Living in Minnesota, I can understand why people from warmer climates would think twice about visiting the upper part of the country during the cold season. When the temperatures drop, and the snow starts to fall, it can be an intimidating (but often beautiful) land to tackle, and the thought of getting stuck in the ice or lost in a blizzard is no one’s idea of a good time. In much the same way, we in MN (or more to the point, I) have only to think about the blazing heat in the Southern states before cracking the window open and feeling some of our cold air breeze in to cool off.

Getting lost in the desert or being baked by the rays of the midday sun is one of my more feared nightmares, and it’s why a recent rash of desert-set freaky flicks has sent me packing for trips where bundling up in winter wear is more apropos than stocking up on sunscreen. The Outwaters from 2023 was a mind-bending ride into a seriously frightening landscape, a film that led to an extended climax of unrelenting visuals that likely pushed the casual viewer further than they were comfortable going. Now we have The Seeding, a less intense exercise in palatable material but one that never revs its engines loud enough to set it apart from a standard TV movie of the week thriller.

Out hiking in a roasting desert in the hopes of snapping photos of a solar eclipse, Wyndham Stone (Scott Haze, Venom) loses his way and becomes disoriented, unable to find the path back to his car. It’s pure luck that he encounters a young boy who appears to be lost and separated from his group, but at least he seems to have some idea of the way out. Willingly following the boy, he begins to suspect he’s fallen into some trap when the child’s behavior gradually changes after walking further into the desert and close to the lip of a vast canyon gorge.

Abandoned by his pseudo-guide, Wyndham is about to retrace his steps when he hears a voice singing from within the gorge.  Hoping to find a kinder soul to point him to civilization, he locates a ladder built into the stone and climbs down to discover the voice. He finds a dilapidated house and Alina (Kate Lyn Sheil, She Dies Tomorrow), a young woman of few words. Alina maintains her tiny oasis in no rush to help him or answer questions about navigating his way out, leaving Wyndham to watch her work. The next day, Wyndham discovers the ladder/route out of the gorge has been removed, stranding him in the canyon with Alina and a secret she’s been keeping from him.

It’s easy to spot where writer/director Barnaby Clay plans to go with The Seeding. Clues are planted early on and grow into tall warning signs that Wyndham almost willingly ignores. Instinct should tell the man he’s in grave danger the longer he stays, but Clay never provides a believably sound rationale for why he remains inert for so long. The steady pace leaves room for the occasional burst of shock and awe, but the result is more “hrumph” and “errm” than anything remotely near frights.

Beautiful poster and a striking opening notwithstanding, The Seeding is disappointing for a feature-length effort. Had Clay trimmed the film substantially to a tighter sixty minutes or less, it could have become a terrific short on its own or part of a larger/longer anthology of desert-set tales (think 2015’s Southbound as an example).  Clocking in at a little over 90 minutes, a lot of talky filler content is presented that rarely moves the plot further along, nor does it turn the dial up on the energy level of a cast that never gets out of neutral. It may demonstrate Clay’s attention to dialogue that sounds authentic to the ear, but at a certain point, cast members are still solving a mystery we figured out an hour earlier.

Of course, there’s more to The Seeding that I’m deliberately not giving away in case you are intrigued enough to give it a go.  Clay has cast two veteran actors of similar lo-fi horror efforts, and their skills in working with skulky material serve the film better than it deserves, with Sheil finding her way nicely through a character that isn’t given the greatest of dimensions. If only the movie had bloomed into something pricklier and less obsessively playful with finding evil, the time spent corralled in a sun-soaked valley may have been worth the sweat.