Devil Seed (2012)

The rapid advances in technology have made it so that practically anyone can make a movie; editing software is readily available and digital camcorders are fairly cheap.  A young, passionate filmmaker can even bypass a distributor and just upload his movie on YouTube, on the hope that it will get views.  Of course, more often than not the movie in question is extremely horrendous, which brings me to the Devil Seed.  

 
I have my own theory about the movie’s origins:  One night, director/writer, Greg A. Sager had a double feature of The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. After the viewing was over, Sager had an epiphany, “What would happen if I combined The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby? It would be TWICE the scares!” He then high fived himself for this brilliant idea and began working on the script. When he realized the time and effort it took to write a screenplay, he simply photocopied the script to The Exorcist, and penciled in his own ideas; the heroine went from being a twelve year-old girl to an attractive college woman with two roommates (her loyal best friend and a bitchy, curvaceous blonde) and a cheating boyfriend.  He then rounded up a few friends and shot Devil Seed, on his iPhone, over the course of the weekend.  Naturally, the lead role went to the woman he had the major hots for, Michelle Argyris.  It explains so much! 
Now, I’m sure someone will come forward and be like, “That’s not what happened at all! This was a professional production!” If so, then that makes Devil Seed even worse.  It essentially follows the plot to The Exorcist beat for beat:

1)      There is a prologue which introduces Father Madison, as a young man, performing an exorcism on a possessed woman. This ends in disaster! The Exorcist has a prologue set in Iraq, which sets up the climactic battle between Father Merrin and the demon.

2)      Alex, the protagonist, first makes contact with the Devil through a psychic, while Regan used an Ouija board.  Though, Alex’s reason for seeking out a psychic is pretty amusing; her friend Jessica, on a drunken whim, decides that they should have their fortunes read and Alex acquiesces, mainly to humor her tipsy companion.

3)      Alex experiences the same things as young Regan; her bed starts shaking by itself, she urinates on the floor and she even does the “spider walk.”

4)      Father Madison, just like Merrin before him, gets re-introduced to the plot towards the end of the movie and attempts an exorcism on Alex.  The Devil even recognizes Father Madison, just like the demon recognized Merrin in The Exorcist.  Madison’s entrance is hardly a memorable one; he is sitting in a car outside of the haunted house.  It’s not exactly a visually striking moment, like Father Merrin standing outside the MacNeil house, silhouetted in a shaft of light. 

In The Exorcist, the apple cheeked face of Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) was mutilated beyond recognition by the demon. In Devil Seed, Alex’s possession is visualized by applying black eye shadow under Michelle Argyris’ eyes, while she creepily stares at her roommates.  The end result: Agyris looks far more glamorous while under the Devil’s influence, than she does in her “normal” scenes. Was possessed Alex supposed to be hot? I could just imagine a group of bros watching this movie and, when Alex is first possessed, shouting out loud, “I’d tap that!” Couldn’t they have at least fitted her with creepy contact lenses? Covered her face with scars?  ANYTHING!  I once had a co-worker who was attempting to make a vampire movie, with a budget of $2,000 (according to him), and even he could afford creepy contact lenses.  He never finished his movie, and the footage he shot was pretty bad, but I’m sure it would have been better than Devil Seed.  

CHILL at the sight of an attractive college student staring at you in DEVIL SEED!  

Alex is a fairly passive heroine, as well. There is a montage of her looking up “demon possession” on Google (note to filmmakers: having a character stare at a computer screen is not scary, nor interesting, no matter how much spooky music you blare on the soundtrack), but she doesn’t do anything with the information she is given. She tries to hang a crucifix on her wall, but the Devil will have none of that. In fact, it is really her friend Jessica that drives the narrative. Jessica, concerned about Alex’s strange behavior, seeks advice from her professor, who just happens to be Father Madison’s son.  Jessica is easily the most likable character in Devil Seed, largely because her loyalty to Alex never wavers, despite all the crazy shit that she has witnessed. 

The acting, with the exception of Shantalle Canzanese, is dull. It one of those rare examples where terrible overacting would have preferable to what we are given – stilted line deliveries and very little emotions.  Alex has very little personality that it’s hard to really sympathize with what she is going through, while Breanne (Vanessa Broze) is a full fledged bitch.  Professor Madison is extremely patronizing (and completely inept) that you will probably hate him by the movie’s end. Father Madison is in so very little of the movie that he barely registers as a character. Brian is such a tool that it is head scratching as to why Alex (or Breaane, for that matter) is attracted to him.  

Devil Seed is 98 minutes long, but easily could have been an hour; a chunk of it is filler. There is a subplot that centers on Alex’s boyfriend, Brian, sleeping with her roommate, Breanne. Brian and Alex have been dating for two years, but have not gone the distance yet. This frustrates Brian, so he jumps in the bed with Alex’s willing roommate.  The movie never really delves into why Breanne resents Alex so much, or, for the matter, why Alex is still a virgin.  What’s important is that Alex’s virginity is the reason she is handpicked by Satan to bear his child.  The only payoff that comes from the Brian/Breanna subplot is that Breanna is given a gruesome death (she is mauled to death by the possessed Alex), while Brian walks away relatively unscathed. Seriously, he survives the ordeal, even though he is the most loathsome character in the entire movie; when the Devil starts shaking the bed, while Alex is on it, Brian goes off on a rant about how this is a ruse by her not to have sex. 

