her speech patterns are largely modern (or at least not overtly archaic), and she’s not presented as some Nell-type wild woman; she’s simply a plainspoken young woman unconcerned with the packs of feral children howling outside her door and who has seemingly never heard recorded music before. It’s a curiously opaque performance, more haunting in its relative normalcy than any genre-film affectation might have been.

Haze, for his part, is perhaps not the greatest shakes as an actor, but the film uses him well, avoiding the low-budget pitfall of clever-clever dialogue and leaving him to exclaim things like “You’ve imprisoned me in this archaic shithole!” (There’s something of the young Bruce Campbell in him, back when Raimi was using him simply as a square-jawed ragdoll everyman). Indeed, one of the film’s greatest strengths is its resolute, hippie-ish earnestness. This is the sort of film in which I honestly expected the characters to be identified simply as “The Man” and “The Woman” (in actuality, Haze’s character is named “Wyndham Stone,” which is maybe even better). The chapters have portentous titles like “Sturgeon Moon” and “Beaver Moon,” and one character defines the word “microcosm” for another. This might read as pretentious, and perhaps it is to a degree, but in this sort of film I find that a streak of earnest pretension is far less annoying and more refreshing than a distancing layer of irony. 

So what does it all mean? That, I’m little fuzzier on; I get the sense that there’s some Eraserhead paternal anxiety going on (which should maybe give Ms. O and their young son some pause), and perhaps something about the eternal conflict between civilization and nature (or at least citified weekend explorers and “salt-of-the-earth” Deliverance types). This conceptual thinness and muddy messaging might repel some viewers– but, again, this is horror, and horror rules apply. The Seeding had me in its spell from its opening moments, and I was far less concerned about its thematic elements than the knot its woozy visual and sonic landscape tied in my stomach. Along with comedy, horror is one of the most subjective of all genres; if it works for you it works, and this one worked like gangbusters for me. The Seeding is a wild little blast of sun-blitzed gonzo folk horror, and I will remember it for a good long while.

The Seeding
2023
dir. Barnaby Clay
100 min.

Available digitally, on demand, and in select theaters (though nowhere locally) Friday, 1/26