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Cast: Mircea Monroe, Richard Riehle, Christopher Shand, Brian Krause, Nora Kirkpatrick, Alexi Wasser, Ian Patrick Williams, Robert Pike Daniel, Mackenzie Brooke Smith, Lou Richards
Twenty years after a deadly outbreak of parasites at an island research facility killed most of the people living there, now-grown survivor Jamie Akerman (Mircea Monroe) returns with friends (Brian Krause, Christopher Shand and Nora Kirkpatrick) to sell her stake. But a new strain of parasite could blow the transaction. After all, once a person is infected, there's no solution ... except to kill the parasite's host.
Growth is a much better Sci-fi / horror than I expected it to be, for the budget the film is pretty well made. The story is about Scientists who develop a parasite that will supposedly live in harmony with the human host and will give upon the host superhuman powers. It turns out that the parasites also devour the hosts and then swarm the island compound looking for more people to eat. The town gets all but wiped out and the film picks up when now grown survivor Jamie Akerman and a group of friends return to the Island to sell off the property she inherited. But soon after the parasites are back threatening to again kill everyone that is on the Island. That is about all you really need to know here, they story is a bit far-fetched but it works for the film and there's enough going on in the movie between different the characters to keep you interested. The creatures are CGI but the effects are done pretty well and there's just enough gore along the way to please horror fans. The cast does a good job playing their characters and their developed enough to at least have some feelings for them in one way or another. The filmmakers here attempted to write a story that held the audiences attention rather than have one gore scene after the other and I got to say it works pretty well, the story and interaction between the characters held my interest while waiting for the next killing or action scene to come along. Growth isn't going to win any major awards but it fits in nicely with the horror genre, I have seen worse horror films released in the theaters.
The filmmakers did a great job over-all for the budget they had to work with, if you like horror with a bit of sci-fi mixed in then I recommend picking this one up. There's one scene in the film where the gore gets jacked up a bit, I'm not going to go into details over it but you get to see some nice gore. Over-all Growth is a decent horror flick with enough of the essentials to please any fan of the genre so if horror is your thing I recommend picking it up. The DVD comes with Special Features that include:
Audio Commentary with Writer/Producer/Director Gabriel Cowan and Producer Amiee Clark
Audio Commentary with Actors Mircea Monroe, Brian Krause,Christopher Shand and Nora Kirkpatrick
Korea Online
Growth in Development
Deleted Scenes
You can order the DVD now HERE.
Released by Anchor Bay Entertainment
*** 1/2 Out Of *****