Glutors

Seedpeople (1992) is a Full Moon Entertainment film that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a small town known for comet activity where a meteorite crashes and a mutation forms in the woods. An alien infestation breaks out and people start dying all over the city. Can the local sheriff stop the aliens and save mankind?

This movie is directed by Peter Manoogian (The Dungeonmaster) and stars Sam Hennings (Four Good Days), Andrea Roth (The Collector), Holly Fields (Spider-man 2) and Anne Betancourt (To Live and Die in LA).

The concept for this picture felt like a cross between Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and Critters, but not executed as well as either of those franchises. The creatures were more fun than good as most of the scenes felt like they were executed by puppets and stuffed animals. The flying sequences by the monster are really bad. It's unfortunate because some of the horror elements and kills are well done and some are atrociously bad. This is a fun watch if you're looking for something lighthearted and campy.

Overall, if you're looking for a bad, campy horror film that doesn't take itself too seriously, this is for you. I would score this a 4/10 and recommend seeing it once.

I'm going to confess, I didn't have much hope for Seedpeople when I stuck it on. It's one of those movies I've been loosely aware of for several years, but never really appealed to me, despite my love of B-Movies. Alien plant people sounded a little too on the nose 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' for me. Sticking this on was the result of a very bored Friday before payday. When the Full Moon logo greeted me, my heart sank.

The film is narrated, from his hospital bed, by Tom Baines (Sam Hennings) a meteorologist who had returned to his home town of Comet Valley to investigate a meteor that has crashed.

Here he has to link up with his former flame Heidi (Andrea Roth) and her teenage niece Kim (Holly Fields) whom she is now guardian of. The town has all of the classic small town tropes here, from Heidi's suspicious new boyfriend, the Sheriff Brad (Dane Witherspoon) and town nutjob Doc (Bernard Kates).

Kim has been raising eyebrows and causing Heidi stress by stating townspeople aren't who they say they are, something that also rings true of Doc. The more Tom investigates the 'meteorite' he realises it, and certain people, are not what it seems. With the town isolated due to bridge repairs, Tom realises the Doc might be right, and the pair might have to join forces to take on this alien threat.

I'm gonna come right out and say it, I was pleasantly surprised by this. It's silly, but in the most wonderful of ways. Despite being made in 1992, this looks, and feels, very much like it was made in 1985, and that's more a compliment than a criticism. It reminds me a bit of Critters, and while nowhere near as good, that's a good thing.

While this doesn't have an original bone in its body, it moves at a brisk pace, offers some fun characters, creative effects and entertaining set pieces. If Charles Band was capable of stuff like this, why did he persist with so many rubbish killer doll films?

The creatures themselves are fun. There are different types, with no real explanation, and while not exactly a masterclass in realism, the practical effects used to bring them to life are fun. The designs remind me of the little sidekick monster characters you'd get with some 80s action figures. The Ghostlings from Supernaturals meet Real Ghostbusters Companion Ghosts.

Acting is, well not great, but better than your average Full Moon feature. I mean all of the principle cast have acted to a decent standard since then.

When all is said and done, you can't honestly call this a good movie, but at the same time...it's largely some good, mostly clean, B-Movie Sci-Fi horror fun. It's not really scary or gruesome, so I can imagine I'd have enjoyed this as a kid.

If you like 80s B-Movies, there's a solid chance you'll get a kick out of this. It's not worth going out of your way to track down, but it'll pass a night in a fairly good fun manner.

Full Moon's "Seedpeople" (1992) dates back to the time producer Charles Band still had comfortable little budgets to play with. The largely derivative story takes place in the small town of Comet Valley, where the citizens are being taken over by the seeds of an alien plant-like lifeform. Special effects designer John Carl Buechler and his team amp up the material with enjoyable creature designs and director Peter Manoogian maintains a decent pace to the events. Young Canadian actress Andrea Roth ("The Club", 1994) manages to stand out between the cast. Needles to say things get more than a little silly, but at least this is a Full Moon quickie that remains a fun watch for not too demanding sci-fi/horror lovers.

This horror film was not entirely bad. As with most horror films crafted by Full Moon Studios back in the day, good or bad, it was very short. Meaning, that even if the experience is completely horrid, you at least have not invested a lot of time into watching it. Many of their films run under an hour and a half, many under an hour and twenty minutes. So, while you may be watching something that is not very good, chances are with Full Moon, you will not be watching it for very long. Another thing you get from time to time with Full Moon Studios is what is essentially a retelling of a better known story. With the film, Meridian, you basically had a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. With this film you get almost a remake of, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Not a particularly good remake of it either, but not completely horrible either. Just another in a long run of horror films, that have some good ideas, but a lack of execution prevents it from being really good, or in the case of this film good at all. This one is a bit boring and if you have seen a good deal of horror films you know exactly where it is going and how it is going to end. Though how the film played out made one think that there is no way that the film reached this outcome unless a lot of people dropped the ball in glorious fashion!

The story has a man in a hospital room rambling about something that needed to be checked on in his hometown. An FBI agent comes in and wants the man to recount his tale, so he does. We then flashback to when he first arrived at his hometown of Comet Valley. He wants to find pieces of a meteorite that is depicted in a drawing in a cave; however, something is not quite right in town. At the local bed and breakfast which is run by his ex, her niece seems to think the housekeeper is some sort of monster. Her father goes out to his farm and finds a strange growing pod like thing and is promptly covered in ooze that turns him into some strange creature. Soon, more and more people seem to be coming under something's control. An old man everyone refers to as Doc, but is thought of as the town crazy seems to know what is going on, but as the man who has come back to town and Doc try to stop the strange phenomenon it may already be too late.

The movie has some interesting qualities, but as I have said, you know where it is going. Every time they come back to the guy recounting his story to the FBI agent the agent always is like, "That is interesting, what about Doc…" Granted, when one sees how the guy came to the hospital and what led to him getting a concussion, one has to wonder how the heck did things come to that point. Also, one also has to wonder how he knew what had come of Doc. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers thing is very apparent throughout as you have your emotionless people, pods and a scene at the end where a truck has the pods and the guy runs after the truck. There are monsters in this one, but as much as I prefer monsters that are created rather than the computer generated ones of today, these look a bit goofy and at times roll around like the creatures in the Critter movies. Not a whole lot of bloodshed in this one and no nudity, which is not rare for a Full Moon film. Usually, they go all out or they hold it back to the point of being a bit dull which is the case in this one. Still, there are worse ways and worse films to spend your time on and at least you don't really spend much time on this one.

SEEDPEOPLE concerns the tiny town of Comet Valley, its citizenry, and those who start acting strangely. Tom Baines (Sam Hennings) is in town looking for meteorites, and to possibly rekindle an old flame with local innkeeper, Heidi Tucker (Andrea Roth). Baines has no idea that something is happening in the nearby apple orchard, involving a gigantic, alien plant, its nocturnal secretions, and the bizarre effects thereof. In short order, an invasion is underway!

Sort of a crackpot combination of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and CRITTERS, this Charles Band / FULL MOON production is far better than it should be. Made entirely of cheeeze-corn, it still manages to be watchable, all the way to the "twist" ending...