Seeds of Destruction

Created as a SyFy original back in 2011, Seeds of Destruction comes to us from director/writer Paul Ziller whom Shakefire readers may recognize as I recently reviewed his film Collision Earth.  The quality of acting is better this time around, but the film greatly suffers from production penny-pinching resulting in special effects that look to have been made by a first year film student working in his or her parents’ basement.

Years ago a scientist by the name of Frame (James Morrison, FOX's 24) deciphered hidden passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The passages revealed that Adam returned to the Garden of Eden after being banished and stole several seeds which he concealed in an urn.  Due to the hard work of archaeologist Jocelyn (Stefanie von Pfetten, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief), Frame was able to obtain the seeds in hopes of growing his very own Garden of Eden.  Somehow a seed is released into the soil during a botched black market transaction resulting in ginormous roots that quickly grow throughout the United States causing massive earthquakes on their route to the oceans.  Jocelyn teams up with SCOPE agent Jack (Adrian Pasdar, NBC's Heroes) in hopes of saving the planet.

Crazy as it may sound, the story is somewhat interesting and further developed compared to the majority of SyFy offerings.  The entire cast does a decent job with the material provided and shouldn't be embarrassed having this film on their respective resume.  Jesse Moss (Tucker and Dale vs Evil) is underutilized as a young environmentalist on the run, yet still manages to shine in a believable role.  Although only 30 years of age, Moss has been working in the entertainment industry for 20 years and certainly deserves more than supporting roles in countless films and television program.  The picture quality on the Blu-Ray is great and colors are vivid especially during scenes taking place in outdoor rural settings.

Terrible special effects absolutely sink Seeds of Destruction.  During the effects, anything moving sticks out like a sore thumb against the background of the cinematography.  My local evening news broadcast has more sophisticated work in their opening montage.  Simply put, it completely kills any shred of believability the story had established.  This Blu-Ray is a bare bones release containing only the feature and no special features are included.  To add salt to our wounds, the onscreen menu is perhaps the worst I’ve ever encountered.  The selections are not even highlighted as I realized when I went to play the film and was sent to the option screen instead.  Save your hard-earned money and let these seeds die off.