Review: Growth (2010)

"Think Slither or Night of the Creeps, but way more mean spirited..."

Cast Members of Note- Mircea Monroe, Christopher Shand, Brian Krause, Richard Riehle, and Nora Kilpatrick. Directed by Gabriel Cowan

Growth is a story about a small, inbred island community that strikes it rich creating genetically-altered pearls, and selling them to dumb, rich chicks for millions of dollars. I've never understood pearls. Diamonds, yes. Rubies and emeralds, sure. Pearls just always look cheap and gaudy to me, and now that I know that evil parasites live inside of them, I say to hell with the pearl industry!

Yep, that's what lives inside of every pearl on the planet!

Anyways (sorry about that little outburst...), a mad scientist on the island decides not to limit his experiments to only pearls, and mess with human DNA too, creating a parasite that burrows into people and basically takes them over. For years, this remains the island's dirty little secret until a group of meddling kids comes along and everything turns to shit.

That's what you get for meddling.

From here on out it's everybody versus a gang of nasty, self aware slugs that want to burrow their way inside of everyone and give them super powers... wait... the geeky guy did get really tough and cool after the slug assimilated him, so why is everyone so afraid? I guess being tough and getting laid isn't worth letting something burrow it's way into your brain, huh? Pansies!

Unless it's with her. Then, it would be worth it.

Will the kids get off of the island, or become possessed Slug-Zombies? Will the pearls get off of the island, and infect the worlds gaudiest women? Will any chick in this movie besides the Townie get naked? I won't ruin what comes next, but suffice it to say that there's really only one way all of this can end...

...and it's pretty much just like this.

I was 100% expecting this one to be some shitty, Syfy-like cheese-fest that would make me cringe and not want to watch movies for another week or so, but damn was I ever wrong. Growth was a kick-ass little flick, and although some of it looked and felt a bit on the cheap side, I was a happy camper when it was over. The movie isn't perfect, but it gets a lot of things right and ends up being pretty fun. It goes without saying that Growth is the same kind of movie as are Slither or Night of the Creeps, only here the humor is sparse, and there's a creepy and odd island community added to the mix.

The movie is also visually pleasing.

Some of the character's actions made little or no sense making they or their actions into nothing more than devices to move the plot forward. That drives me nuts. I think this movie was smart enough to have moved forward without such cheap "character development," but at least it wasn't blatantly careless or didn't happen too often.

Lady Gaga having her makeup applied?

Amanda Lane? Let me guess... all the boys love her, right? That sounds a little too close to Mandy Lane to be a mere coincidence! I call name-theft shenanigans!

Mircea Monroe in action.

All sorts of parasites burrowing in flesh and eyes, people getting their limbs ripped off, puking, vomiting, gun violence, salt violence... this one is creepy-crawly, nasty, and most def not for the squeamish.

Poor girl never saw it coming...

There was a quick shot of some Townie boob, but nothing from the main ladies. Le Sigh.

At least we got to see some nice pokies...

"You still have a chance to walk away from this." Fun stuff.

When isolated, withdrawn Island Folk tell you to go away, listen to them. Also, screw pearls and buy diamonds. Diamonds are safe.

Yummy.

When it comes down to it, Growth is better than your average bear when it comes to the parasite/body invasion sub-genre. It reminded me a lot of movies like Slither and Night of the Creeps (sans comedy), with touches of The Wicker Man or Harper's Island thrown in to make it interesting. If you like the aforementioned types of Horror flicks, then I say see this one when you can, and do your best not to squirm too much. Good luck with that.

B-

Growth is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

You know, I thought that Mircea Monroe was the only sexy chick in this movie... until I saw the way that Nora Kilpatrick was going after that microphone with her mouth in the pic below. She really looks like she needs that thing in her mouth, so, she might be just be the sexy one after all!