The movie itself is fairly repetitive: Alex goes to bed, wakes up and freaks out her roommates. The next morning, Jessica calls her out on it and Alex has no memory of it all. This happens, at least, three times in the movie.  Also, who did the casting in this movie?  The actor playing Professor Madison (Wayne Conroy) looks roughly the same age as the actor, Michael G. Wilmot, who is playing his father; I initially thought the professor was Father Madison’s brother.   

There a few hilarious moments scattered throughout: the Devil distracting Alex as she attempts to read a book; a possessed Alex quickly glides past the door in the background, while Jessica is facing the camera, calling out her name; Professor Madison’s inept attempts at trying to help Alex; and the exorcism at the movie’s climax.  Devil Seed is an awful movie, but it is watchable if you catch in the right frame of mind; namely with a group of friends and a case of beer.  

Credits

Cast: Michelle Argyris (Alex), Shantelle Canzanese (Jessica), Vanessa Broze (Breanne), Kevin Jake Walker (Brian), Wayne Conroy (Professor Madison), Michael G. Wilmot (Father Madison), Louise Hollingsworth (Psychic).

Director: Greg A. Sager
Screenplay:  Geoff Hart, Greg A. Sager.
Running Time: 98 min.

My Top 25 Horror/Monster Films, Part III (10-1)

10. The Thing (1982)

Dir: John Carpenter
Running Time: 108 min.
The Thing was largely criticized when it came for being  overly violent and too gory, yet compared to the horror films of the last decade it is pretty tame. More importantly, the gore effects in The Thing actually serve a function to the overall story; the titular creature survives by assimilating the creatures around it. The audience never truly realizes the sheer horror of the Thing, until it is shown trying to assimilate sled dogs that are around it, and later when one of the humans is revealed to be a part of the Thing. The real tension in the film doesn't lie in its gruesome effects, but on the idea that the characters (and the audience) can never be certain as to who is human and who has been assimilated. This one of the few remakes that improves upon the original film, The Thing From Another World.  This is largely due to the fact that it’s more faithful to novella both films are based on, “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell. Lots of scenes from Carpenter’s film are taken directly from the novella, like the famous blood test scene.

9.  The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Dir: James Whale
Running Time: 75 min.
It’s often a tough choice for me to decide which film I like better: Frankenstein or The Bride of Frankenstein, because both are wonderful movies. In the end, I choose Bride of Frankenstein because it’s a far more complete film. The original Frankenstein sets up a love triangle that never pays off; it is hinted throughout that Henry Frankenstein’s fiancée, Elizabeth, will inevitably end up with his best friend, Victor, but this subplot gets abandoned by the film’s end. In the sequel Victor is completely forgotten about and Henry is allowed to create another monster with his demonic mentor, Dr. Pretorious (the wonderful Ernest Thesiger). Boris Karloff once again plays the monster in a sympathetic light and the ending in which his “bride” rejects him is truly saddening.  Once Karloff relinquished the role of the monster, it essentially was relegated to a walking prop, occasionally showing up at the end of future films to stumble around the set for a few minutes before everything went up in flames.

8. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Dir: Roman Polanski
Running Time: 136 min.
Rosemary’s Baby is a wonderful piece of misdirection: the first few minutes play like a cheesy day time soap; two newlyweds get an apartment in New York and are hoping to add a child into the mix. Then surely, but slowly everything starts to unravel, until it is revealed that the weird old couple next door are actually Satan worshipers and Rosemary’s husband is in on the plot to impregnate Rosemary with the devil’s child. In lesser hands this film would be completely laughable, but director Polanski builds tension with the power of mere suggestion.  In one famous shot, the character of Minnie (Ruth Gordon) is seen talking on the phone in her bedroom, but her face is blocked by the doorway; it’s a seemingly normal scene, but the blocking suggests something isn't quite right. Also, because the film is largely seen from Rosemary’s point of view, there are a few times where the audience starts to question her sanity; is there really a conspiracy going on or is all in her head? In fact, there are many people who claim that the film’s film scene is in fact, a hallucination caused by the stress Rosemary has put herself through. I don’t agree with the interpretation, but these ambiguities are what make Rosemary’s Baby such a classic horror film.

7. Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Dir: Erle C. Kenton
Running Time: 70 min.
Island of Lost Souls was the first adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel “The Island of Dr. Moreau” and it’s by far the best, even though the author himself hated it. In the novel Moreau is seen in a more kindly light, whereas he’s completely diabolical in the film version. Charles Laughton is a magnificent as the maniacal Moreau, who through vivisection hopes to accelerate the evolution of animals by transforming them into humans.  Bela Lugosi is terrific in a small, but memorable role as the Sayer of the Law.

