We can probably agree that growing up is hell, but growing up alone in the desert is another kind of hell altogether. That’s what one hiker (Scott Haze) finds out when he encounters a lost child while photographing a solar eclipse. What starts as an act of good Samaritanism turns into a deadly cat-and-mouse game between him, a group of menacing teenage boys, and a mysterious woman with a unique connection to them (Kate Lyn Sheil). As it turns out, The Seeding is more than just an eye-catching title. It’s something much more terrifying.

From the very first scene of Barnaby Clay’s feature directorial debut, audiences will be on the edge of their seats. A slow-burning thriller from a prolific music video director, The Seeding is a stone-cold nightmare that confronts our fears of isolation and unchecked toxic masculinity headfirst. Boys will be boys, and in the vastness of the California desert, their worst impulses come out to play.–– Jose Rodriguez