a review of 恶种
This is one of those really confused horror films that forgets to give us anyone to root for. It tries to paint the victims as somehow worse than the killer and therefore doesn't flesh them out as anything more than people supposedly getting what they deserve. Normally this would mean you side with the murdering psychopath Friday the 13th style, but the actions of the titular Seed are far too cruel and demented for that to be possible. He is the kind of sicko who gets off on watching animal snuff films and starving infants in his basement after all. The whole thing is just a pointless display of nastiness. The kind that really makes you question the mental state of the person behind it. This is one of the films Uwe Boll made after going off the deep end and started mistaking gratuitous violence for brilliant social commentary. That aforementioned animal cruelty? It's 100% real footage taken from PETA's website under the guise of saying something about the human condition. Sorry Boll, but I'm afraid I missed the message on this one. When Seed isn't being tasteless and stoking the fires of indignation inside of anyone other than the completely desensitized it's just a bore. Not enough actually happens in it to justify the almost an hour-and-a-half running time. So it feels like it goes on for much longer than it actually does with tons of filler scenes showing the actors going through every little motion of some menial task. It's also pretty poorly made with annoyingly shaky camera work and extended stretches where most of the action is too dark to see. I was impressed with the CGI though. I mean it's not great, but much better than I would have expected from one of the indie Uwe Boll flicks. This will have you pining away for one of the director's video game adaptations. While never good, at least Boll was solely going for straight entertainment value with those. Every time he's tried to make a movie that says something we the viewers end up suffering through a whole bunch of filth and brutality. Not that those things can't be enjoyable. I mean this is the horror genre we're talking about. It's just that Boll has a way of hitting you over the head with a level of hatefulness that sucks the fun out of everything. Seed is a prime example of that.