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Seedpeople
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Full Moon Features Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (5th April 2024). |
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The Film
 Geologist Tom Baines (Drop Zone's Sam Hennings) returns to his home town of Comet Valley to examine a supposed meteor found by old friend Thurman (The Jigsaw Murders' Charles Bouvier) and lecture the local space nuts (just as the only bridge out of town will be closed for three days of maintenance). Not everyone is happy to see him, including Deputy Sheriff Brad Yates (Santa Barbara's Dane Witherspoon), Tom's rival for the affections of childhood sweetheart Heidi (The Collector's Andrea Roth) who owns the local bed and breakfast. No one believes Heidi's younger sister Kim (Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies' Holly Fields) when she swears that her father Frank (John Mooney) and housekeeper Mrs. Santiago (Jack's Back's Anne Betancourt) are possessed, but strange things happening in the orchards at night and the meteor hunters who venture in come back out different. When farmer Burt Moseley brings him an intact meteor that might just be part of the shower fifty years before that gave the town its name, he discovers that the outer shell is made of the same material that protects common seed embryos, Tom starts to believe crazy hermit Doc Roller (The Phantom's Bernard Kates) who claims the meteorites being unearthed around town are seeds that are just now gestating deadly living organisms. FBI agent Weems (Band of the Hand's Michael Gregory) and the story kills whatever momentum the film might have had while incessant narration and dialogue try to cover up scenes either never shot or cut to keep the film under ninety minutes. John Carl Buechler's monsters are especially rubbery and silly but not in the entertaining way they usually are, and the gore is well within R-rated standards of the nineties; the film could probably be shown on television intact in terms of gore but possibly not the suggestive orifices of the flower buds that spurt white viscous liquid over their victims. The photography of the usually excellent Adolfo Bartoli (Lurking Fear) is proficient but unspectacular, and no creative angles or lighting can distract from just how "cramped" most of the film's locations when it comes to any kind of action staging. It is not really worth gaging the performances since the scripted dialogue is as banal as most of the interpersonal business between action scenes. Most disappointing is that one kind of expects something more creative from a Paramount-era Full Moon feature – even if the budget, performances, and effects are not up to the filmmakers' ambitions – than a very average direct-to-video pic without the studio's stamp of character that could just have easily convinced as a Vidmark or Prism pick-up. 
Video
Released direct-to-video and laserdisc by Paramount in 1992, Seedpeople arrived on DVD from as part of the Full Moon Classics: Volume One five-disc set in 2007 and the later as a single disc, but both editions were the somewhat hazy nineties video master that is still available on streaming services. Full Moon's new 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray by necessity comes from a brand new scan. While the transfer does not necessarily enhance one's appreciation of the film's budget-hampered look, it does reveal more of the film's rough edges including wires directing some of the "tumbleweed" aliens and the fact that the video noise in the shots through Kim's camcorder viewfinder are an overlay with a static pattern of lines and dots. Detail is generally good, although some of the second unit insert shots look a bit grittier, and the contrast in a couple shots of Hennings in his hospital bed under a bright light might be dialed up a bit too high; and, yet, as with quite a few of Full Moon's more recent remasters, these warts and all presentations are still the best the films have ever looked (especially the direct-to-video ones). 
Audio
The default audio option is a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 rendering of the film's original UltraStereo mix that does the job; however, possibly due to the limitations of the authoring program used by Full Moon or a reluctance to spend more on the creation of a setup menu, an okay Dolby Digital 5.1 upmix and optional English SDH subtitles are only available via your player remote's audio and subtitle buttons. 
Extras
Extras consist of a handful of Full Moon Trailers and the original 1992 Videozone (9:54) making-of piece featured at the end of the VHS and laserdisc presentations and as the often sole substantial extra of the DVD editions. 
Overall
Although thoroughly lacking Full Moon's stamp of character, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers clone Seedpeople may prove a diversion for fans of the studio and nineties science fiction. 
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