Seeds

imagineNATIVE 25 FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW! Vengeance goes farm to table and has never tasted better in the indigenous exploitation triumph Seeds, written and directed by Kaniehtiio Horn. Ziggy (Kaniehtiio Horn) is a Mohawk, a tribe that used to eat the hearts of their vanquished enemies in battle. Nowadays, though, Ziggy is collecting hearts from her followers as a social media influencer. She has just picked up a major sponsorship from a global seed company and is very excited, as she can now quit delivering food on a bicycle in Toronto.

She lives in an apartment that smells like pizza and goes to sleep at night watching reruns of Exhibit A, a forensic crime show hosted by Graham Greene (Graham Greene), who sometimes visits Ziggy in her dreams. She then gets a call from her cousin, Wiz (Dallas Goldtooth), asking her to come back to the reservation for a few days. Their Aunty Mama (Bonnie Whitley) is still getting her groove back in New Zealand, and Wiz needs Ziggy to house sit her place in the woods while he does some very important fishing. So Ziggy and her famous cat, Potato, out there even though she knows the wifi in the rez is nearly nonexistent, putting her big break at risk. Her arrival doesn’t go without notice, as the sinister Drake (Patrick Garrow) is also visiting the reservation, with the type of plans that are not going to win any hearts soon.

“…Ziggy is collecting hearts from her followers as a social media influencer.”

Horn continues today’s evolution of the classic grindhouse tradition in Seeds, which elevates the exploitation format while leaning into its core power. She gives the film the narrative richness of Billy Jack while also using the same unhinged ferocity seen in Johnny Firecloud. In other words, the screenplay is very smart while being totally merciless. When was the last time you went to a bloody revenge picture that also taught viewers about the three sisters of legacy agriculture?

What also impressed me was how Horn was able to ingeniously compartmentalize the humor in the movie without weakening the impact of the violence. The comedy portion of the story is sandwiched very neatly between the high exploitation that frames the film going in and out. Horn blatantly tells the viewers to their faces how ugly it is going to get, then embarks on an entertaining comedy show until the ugly arrives. The way the two different tones are separated is impressive, as the comedy sections do not water down the intensity of the carnage. It also helps to be funny, and Horn can be very funny.