Growth (2009)
Directed By: Gabriel Cowan (Breathing Room)
Reviewer: Chuck Conry

 The Prologue


Stop me if you’ve heard this before but in Growth we have worm like creatures infesting inside people..Hmm..haven’t we seen this before?? Oh that’s right! We have! And we seen it done much better than we see it done here.


So if you’re into these types of movies will you still want to check this thing out or will you be better off to pass on this one until you just have nothing better to watch?


The Movie


In 1989, a breakthrough in advanced parasitic research on Cuttyhunk Island, gave scientists a jump in human evolution. Initial tests proved promising as subjects were experiencing heightened physical and mental strength and awareness. But, something in the experiment went horribly wrong and the island mysteriously lost three quarters of its population. Jamie Akerman fled the outbreak, which took her mothers life, twenty years ago. She now returns with her boyfriend and step brother, to sell the family property.


About the only really interesting thing I seen in this movie was the fact it starts with such a clipped up intro telling the back story to the plot that you’d almost think you were watching a sequel! It’s a little awkward but kinda cool and might be only stylish thing about the film and even worse the only thing I can really say that stands out about this thing.


 So what is wrong with this movie? Well besides the bad CGI, there just isn’t anything in this thing that you haven’t seen a zillion times over in another better made horror movie. The film borrows heavily from Night of the Creeps and Slither only it leaves the funny stuff at the door and tries to play the ridiculous stuff (and bad character development) off as serious and it just doesn’t work.


Even when the creatures are under the skin of someone in this movie it looks kinda fake and comes across as a early version of the same effect used in The Ruins. You also get nothing to latch on to or care about as every person in this film from the first to go to our final girl (played by a hot looking Mircea Monroe) are all pretty much as bland as you can get and have nothing that stands out about any of them besides their looks and as we all know that won’t carrie a movie alone.


There’s a couple fun scenes in the movie, but they are more over the top and so bad they are watchable rather than being full on quality on the viewer’s eyes, they are also too short to matter. Maybe had they kept that feel for the whole film we’d be having something to watch here rather than just a mess of a film that I think lacks some logic in areas and at times down right loses any fun feel at all..Which isn’t good for a horror film.


The Conclusion


Everyone loves Night of the Creeps and Slither but if you go into this thing that has pretty much the same sort of plot and creature thinking it’s going to capture any of that goodness then you will be highly disappointed.


Pretty much on par with your average film that sits on the shelves (or in the Netflix warehouse with movies nobody request). Sure, it may be OK for watch at some point but not good enough to suggest rushing out and seeing.


The Rating (5.5/10)