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Situated in the picturesque canyons of Joshua Tree, Clay's debut feature film, The Seeding, offers a chilling portrayal of life and its cycles. Starring Scott Haze and Kate Lyn Sheil, the film follows a man who finds himself far removed from his familiar environment, tormented by a sadistic gang of boys and taken care of by a puzzling woman. Shot on location over 19 days, the film reflects the stark intensity of its desert setting.

The Seeding is screening in limited theaters and available for streaming since last Friday. We caught up with Clay over Zoom to talk about the film, from finding inspiration in termite mounds and fatherhood to the challenges of filming in the desert.

I'd love to jump right in and start off with talking about the film's setting and apart from that, what stood out almost immediately, which is this emphasis on cycles. The Seeding feels very non-linear, which deviates from the typical horror movie.

Yeah, well I'd say that the cycle of life is the biggest theme, and I'm trying to tackle the extent of that but in a very small way. I wanted to leave it in a place where you feel like, Oh yeah, this is just one story in a continuous cycle of stories that will carry on forever. It can be the story of this man, this woman, or just the story of a termite mound being built and the insects within creating their society, doing what they can to keep that going, and if it does collapse, rebuilding somewhere else and carrying on.

How did a walk through Joshua Tree give you this idea? I remember being there once with friends with no signal as the sun was setting and actually starting to panic as it got colder and darker and we couldn't find the trail.

Well, that's the sense you get when you're in the desert. You're always putting yourself in a position of vulnerability because it's so unfamiliar. I live two and a half hours away from Joshua Tree, and I've been many times, but every visit inevitably includes a moment like you described. Your walk has gone on a little longer than expected, or you decided to turn this way instead of that way, or you spot a beautiful pile of rocks you want to explore, and suddenly you're like, Oh shit, is this the right way back or is this the right way back? 

Exactly and what you capture so well in the movie is the surge of adrenaline one gets in such situations.

Yeah exactly, there's an immediate feeling that starts inside, a growing panic takes over. Eventually, you find a path and you're like, Oh my God, thank God. Even though Joshua Tree is a national park and it's policed, people go missing, get lost, and sadly, some even die. It's unfortunate but that's the harsh reality of what happens because the desert is tough. It can all look the same in every direction. You've got the elements against you — blisteringly hot during the day and extremely cold at night. You've got the nature around you, the animals and insects that come out at night. That was something I was trying to infuse within the film — how the lead character was so removed from nature, and his experience rams his head right into the hornet's nest of it all. This is something we've all become a little bit detached from in our Western urbanized living, and it's frightening when you are suddenly put in a position where you think you can handle it, but you can't, and your idea of yourself within that world very quickly evaporates, and you realize how vulnerable you can be.

Stills courtesy of Magnet Releasing

Scott’s character, Wyndham, finds himself so far removed from his familiar environment. How do you balance his perception of this barren landscape with the psychological turmoil he experiences?

I mean, they go hand in hand, but I really wanted this feeling that he leaves whatever environment he comes from — presumably an urban one — goes out into the desert, takes his photos, gets lost, and finds himself trapped in this situation. If it were me, I would spend however many days doing whatever it takes to try and get out of there, and that's really the number one thought in his mind. But then as his confinement grows, he realizes that it's going to take him longer than he expects to get out of there and begins to think about what he’s missing and it’s all very mundane things — his job, his car, people who rely on him. Nothing is of great significance, and that's his arc within the story: that slow realization that all the things that he's missing are really nothing. As Kate’s character Alina says at one point, "It’s just an idea of freedom." 

The only thing he can grasp onto really is that he wants a cheeseburger, which is this kind of the most American thing. There’s that scene when he’s going through his wallet, and it's not really about discovering all the things that he has in his wallet. It's about all the things which are not — there's no pictures of his family or wife or kids, just credit cards, his car keys, and a driver’s license. All useless stuff in his situation.

To me, that scene when he pulls out his driver’s license and looks at it almost signified a stripping away of his identity as he knows it and also that he has nothing else to look forward to really.

Yeah sure, which is right. I’d like to hope that — without giving anything away — right before the very end of the film he finally finds something that actually gives his life meaning. Within the terror show that he goes through, he has the sudden realization that this is what he’d been missing from his life. On the other hand, Alina lives in a very simple way. Her primary motive is to keep this society she’s a part of going, but as a human being, she still reacts to the situation in front of her. There are points within the story during which she begins to question her own situation, and there’s a moment when the movie could take a completely different direction, and these two characters being brought together in a very strange way could end up actually having a really nice life. There’s obviously a little spark of chemistry there. I think she gets those feelings, but they are ultimately trumped by the rigid set of rules that have been laid down within her world.

How did you approach depicting this “society” as you say?

