Seed (2007)

After a seemingly undead man is bound and buried alive, he digs himself back to the surface and seeks bloody vengeance on those who caused him his suffering.

What do all the following movie stars have in common:

Dominic Purcell, Dolph Lundgren, Burt Reynolds, Jason Statham, Ron Perlman, Matthew Lillard, Ray Liotta, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane, Michelle Rodriguez, Sir Ben Kingsley, Christian Slater, Tara Reid, Stephen Dorff. 

They have all appeared in a Uwe Boll film. Before you get excited, they aren’t all in the film I’m reviewing now, Seed. I’m just trying to bring in to focus what ‘the worst director in the world‘ has achieved with his casting. Sure, money talks. Of course. But still, he has got some pretty big names in some pretty shitty movies. Everyone hates on Boll, and a lot of times before his movies are even out they get bad ratings. People step on the bandwagon and say how bad he is. If you have seen his films and hate them, that’s one thing. To say they are bad without watching them, not cool. So today I have decided to do a ‘Boll Day‘ and feature what I would call his two best movies.

In a bid to maybe change an opinion or two on him, did you know that not one of the films he has directed has been awarded the Razzie for Worst Picture? I think the best thing that ‘the only genius in the whole fucking movie business’ (his words) has done was when he challenged his critics to ‘put up or shut up’. In June 2006, his production company issued a press release stating that Boll would challenge his five harshest critics each to a 10-round boxing match. The online gambling site GoldenPalace.com decided to sponsor this event, dubbing it “Raging Boll“. A lot was drawn up in late August 2006, featuring Kyanka, Rue Morgue magazine writer Chris Alexander, webmaster of Cinecutre Carlos Palencia Jimenez-Arguello, Ain’t it Cool News writer Jeff Sneider and Chance Minter, amateur boxer and website critic. Boll fought and won against all five participants. So anyone who gets harsh on him in the comments here today, be warned, he may challenge you! Surely if I can get a review favorited on Twitter by Shea Whigham (Splinter, Boardwalk Empire), I deserve a personal visit and handshake from Boll after my efforts today!

To kick-off ‘Boll Day‘, part 1 will feature a film called Seed. I’ll warn you now, there is some very messed up stuff in this movie. And it doesn’t make much sense, and to be honest it is not a very good movie. BUT it is not the worst movie in the world, which a lot of critics tend to label it as. Seed actually opens with a warning that they have used real life footage of animal cruelty and it’s excuse is ‘to make a statement about humanity’. We then cut to our serial killer Seed watching that footage. It’s tough to watch, mainly because it involves real animal torture, but it was given to the film-makers by the animal charity, and isn’t the killer doing it, just to clarify.

As a boy, a reclusive and antisocial Max Seed was disfigured in a school bus crash that killed everyone else involved in it. In 1973, Seed began torturing and murdering people, filming some of his victims starving to death in his locked basement, and ultimately racking up a body count of 666 (which is a ridiculous and unbelievable number by the way). In 1979, Seed is arrested by Detective Matt Bishop (Michael Paré, who appears in most Boll movies) in a sting operation that claims the lives of five of Bishop’s fellow officers.

We also get to see a collection of tapes made by the serial killer. Again, more disturbing footage in the shape of a cockroach, a mouse, a dog, a baby and a woman (individually, not at the same time) all being left in a locked up room to die and their bodies decomposing. This is actually a pretty good effect as we literally see them decomposing in a time condensed fashion.

Seed is finally executed. However, in this movie there is a law that states if you survive electrocution 3 times, then you can be let go (I know, but stay with me here). He obviously survives so Bishop, the Warden, the doctor, and the executioner all decide to pronounce him dead and bury him alive. Instead of shooting him in the head, making sure he’s dead, they just bury him with the presumption that it’s over. Obviously, it’s not, Seed climbs out and then begins taking revenge.

Up until this point, I had high hopes, and so far so good. Then plot holes like this started appearing, and more and more random events popped up. For example there is a scene of Seed beating a woman to death with a mallet. It’s disturbing (hell, maybe even slightly creative and realistic looking) but served no real purpose other than showing some gratuitous torture. It exists only to exhibit Uwe Boll’s rage at the critics. It has been reported that Seed is Boll’s answer to his often insanely hateful critics, the career of his on-screen serial killer paralleling the career of Boll himself. It’s just too bad that the script and characters only exist so Boll can enact torturous and cruel deaths upon them.

It’s poorly structured, confusing in its continuity, the pacing is uneven and yet is still Boll’s best work up until this point (2007). It’s not a film I can recommend to everyone, or many people at all really. It is hard to watch and extreme in its brutality. Yet if you want to see some flashes of good work from Boll, with an ending that is dark, twisted and surprisingly effective, and proof that he isn’t the worst director out there, then maybe Seed is a good place to start. The review coming up later today (two in a day, I spoil you!) is for his best film by far (Rampage, click for my thoughts) so maybe in a way Seed did some good and showed Boll that he can make a decent, serious film that isn’t a video game rip off.

Posted by Tysoncarter182 on January 27, 2013

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