Growth

If you love Squirm and Slither, then you will love this. It will give you the chills and even the most hardened horror fan will shudder when he sees the "things" burrow through into the flesh of an unsuspecting victim. Growth is a new body horror from the company that produced SAW, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D which was Lionsgate. I have to say I have been impressed by the horror movies that Lionsgate are releasing as most of them are good. I love nature gone bad movies and body horror movies, so I gave this a whirl. Well let's just say I was scratching my skin about 45 into the film. It really does make your skin crawl. Most of the time the parasites are CGI but they are CGI that you can believe in and be repulsed by and believe me they are repulsive. Through some scenes I actually even felt sick. It is a movie that plays with your mind and your body at the same time. believe me it will GROW on you.

This is a failed attempt at a movie made using a worn out recipe. I usually revel into films with parasites, infestations and so on. This one made me squirm, and not in a good way, either.

The plot revolves around a group of friends that come on an isolated island in order to process an inheritance. The people there are a closed community of scientists that dabble in genetics. One of the guys has "low immunity" which is kind of weird for someone coming on an isolated island.

Anyway, you can see it, right? The potential. The closed community from Wicker Man, the parasites from any number of films, the low immunity resulting in a different condition than other infected, and so on. The film managed to ignore all these possibilities, instead basing the thrills on CGI critters that crawl under the skin. Really? Epic fail.

This for me is no more than an average horror movie with the concept of a good story about the parasite thing and the folks on the island, yes I can see the slight connection with Wicker Man here but there are no known actors in this movie and the story is weak and the film suffers as a result.

I wont say it was not entertaining, on the contrary, the spoof moments were full of suspense and intrigue and the acting is fine, it is just the story promises so much and delivers so little, they could have done so much more with the story and they didn't.

This will likely appeal to a teenage audience and not much more. Not enough horror and solid story for me.

Frankly, I don't think so. But it remains an agreeable time waster. I take advantage to have watched this horror flick a few minutes ago to review it, if not I am afraid to forget it. Just a horror film destined to young adults or grown up teenagers who are not too difficult to satisfy, and also a yarn inspired by David Cronenberg's films from the seventies. Yes, it's cool, never boring, and for me that's already much. The screenplay could have been far worse for such a budget. So my advice is to try it, because when you watch a horror film, you have to expect the unexpected and here the result can easily match whatever you had in mind before watching it. Pretty forgettable movie. Now, what about the gross? I guess that's a secret.... Unlike the GROWTH. Nice ending.

GROWTH is a sci-fi / horror film in the tradition of movies like FLESHEATERS, BRAIN EATERS, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, THE HIDDEN, etc., where unearthly parasites invade the bodies of the unwary, mutating them into automatons of doom.

Jamie (Mircea Monroe) brings her boyfriend, her half-brother, and her best friend to an island she's inherited. Unbeknownst to Jamie and company, this particular island was the site of a biological disaster some years earlier.

Now, something is loose. Something that's looking for warm bodies to inhabit, and the new arrivals are in for a disgusting shock.

GROWTH isn't bad for a low-budget effort. The slippery critters are fairly well-realized. Unfortunately, CGI always has that synthetic, cartoonish look to it. This can have the effect of taking the viewer right out of the movie, almost ruining everything.

Worth watching, though you might find yourself rolling your eyes during some of the CGI sequences...