Fantastic Fest 2014: The Creeping Garden

Unlike the average fungus, a slime mold can actually move. And depending on whom you ask, the slime might even be able to think.

Based on where you fall on the geek spectrum, slime mold either seems like an absolutely fascinating or totally mind-numbing subject. It's one of those dusty corners of the academic world that are just begging for sci-fi treatment.

Despite its foreboding title, The Creeping Garden isn't a slime-mold horror film, but rather a documentary that aims to show its subject as stranger than fiction by focusing on inter-disciplinary experiments with these curious organisms. The filmmakers focus on a series of researchers who apply the strange behavior patterns of the slime to everything from way-finding to experimental music composition.

The science is chased with a touch of psychedelia in the form of time-lapsed macro footage of the colorful slime pulsing like vegetation in a coral reef. Unfortunately, this eye candy is the most lively aspect of the film.

The problem with The Creeping Garden is that the in-progress nature of the research means there's rarely a conclusion to be offered, making the film feel like a slow-paced collection of loose ends. It does offer some neat science nuggets, and a few truly wild conjectures (slime mold predicts the division of Germany!), but after an hour the facts start to fall flat and the interview subjects aren't charismatic enough to sell the bolder claims.

Overall, the science in The Creeping Garden just isn't engaging enough for the average viewer, but it does have the potential to someday inspire a great work of science fiction.

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The Creeping Garden screens again Monday, Sept. 22, 11:45am.