Almost exactly one year ago [17 November 2019], I visited a car boot market and added a very interesting monster movie DVD to my ever-growing collection. But whereas the vast majority feature revived dinosaurs and other marauding prehistoric fauna on the rampage, this one, a Syfy Channel offering from 2011 entitled Seeds of Destruction, concerns a truly monstrous plant.
Apart from The Day of the Triffids film (plus the far superior UK TV series from 1979), the two (musical and non-musical) versions of Little Shop of Horrors, and a horror movie entitled Mandrake, ferocious flora don't feature extensively in my film collection (though they do in my collection of sci-fi novels and short stories). Consequently, I knew that this was definitely one that I'd enjoy – and indeed I did.
Directed by Paul Ziller, Seeds of Destruction concerns a prehistoric plant seed originally salvaged from an ancient archaeological site believed to be located within what had once been the original biblical Garden of Eden. Along with some others collected with it, this seed has remained dormant for thousands of years – until stolen by subversives for financial gain and inadvertently allowed to germinate, that is, whereupon it rapidly engenders an immense and seemingly indestructible subterranean root system that threatens to devastate not just the entire North American continent but also the whole planet, via apocalyptic earthquakes and, should the roots reach the oceans, gargantuan tsunamis on a scale never before experienced. Not for nothing is this movie subtitled The Terror Beneath.
Nor is that the full extent of this botanical behemoth's cataclysmic capabilities. It also sends forth veritable Jack & the Beanstalk-scaled shoots, thousands of feet high, when attempts are made by the American military to annihilate its rampaging roots.
However, the true horror eventually revealed is that crazed rogue scientist Frame Marcos wants to return the Earth to what he deems to be its original idyllic state, that of the Garden of Eden, from whence this antediluvian seed and the others originated, but which means wiping out humanity and everything created by it. Furthermore, this phytological Fury offers the means to achieve such a goal, because it is so pure genetically that it served as the guardian of Eden, protecting it from all impure life forms by destroying them – and it has germinated now in the modern world because it has sensed that by its standards, all life today is indeed impure.
Maverick U.S. government agent Jack Taylor (played by Adrian Pasdar) duly joins forces with botanist Jocelyn Snow (a former colleague of Marcos) and young environmental activists Joe and Kate in a frantic effort to halt this primeval plant's seemingly unstoppable progression and thereby prevent a global ecological and human disaster.
Other than Pasdar, no notable stars appear in Seeds of Destruction, but as with all monster movies it is not the human contingent that the audience's attention is focused upon anyway. The CGI special effects while not stupendous are nonetheless very decent, and I found it quite a gripping movie to watch. Certainly, its very original, ambitious storyline provides plenty of suspense, and sustained my interest throughout its 87-minute tenure.
Finally, click here to watch a trailer for Seeds of Destruction, showing its opening scene, and who knows, it just might grow on you!
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
No comments:
Post a Comment