When driving down a mountain road, a couple almost run over the young Angelique. To make sure she's not suffering from shock, they take her to the very clinic they both work at. Now, the couple work at an abortion clinic and Angelique just desperately needs to have an abortion. Things could've been simple right then and there, but they turn out not to be when Dwayne, Angelique father, turns up and this guy's very much pro-life.
Carpenter's last entry, Cigarette Burns, in the last season of the Masters of Horror series was one helluva piece of horror cinema, and maybe that made the expectations go up a bit too much when it came to his contribution to season 2 that was Pro-Life. While Pro-Life was entertaining enough and all right to watch, it unfortunately did not even come close to being as great as Cigarette Burns was. While the film started out in a good way, telling an interesting story that was accompanied by fine acting from Caitlin Wachs and Ron Perlman, things later became a bit tacky when the good story went out the window and was replaced by some monster that you'd have to be about 5 years of age to get scared of. All of a sudden it started to feel like one of those films you can catch on the Sci-Fi Channel and would probably have been better off aired there then on Showtime's Masters of Horror.
Maybe too many complaints too early on, and while the episode was really not as bad as it might sound, it still wasn't good enough either. The title of the episode says a lot, and I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that would like to dive into a deeper discussion about it. Thing though is that I'm not one of those people so I'm just gonna ignore the subject and focus on what was good and what was not in the film. Let's start with the good shall we? Carpenter is a great director who has made tons of brilliant flicks as well as he has inspired a lot of film-makers out there. That doesn't mean that he can't make a bad movie though, but on the other hand, bad might be a bit harsh because Pro-Life sure has its charm, it's just that it doesn't work all the way.
Ron Perlman (Hellboy) is excellent as the militant pro-lifer Dwayne who has been slapped with a restraining order so he can't go near the clinic his daughter Angelique is currently held at. Angelique is under age and wants nothing more than to get rid of what's inside her, in fact she wants to get rid of it so much that she even tells the doctors that God wants them to kill her baby. Dwayne of course does not let some stupid restraining order stop him when a life is at stake, so he gathers his boys to break into the clinic. Thing though is that once inside, Dwayne is in for one helluva surprise.
The first 30 minutes or so of Pro-Life was just great and I was excited to what Carpenter had in store. The story seemed really cool, the actors did a good job and it moved forward in an interesting way. After a while it looked a bit similar to Assault On Precinct 13, but this time some people were trapped inside an abortion clinic instead of a police station. It was still interesting though and even delivered some really good action scenes that were quite graphic, with one being very unpleasant to watch, yikes! Unfortunately then came the monster, and while it might've looked all right, the filmed just took a wrong turn and never got back on track after that.
I guess the end is supposed to make you think, as well as the film basically keeps asking the same questions all the way through. Now, if you want to analyze things and what not, that I leave totally up to you, but personally I just wanted to be entertained by classic Carpenter, and while I was, it just didn't last all the way. It's not a bad episode, and while it's worth taking a look at, I don't think I would look at it twice.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Pro-Life
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: John Carpenter
WRITING CREDITS: Drew McWeeny, Scott Swan
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Caitlin Wachs, Ron Perlman, Emmanuelle Vaugier
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 60 min
RATING: 5/10
Masters of Horror (S02E05): Pro-Life Website/IMDB Click here
Masters of Horror (S02E05): Pro-Life Trailer Click here
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