6. Evil Dead II (1987)

Dir: Sam Raimi
Running Time: 84 min.
Evil Dead II is simply a joy to sit through. The first Evil Dead was a straight forward horror film filled with lots of gore and Bruce Campbell stumbling through the scenery as the cowardly Ash. Evil Dead II takes the same premise, but adds humor to the mix to make it one of the more memorable films of the 80s. It’s hard to dislike such a silly movie like this, hell, even Roger Ebert gave it a good review. Yet, despite the humor, there still are a few genuine scares scattered throughout, like the sudden emergence of the possessed Ed, or when the corpse of Henrietta bursts from the cellar floor. However, the highlight has to been Ash’s continuous battle with his possessed severed hand.

5. The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Dir: Roger Corman
Running Time: 80 min.
Vincent Price is one of my all time favorite actors; so it’s a sure bet that at least one of his film would be included in my top five. I decided on The Pit and the Pendulum largely due to the fact that it was the first Vincent Price film I ever saw, at the tender age of six. It was one of the first films my dad recorded on our new VCR, and I remember staying up late to watch it with him, my sister, and my cousin Mike, but not being able to finish it, because it creeped me out. It’s still rather chilling nearly 26 years later; especially the idea of being buried alive. The film presents this motif twice: When, in a flashback, Nicholas’ (Vincent Price) dad is shown interring his mother alive by building a wall of bricks around her, and later when it is revealed Nicholas wife was buried alive, which drives him to the brink of insanity.  And who can ever forget the ending, with an insane Price leering on as poor Francis (John Kerry) is strapped to a table while the pendulum swings ever closer to his body.

4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Dir: Don Siegel
Running Time: 80 min.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers doesn’t contain too many effects shots, but it’s far more effective than the many effects laden monstrosities that have dominated the horror genre in the last two decades. The film moves at a fast pace, largely due to the fact that the characters are constantly on the run. The premise is genuinely frightening:  the people in our community are not who we think them to be and, are in fact, duplicates lacking in the emotion department.  The most horrifying shot is when Miles (Kevin McCarthy) kisses Becky (Dana Wynter) and realizes she has been replaced due to the dead look in her eyes. A lot of political subtext has been attached to the film; there are some people who claim that it is anti-communist, while other are adamant it is anti- McCarthy, but regardless of its intentions (or lack thereof) it succeeds as a scary sci-fi/horror film.

3. Psycho (1960)

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Running Time: 109 min.
What’s amazing about Psycho is that despite the fact that I went in knowing both of its twists (the heroine get killed halfway through in a shower, the reveal that Mrs. Bates is actually her son Norman in drag), I was still drawn in by the narrative. The film succeeds because the audience relates to the character of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), which makes even more shocking and appalling when she is killed off right before our eyes forty five minutes into the film. If there is a flaw in Psycho it is the fact that the second half of the film is far less compelling, largely due to the fact that Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles) is not a particularly likable character. However, Psycho still remains a favorite due to its wonderful set pieces:  Marion being stalked by a highway patrolman, the shower scene; Norman (Anthony Perkins) cleaning up after his mother, the murder of detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam), and the reveal at the end. If you have hard time appreciating Psycho, then I suggest you watch the many imitations that followed it (William Castle’s Homicidal, I Saw What You Did, and Hammer’s Paranoiac and Nightmare); I guarantee these minor films will make realize what a genius Hitchcock truly was.

2. King Kong (1933)

Dir: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
Running Time: 100 min.
The first time I saw King Kong was when I was twelve years old. I was stayed up until three in the morning on a Saturday night to finally catch a film I had heard so much about throughout my childhood. Practically everyone knows about King Kong a top the Empire State Building, whether they have seen the film or not. The first forty minutes of the film effectively builds up to Kong’s first appearance, and I remember being excited that I was finally going to see Kong, BUT when he made his appearance…I LAUGHED! I thought to myself, “Wow! These effects are horrible. Kong looks like he’s made of clay.” However, as the film progressed, a funny thing happened….. I stopped thinking of Kong as a dated special effect and began to think of him as a genuine character. King Kong is a highly entertaining film, but it’s most amazing achievement is that somehow Willis O’ Brien and his team of animator were able to inject a personality and life into an 18 inch model covered with rabbit fur. Kong is  a fully realized character; he goes through a whole array of emotions throughout the course of the film and, despite being the villain, his death at the end is truly heart breaking. King Kong is one of the most influential films ever made and it’s a tribute to directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack that the film is just as popular today as it was eighty years ago.

1. Jaws (1975)

Running Time: 124 min.
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Jaws, like Psycho, has inspired countless imitations (and three unnecessary sequels) and once you have seen any of them, it makes you realize just how wonderful the original truly is. Jaws is the kind of the film that in lesser hands could have been absolutely dreadful, but director Steven Spielberg builds the suspense by never allowing the audience a good look at the shark until the film is two thirds over. The icing on the cake is that the characters are extremely likable and are capable of having genuine conversations; the most memorable being Quint (Robert Shaw) recounting surviving the U.S.S. Indianapolis sinking. It’s a scene that’s not necessarily relevant to the plot, but it adds depth to the character of Quint and explains why he’s so obsessed with killing this one shark.  It’s a highly entertaining and, in my opinion, one of the greatest films ever made.