Uwe Boll.... of CRAP!

Oh Uwe Boll (You-Bowl), i don't even know where to begin. Uwe Boll is the notorious director of such amazing movies as; BloodRayne, In the Name of the King: Dungeon Siege, Postal, House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. Yes, this is the man responsible for almost every video game movie to come out in the last 10 years.. and each one was complete crap. The media has torn into this poor man over and over again and it has gotten to the point where I actually felt sorry for him. SO, when i saw that he made a legit, NON-VIDEO GAME, movie.. i was willing to forget everything i ever knew about his work and judge his work on a clean slate. The name of this movie is SEED.

"Max Seed (Will Sanderson), a man responsible for the death of 666 people over the past 6 years, is on the loose. The cops have just received videos portraying the death and decomposition of creatures ranging from a cockroach to a full-grown woman. Somehow, they trace the videos to the residence of Seed and head in to put a stop to the madman. The lead man on the case, Detective Matt Bishop (Michael Paré), captures Seed and brings him in. Seed is soon sentenced to death by electric chair. . . thats when the problems start. As we learn from the opening slide of the film, state law says that anyone who survives three shocks in the chair is legally permitted to go free. After the second shock fails to stop Seeds heart, the Warden Arnold Calgrove (Ralf Moeller) and Dr. Parker Wickson (Andrew Jackson) decide to declare Seed dead anyway to risk his escape. Seed is then buried and forgotten. . . but crazed serial killers dont forget that easily. Seed soon returns from the grave, very much alive, and starts a brutal vengeance tour through all those that wronged him. " (Synopsis via IMDB)

Alright, so the Synopsis doesn't seem to original, but this film had its moments, mainly in the gore category, but that is where my hatred for this film is spawned.

The thing that bugged me most about this film was its opening. It literally starts with a message from Uwe Boll stating:

"This movie contains graphic and disturbing footage of real events. We have incorporated this footage into the context of this film to make a statement about humanity. For more information.. visit http://www.peta.org"

Whoa whoa whoa, what?! RED FLAG!

What follows is roughly 5 minutes of animals being brutalized while Max Seed watches in silence. We get to see a boiled dog-like animal thats still alive.. another animal being skinned alive.. and numerous cuts of animals being smashed around by people. Fantastic. Honestly, it was a good mood setter for what was about to be vomited on screen, but i thought he went a little to far. In the first 5 minutes you begin to get the idea this is a giant ad for PETA.. and it pretty much was.

There was another scene in particular that i almost fast forwarded through, but i stuck to my guns and watched. It was like watching a train wreck, you just couldn't turn away. I think THIS was what he was getting at. We see things happening to people in horror movies and are pretty much unphased. We always put confidence in the director that he won't push it to far and he'll protect us. In this one scene there was no comfort level. Max Seed had captured another victim and placed her in a chair.. then moved from light taps with a hammer.. to full on running at her and swinging. Sound cliche? Well the camera never moves once.. never cuts once and lasts about 3 minutes. It was the most powerful scene in the movie, but when it was over i felt it was PETA saying "You can sit by as animals are murdered like this. How do you feel when you see a human murdered this way?" It was just to much, honestly... and i've seen A LOT of horror movies. I can't help but wonder if the opening scene didn't have that message from Uwe Boll, i would have viewed this scene differently.

It was here where i felt Uwe Boll totally has no idea how to bring artistry to a movie. He doesn't know how to make a point other than (no pun intended) bashing us over the head with it. Also, this movie was supposedly taking place in 1979.. and other than put ANY production values into this film he shot much of it in dark-lit areas to cover up the fact the film was made in 2007. He also used a handheld camera for much of the movie.. i assume to give it an indie/gritty feel, but in the end it just made it more and more apparent that this director truly has no right to make films NOR get them on the big screen... which i don't think SEED was.

The acting was nothing special either. Matt Bishop (Will Sanderson) did the best with what he was given, but at no point did you really feel a connection to him. Uwe's introduction to the Matt Bishop character was almost laughable. Almost all the other characters were robots and i don't think one person in particular had more than 20 lines in the movie.

Alright, so in conclusion.. i give this movie a C-. I think if they edited it another way, took out the animal brutality in the beginning, and tied up a few loose ends.. it could have been an underground cult classic. As it is.. i'd only recommend this movie to Gore-Hounds (there are some amazing scenes of gore) and PETA fans.

Until next time.

-Devilsdoormat.

Picture of "Seed" from: http://www.impawards.com