There’s pandemic isolation, and then there’s ‘trapped in a crater in the middle of the desert’ isolation. One of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival midnight premieres, The Seeding is a slow-burn horror about the human relationships and pack mentalities that smolder outside the prying eyes of civilization.

When a lost young boy lures science photographer Wyndham Stone into a deep crater within a Utah canyon, his only hopes of escaping lie with Alina, the seemingly passive woman with him, or the gang of feral, desert-raised boys circling above them, that lives to serve her.

Popdust sat down with Alex Montaldo who plays the leader of the sadistic pack of young men – think Peter Pan to the Lost Boys.

In your own words, tell me about The Seeding.

The Seeding is a horror film, but more on the psychological side. To me, it has a lot to do with the primal human fears and the relationship we have with nature, which is broken in too many ways I think, and how this could turn sour and bad and dangerous – just ‘cause we think we’ve been put in charge by something, someone which is just an illusion and then when you face reality then, it could go bad. [Laughs]

What was it like filming out in the middle of Utah?

It was gorgeous, I loved it. It was so uncomfortable. And that helped me a lot.

My idea was just to become part of the desert and take it all in and see what it did to me. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the sky in Utah, but you can see every single star. And I felt this overwhelming feeling of being so tiny and at the same time, so huge, that it’s just I don’t even know what I was doing … [looking up at the sky] was one specific moment that gave me a lot.

Normally I’m afraid of heights, but most of my scenes were actually up on top of the rim of the canyon. As the character? I could look down, had no fear whatsoever, and I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s kind of why I like doing this.

What drew you to the role of Corvus in the first place?

I was able to visualize it immediately – he’s like a carnie, like a carnival barker type, but he’s also a shaman – meaning he’s this guy who strives to feed this goddess he and his tribe worship. And there’s also a very human side to him which is more related to the men he kidnaps and kills.

In the desert, I rule. And is that evil? Good? Bad? I don’t look at it that way. I mean if you’ve seen my character, you probably think of it as a bad guy – I don’t at all. It’s all out of love, in a way, for the sister/mother/goddess, and this need to create something very human and very much not human at the same time.

The essence of my character is really on his name at the end of the day. Corvus means crow, right? [Alex laughs and points to a crow tattoo on his left forearm.] I had this before… In celtic mythology, crows are messengers of death. And my character is high on death to a certain extent. He has this connection with arcane knowledge. So it all goes back to that.

Also he reminded me of Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger and Peter Murphy so it was cool for me to just go for it… [The writer/director Barnaby Clay] has got a rock’n’roll style in his aesthetic I was just drawn to.

The Seeding

XYZ Films