Ultimately, there's just not enough here to praise, on either an emotional or narrative level, but like some deserts, the film is nice to look at. It's just a place no one would be advised to go, much less stay.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 14, 2024

The Seeding is a terrifying primal scream across scorched earth and one of the year’s most confident debuts.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2024

Clay’s fusing of claustrophobic estrangement, grisly carnage and Freudian oedipal complexes offers a disturbing allegory about parenthood and the harsh realities of survival.

| Mar 27, 2024

The Seeding is a haunting work of folk horror that is well-cultivated and nurtured to the bitter, inevitable end.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 12, 2024

The film benefits from debut feature director Barnaby Clay’s desire to transfix us with his artfully detailed redneck-biblical landscape.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 6, 2024

An atmospheric riff on "The Woman in the Dunes" that unfortunately never amounts to much beyond its psychosexual survival-horror shocks.

| Feb 1, 2024

The film’s scattered pacing can feel aimless in some moments and heavy-handed in others. With an unpleasant protagonist making foolish decisions, the narrative’s bleakness doesn’t hit with the necessary impact, making The Seeding little more than a husk.

| Original Score: 1.75/5 | Jan 31, 2024

The atmosphere is spectacular, and the disturbing moments are not missed, but it failed, definitively, at the end of its cook time. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jan 30, 2024

It’s a shame that writer/director Barnaby Clay’s knack for expressing atmospheric chills with The Seeding ends up going to waste on a narrative that not only drags but rather easily telegraphs early on where it’s going

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 27, 2024

Unfortunately, the movie’s inconsistent pacing and surprisingly long timeframe very nearly undo the rest of its spare, brutish strengths. It’s pretty short at 100 minutes. It could have done with being even shorter.

| Jan 27, 2024

Even if its ambiguity is frustrating, tension simmers throughout this low-budget psychological horror saga that effectively leverages common fears of isolation and helplessness.

| Jan 26, 2024

Clay’s surreal drama isn’t stillborn as much as it’s emotionally uninflected and monotonous.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 26, 2024

Ultimately, The Seeding's inability to develop impetus beyond its shallow themes and bluntly paganistic iconography results in a movie as empty as the desert Wyndham loses himself in.

| Jan 26, 2024

The Seeding is a wild little blast of sun-blitzed gonzo folk horror, and I will remember it for a good long while.

| Jan 26, 2024

In terms of it functioning as a fable and a thriller, The Seeding collapses under minimal thought.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 26, 2024

Successfully prioritizing style over substance is harder than some distinctive talents make it look, however, and Clay is not at their level yet...

| Jan 26, 2024

An ambitious effort that doesn't quite hit the mark, The Seeding is asking a lot of the viewer without much payoff.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 25, 2024

The Seeding is a welcome addition to any horror fan’s watchlist. It will leave you thinking and thoroughly disturbed.

| Original Score: 8.5/10 | Jan 24, 2024

Clay’s eye for composition and Sheil’s beguiling performance are highlights in an arthouse horror story that plays it too safe with the horror. One that's far more shallow than its central chasm setting suggests.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 24, 2024

The writing portions out details of doom carefully, with Clay looking to generate a heavy atmosphere of confusion and frustration, finding his way to some crazy acts of torment in a compelling feature.

| Original Score: B | Jan 23, 2024