All through October, I’ll be posting reviews of the best of the best films in the horror genre released since October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024. As an added bonus, I’ll be adding a secondary review that may be somewhat related to the main review or slightly missed the countdown by inches. Follow along the countdown every day in October. Feel free to agree, disagree, or better yet, give me your own picks for your favorite horror movies of the year. Happy Halloween!

#27 – THE SEEDING (2023)
Released on January 26, 2024, and is streaming on Hulu from Magnet Releasing!
Directed/Written by Barnaby Clay.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/cILLMZoXiCY
A nature photographer named Stone (played by Scott Haze) finds himself lost in the desert and trapped in a small valley where a young woman named Alina (played by Kate Lyn Sheil) lives a life of solitude in a small shack with very limited means. At the rim of the steep valley, Stone discovers a group of strange children who torment him as he futilely attempts to escape.

THE SEEDING is a raw and primal man vs. nature story. Yes, he is being tormented by the children taunting him from above, but for the most part, it is a story about one man desperately fighting for his own survival. Stone attempts to escape over and over, first reaching out for help, second attempting to climb out on his own, then to bargain for his freedom, and finally broken and beaten, pleading for his life. Playing Stone excellently is, who you might recognize from WHAT JONAH SAW where he played a dim-witted brother or CHILD OF GOD where he played a dim-witted outcast in a small town or ANTLERS where he played a drug addicted, abusive father or maybe you might have seen him in JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION which I have yet to see. Either way, it’s apparent from his resume that Haze seems to be sort of typecast as not-so-bright characters and though he is a bit smarter in THE SEEDING, he still makes some bonehead mistakes along the way. Still, this makes his character utterly relatable, making you ask yourself what would you do if you were in this horrific situation. Haze plays a wonderful everyman character, and he does it so well, it isn’t surprising that he returns to this role over and again.

Writer/director Barnaby Clay throws an entire world of hurt at Stone relentlessly. This not only highlights the terrible truth of the situation Stone finds himself in, but also the strength Stone finds within himself. The threats are many, but the main one is the reason why. There is a secret held until the end, though with a title like THE SEEDING it doesn’t take long to parse out what it is. But what makes it so interesting, despite the fact that you might have a hint going on is how far this film goes in terms of tormenting Stone to the end of his own sanity.

Though she gives a much more subtle performance, Kate Lyn Sheil is wonderfully subdued as Alina. Why she is in the pit, what is her connection to the children, and why she is so tight lipped are all questions that are eventually answered, and these questions are stretched out to a frustrating length, but this only adds to the pressure Stone is under in this inescapable situation. I haven’t seen Sheil before, but looking at her IMDB, it seems she has had a long career as a child actor. Her plain beauty highlights the mystery of the strange character she plays.

These kids on the edge of the valley are truly menacing. They are the ultimate in school bullies, cowardly picking on the weak from a great distance and tearing him apart bit by bit. Stone could probably tear them apart if not for the valley wall between them. The film avoids calling them what they truly are. This very well could be an updated reboot of THE HILLS HAVE EYES as these hill children…are very much inbred monsters who don’t really have an inkling of what civilization is like. Stone talks about a microcosm, where something in a small area grows within a larger ecosystem as he plants food over his extended stay in the valley. This serves as a metaphor for these children who have formed a small society with its own rules and religion in the middle of this desert where it seems like very little grows.

Bookending each chapter of THE SEEDING are title cards depicting the phases of the moon labelled over a dish of food that seems to be rotting the longer the film goes. This also serves as another great metaphor of Stone’s psyche and physical state as his ordeal continues. Filmmaker Barnaby Clay isn’t afraid to slow the pace down of his movie to highlight the beautiful aspects of this canyon the action takes place in such as slow shots of the withered vegetation, patterns in the valley wall, and maggots squirming on a plate of food. It’s in these smaller moments that we get a sense of the decay going on within our main character.

THE SEEDING is a bleak, but beautiful little film. It highlights some truly grotesque things along the way, but ultimately tells the story of survival in an up close and personal sense through Stone’s arduous situation and from a distance with more broad themes of life and death. Adding to the horror is the score which seemingly is made through primitive objects clanging together and tribal rhythms that feel like they are as old as the walls of this desert pit. THE SEEDING is a thinking man’s THE HILLS HAVE EYES. It is a film for the patient, but those who are willing to go on this trek will experience some outstanding performances by Scott Haze and Kate Lyn Sheil, gorgeously dangerous sights, and tribal sounds highlighting an almost unsolvable primal challenge for the hero. I highly recommend this mesmerizing yet emotionally taxing little horror film.

