Kaniehtiio Horn’s debut film, Seeds, is a vengeful, engrossing comedic thriller that seeks to honor Native legacies as it empowers the viewer. However, the movie falls woefully short of this visionary concept.
The movie’s protagonist, a Mohawk woman named Ziggy, is an aspiring influencer and city dweller. She is offered a brand deal with a nefarious company called Nature’s Oath. The corporation sends Ziggy to stay at her aunt’s house on the reservation she grew up on to make content.
Ziggy does no research into the company. Although her cousin warns her against working for them, she is predictably blinded by hubris.
Nature’s Oath is essentially attempting to privatize all variants of every plant—frankly, a captivating idea for a villain.
In the aunt’s house, as shown through a series of flashbacks, are the heirloom variety seeds of the three sisters. In the flashback, the ancestor says “You guard these seeds with your life…”, which was definitely not foreshadowing anything at all.
The movie progresses as Ziggy leaves her ancestral home to find cellular data and a Nature’s Oath man breaks in, searching for the familial seeds. The man is accosted by Ziggy’s cat, Potato, the movie’s best character. The villain somehow loses his ear in the scuffle, kills the cat and flees the premises. Ziggy returns to find her cat dead, and calls her ex-boyfriend. They rekindle their love after after the ex apologizes for being absent during Ziggy’s miscarriage, a glaringly underdeveloped plot point. Meanwhile, the Nature’s Oath villain finds a friend of Ziggy’s willing to sell her out for $100,000 and puts acetone on his ear as a comedic bit. Screaming ensues.
From this point onward, the plot moves very fast and becomes violent very quickly. The Nature’s Oath man and the disloyal friend arrive at Ziggy’s aunt’s home. The Nature’s Oath man only has a handgun and no backup even though Nature’s Oath is portrayed as a very powerful corporation. This seems to be a major plot hole.
The ex is shot. Ziggy is knocked out and has a dream where she meets her subconscious. A short old man from a nondescript TV show implies that she is pregnant and encourages her to “channel the rage of her ancestors.” She awakens, tied up in her basement. Ziggy then channels her hereditary rage to release herself from her bonds and torture her captors in the ancestral fashion. This involves boiling water, skinning, feathering and removing nails among other methods. In the final scene, Ziggy eats the Nature’s Oath man’s heart and smiles as her cousin and ex turned boyfriend spectate.
While I can see how this was intended to be empowering, it is difficult to overcome my reactions at the physical repugnance and constant confusion at the various plot holes. This violent final scene also seemed very out of line with Ziggy’s previous character, and while I do understand this idea of avenging all of the past wrongdoing towards Native peoples, the jarring change made this difficult to internalize.
The background to all of this is a looping ominous drum track, which makes it all the more difficult to concentrate on the vague plot. The awkward and clunky dialogue does not do much to help. The movie did have some redeeming qualities; good camera work, an intriguing premise and satisfactory acting allow it to find a degree of viability. As this director’s debut, Seeds doesn’t wholly fail to capture interest from audiences. This film does, however, show Horn’s room to develop in the future.