Alina is obviously the master of her domain and again, it was very simple. It goes back to two things: one, my wife was pregnant at the time, which is such a big change within your life and it’s very exciting but ultimately there’s also this realization that once a woman is pregnant you’re just there to facilitate them as a man, to serve them and make sure your wife is alright and that your child is alright. There’s only so much you can do and it’s difficult sometimes to give way to those feelings. And two, going back to this idea of an insect colony, how at the top there’s the queen, then the workers and the hosts which they bring in. It’s such a simple structure that you see everywhere in nature because it works so well. That's why it's everywhere in nature and something I really drew from.

What was it like spending 19 days in the desert while shooting? 

I really wanted it to be on location. My plan was to find this spot wherever it may be and build this little shack and shoot. It ended up being in southern Utah, a place called Kanab. It sounds simple enough when you put it that way, but it was actually not simple at all. I say it was simple, but the whole experience from finding it to working in it, to just being in it day after day was impossibly hard. Both physically and mentally painful. 80 degrees during the day could drop down to 30 degrees at night. There was like groundwater underneath us so the ground was always wet, which was weird. We were walking on this kind of muddy, wet surface. I wanted all of us to have this sense of confinement, and it really helped so much to create this feeling of being trapped and up against the elements and just within nature like that, for everyone from the cast to the crew to myself.

When I came back and my editor had done an assembly, I was literally like, This is the worst film ever made, which feels like a common thing amongst directors when watching an assembly, but what kept me going throughout the edit process was this feeling that the actual shooting was so intense and so visceral that the experience had to somehow end up on the film. You can’t walk away from an experience like that and not come out with something with a similar level of intensity. But yeah, holy shit, it was a trial — trial by fire.

What was it like working with Kate and Scott in particular?

It was great. It was, again, difficult just because of the circumstances. They're both very different actors as well. I didn't write this with them in mind. We cast this film, and I went through so many different people to finally end up with them. I really had no idea what the chemistry or dynamic was going to be between them until about two days before the shoot. I went out to Kanab three weeks before in pre-production, and they came out maybe the week before and that was when I did my first read-through with them in the barn. I didn't know a lot about their work or anything like that. I'd kind of made a calculated gamble with each of them, partially out of desperation because it got to a certain point where I just had to cast this film, otherwise we were going to lose the location and we'd have to shift to the next year.

During the first read-through in this barn near our motel, I could see immediately that they’re two very different types of people who approach scenes in very different ways, yet they were both so into it and completely committed so that was great. With casting sometimes you just have to trust your instincts and there was a moment when it was clear that they were both right for their character. Scott was what I was searching for in terms of somebody who can be a little uneasy in his skin and prickly at times. And I had this real sense that he could get to that primal version of himself that the role needed. Kate was very easy to work with, always a little mysterious. You can never really figure out exactly where she's coming from.

Stills courtesy of Magnet Releasing

Despite it being a psychological horror, there were those moments of tenderness in the film that, as you said earlier, suggested the potential for a happy ending, although it never got there.

Yeah, there’s a different version of this story somewhere. I was talking to somebody the other day about the soundtrack and he mentioned how, obviously, a huge part of the film is this really intense industrial soundtrack that drives it forward. He said that he wondered what it’d be like with more of a syrupy soundtrack. 

Speaking of the soundtrack, I love that scene when Kate hears that song playing on Wyndham's camera. It's obvious she hasn't interacted much with technology and her reaction to it is almost child-like.

I think her reaction more than anything else, is not just about the technology, but the music. Without denigrating the piece, it’s actually a clip of a Tove Lo song and I really wanted to use a pop song like something by Tove Lo because it’s totally unexotic for us. But for her, it’s so far away from the world that she’s in — the sound of that little melody caught on the radio on this guy’s digital camera has her like, “What’s that? That’s amazing.” And it’s something we obviously hear the whole time — all day long, in the car, in the store, so for us, it’s ubiquitous, it’s everywhere. But for her, it’s just the most exotic thing she’s ever heard. And it’s kind of catchy and fun — she’s into it. 

That was a fun moment, really nice shooting it because it’s one of the few scenes in the film where there's a little bit of genuine happiness between both of them. There's not a lot of in the film.

Are you already working on your next film? 

I am, yeah.

Is it horror as well?

It is, yeah. It's horror, but very much away from the rigors of this one. I didn't want to put myself in the middle of nowhere in the desert again. This one’s based in New York actually. It’s my Upper East Side body horror film. It’s going to have a kind of Polansky, Cronenberg kind of vibe.

Interesting, kind of the perfect setting to denigrate. Well I'm excited to see it. Well, congrats on this film and thanks for taking the time today.

Brilliant. Thank you.