Plus – DARK HARVEST (2023)
Released on October 13, 2023, and is available on Freevee and Amazon Prime from MGM and United Artists Releasing!
Directed by David Slade.
Written by Michael Gilio, Norman Partridge.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/Pge4NmBzdkE
It’s the 1950’s in a small midwestern town that holds an annual celebration of the harvest where the senior class boys of the community are refused food for a week and then sent out to the streets to take on a mysterious entity called Sawtooth Jack who rises from the cornfield every year on Halloween. The senior who kills Sawtooth Jack wins a new car and a chance to leave the secluded town and represent the town to the rest of the world. One teen, Richie (played by Casey Likes) longs to win the Halloween competition and take out Sawtooth Jack himself, but his older brother won the competition last year and his parents (played by THE HAUNTING OF HELL HOUSE’s Jeremy Davies and Elizabeth Reaser) refuse to let him participate. But Richie sneaks out and does so anyway.

Sometimes when to mix the right ingredients, something magical and fun can be made. The best way to describe DARK HARVEST is to name the movies it’s derived from. CHILDREN OF THE CORN meets THE PURGE and PUMPKINHEAD is a pretty good summary of what DARK HARVEST is all about. It’s not bad to take elements from other films, but if I’m being honest, these lifts are pretty direct, and I would have preferred a little more creative juices used in order to distance these elements from the original material. Sawtooth Jack looks pretty much exactly like Pumpkinhead. The masked kids roaming the streets are only allowed to do so for one night and occurs once a year, exactly like THE PURGE. And the town worshipping an entity in the cornfield and having a ritual performed as a rite of passage from child to adulthood is straight up CHILDREN OF THE CORN. I won’t deny that these elements mix pretty well, but derivative? Yes…yes DARK HARVEST certainly is.

Now just because it views like a meatloaf sandwich of rural horror films doesn’t mean it’s not good. In fact, director David Slade is able to blend these elements together pretty seamlessly. Slade is a fantastic director in his own right, having helmed such harrowing tales as HARD CANDY and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. So, DARK HARVEST has its moments. Though the story is a bit convoluted, Slade does a decent job of doling out the film’s setup including the rules of the Halloween night ritual and the shady history of the town pretty well. I think it would have been a muddled mess in the hands of a lesser director. DARK HARVEST was developed from a book and the rather elaborate plot makes that pretty obvious, still there are a lot of nice little touches such as a cop that seems to always show up just in time to keep anyone from leaving town that amp up the weirdness quite a bit and help convey a sense that there is no way out of this town. The masks inspired from the punk band the Misfits are a nice touch as well. Slade also does well with the mix of CG effects and action scenes, specifically some very gnarly kills at the hands or branches of Sawtooth Jack. Sawtooth himself, while looking like a more vegetable-like Pumpkinhead, still is quite imposing, looming over the cornstalks and wandering through the town taking out teens.

While Jeremy Davies and Elizabeth Reaser do some great character work as Richie’s parents and add a little gravitas to the mostly teen cast of characters, one of the biggest flaws of DARK HARVEST is that the teen characters are bland and interchangeable, especially since most of them are wearing masks during the Halloween ritual. This makes it tough to distinguish one kid from another, but it does offer up a lot of fodder for the giant monster to plow through. And if the script isn’t difficult enough to follow, DARK HARVEST has a subplot of a black girl who must deal with the racism of the 1950’s in the small town. Unfortunately, actress Emyri Crutchfield is subjected to this cliched and unnecessary subplot in an already thematically crowded film and is never really given a chance to shine, but she does do a decent job in the few scenes she appears in.

DARK HARVEST is far from perfect. In fact, it’s kind of a narrative mess. Still, Slade does a decent job of keeping things moving at a brisk pace and maintaining some kind of sense to it all. The action and gore are rock solid, leading to some memorable scenes of carnage and violence in the climax. While it’s obvious what films DARK HARVEST pulls from, it incorporates the best elements from them. It’s not as deep or resonant as it wants to be, but DARK HARVEST is a lot of fun despite its flaws.

The Best in Horror Countdown 2023-2024
#31 – HERE FOR BLOOD (DESTROY ALL NEIGHBORS)
#30 – THANKSGIVING (THE SACRIFICE GAME)
#29 – MILK & SERIAL (LOWLIFES)
#28 – PROJECT SILENCE (FROGMAN)
#27 – THE SEEDING (DARK HARVEST)