Growth

In response to the first reviewer: I've seen Squirm and Slither. I liked Squirm and I loved Slither, but Growth was a mess. The difference is the former two didn't take themselves too seriously and it seemed they were made with more care than this.

Growth starts out with an interesting premise, and actually very good dialogue and characters. Unfortunately, the story and editing made me sorry I got my hopes up at all. First of all, the film takes itself deadly seriously, and suffers for it. Not that I wanted a horror/comedy, but the script just couldn't pull off a straight horror story, alas.

The other main complaints with the film are as previously mentioned, characters make bizarre decisions beyond the typical "stupid horror character decisions" and are not explained. The effects of the parasites are too amorphous: do they affect the will of the victim? And the weak story too heavily relies on flashbacks.

On the positives, I actually thought the CGI was decently well done, the dialogue/script believable and the casting was not objectionable.

I can see the director doesn't have much experience, so team him up with a better story editor and I'd see the next one.

I expected a film similar to Arachnophobia, maybe, given it was about small creatures, well, parasites of a sort. Then after much time passes, it's almost like some kinda Firestarter-type story, with government agents out to capture some superhuman.

There were some surprising parts that obviously I won't explain, but "Growth" took too long for stuff to happen and once stuff started happening it seemed pretty odd.

We're told the parasites were developed to transform people into superhumans, which naturally would make them more symbiotic than parasitic but apparently nobody's familiar with Spiderman in the laboratory and stuff goes wrong.

Oddly, we're told the parasites would devour their host from inside but nothing along those lines occurs. A car appears to be stalking people before one of the main characters becomes infested and I don't really understand why.

Basically I was left feeling as if somewhere I'd missed something!

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...