The Seeding, 2023.
Written and Directed by Barnaby Clay.
Starring Scott Haze and Kate Lyn Sheil.
A hiker lost in the desert takes refuge with a woman living alone, and discovers she might not be there willingly.
With The Seeding, writer/director Barnaby Clay takes a bleak and intriguing look at survival in a microcosm. Experienced largely in music video, Clay in his debut feature tells the story of a photographer (Scott Haze) lost in the wilds of the Ohio desert. The film artfully takes in dramatic scenery and the natural cycles of the sun and moon to create an overwhelming sense of helpless dread. An existential horror piece, the film explores a nightmarish vision of literally being stuck in a situation and an unwelcoming landscape.
The premise of the plot is simple – Wyndham Stone (Haze) is out in the desert waiting to capture a solar eclipse when he sees a young boy wandering around with no adults in sight. Not sure if the kid is in trouble and wanting to be of assistance, he follows the mysterious boy on a desert path.
He soon loses the boy, and during an artfully shot solar eclipse gets lost himself. He climbs down into a crater thanks to a usefully left ladder. Feeling feverish and uncomfortable he sees a shack in the near distance occupied by a young woman, Alina (Kate Lyn Sheil, She Dies Tomorrow). The woman is strangely uncommunicative about her lifestyle; why is she there, and how does she survive are questions that Stone wants to know the answers to. But she is welcoming enough and has food and, most importantly, water.
The situation is further complicated by the arrival of a group of young people who throw things down the crater from above. They taunt and provoke Stone, and fool him with a cruel prank of offering a rope to get up and out. How this disreputable gang are or not connected to Alina takes time to develop, and the film in general is very well put together in terms of suspense.
There is an ongoing anxiety about Stone’s situation. Even while everything else is unclear in the burning sunshine, it becomes obvious that he has been tricked in some way. Whether he can get out will depend on what tactics he can employ.
Without giving much away, I think it’s fair to say that the film deals with male anxieties about being trapped. Trapped in the landscape, predicaments, and relationships, the excellent cinematography brings out a slow-burning feel of powerlessness in the face of something bigger than oneself.
Clay’s impressive debut is, in his own words, a hybrid of elemental thriller and psychological horror influenced by classics such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Deliverance in one camp, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Rosemary’s Baby in the other.
Hinting at an eternal pagan underbelly of timeless cycles ordered by the lunar calendar – the film is chaptered by the old farming names for the months such as Blue Moon, Harvest Moon etc – the story is like decoding a timeless puzzle. An effective and ruthlessly wrung-out nightmare, it’ll be interesting to see what Clay works on next.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
Originally published January 22, 2024. Updated January 24, 2024.
