John Carpenter returns with his second contribution to the delightful Masters of Horror series. Carpenter returns along with writers McWeeny and Swan, but is this contribution as good as the first time?
Alex (Mark Feuerstein) and Kim (Emmanuelle Vaugier) are on their way to the rather isolated women’s health clinic. They nearly run over a young girl (Caitlin Wachs) who runs out in front of their car. They decide to take her with them to the clinic to make sure that she’s okay. When they get to the gated clinic they discover that a red van appeared to be following them. It sits rather ominously outside the gates and the head of the clinic, Dr. Weiss (Bill Dow), seems rather nervous that it’s there.
It's a thing
We find out the van contains militant anti-abortion activist Dwayne Burcell (Ron Perlman). Alex and Kim get the girl, who we find out is named Angelique, inside the clinic and discover that she’s pregnant. She also demands that she be given an abortion. The two clinic workers find out that she says she was impregnated last weekend and Alex knows that she shouldn’t be showing as much as she is if that were true. They also find out that she’s Dwayne’s daughter.
Dwayne hears a mysterious disembodied voice that tells him to protect the baby, so he and his sons stage an assault on the clinic. Angelique’s belly is growing at an accelerated rate and soon it’s obvious that the father of her child is either not of this earth or from the bowels of it.
To a degree this episode almost plays like a “greatest hits” from Carpenter’s career. We’ve got a little bit of the Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, and maybe even a little Prince of Darkness. The eventual birthing of the beastie baby brings definite comparisons to the spidery Thing. Although Dwayne is storming the clinic to protect his daughter, on the advice of a disembodied voice that doesn’t come from the heavens but from the opposite side, he does take a moment to give the good Dr. Weiss a taste of his own medicine.
This detour creates a bloody and gruesome set piece that the series is known for. However, it also makes Dwayne the less sympathetic character and perhaps tilts the hand of the supposedly “non-partisan” filmmakers to the side of those that support abortion. They make the pro-lifer look like a whack job in other words. There’s a definite Rosemary’s Baby vibe happening as well, although we’re not really sure if the “father” is a demon, alien, or some other underground dwelling beastie.
Giving the doctor a taste of his own medicine
All in all I thought that it was a good episode and the make-up on dear ole’ dad was excellent (reminded me of Tim Curry in Legend a bit too). Unfortunately, the seams show on the offspring and don’t make it to the dizzying heights of the spider head monster of the Thing. All in all I thought this was a good episode, but I liked Cigarette Burns a hair more. Probably had something to do with the filmic elements in Burns.
Pro-Life is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features are nice, but again there’s not an updated “Working with a Master” featurette. Those were one of my favorite things from the Season 1 discs and it’s probably safe to assume that since Argento didn’t get a new one either and Masters that have been covered will not be getting a new one of those. Surely, they could’ve tracked down some more folks to chat about working with whomever.
First off the feature has a commentary with director John Carpenter and writers Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan. The 14 minute “Final Delivery: the Making of Pro-Life.” It has interviews with writer Drew McWeeny, Caitlin Wachs, Ron Perlman, director John Carpenter, executive producer Mick Garris, special effects supervisor Greg Nicotero, Mark Feuerstein, writer Scott Swan, special effects supervisor Howard Berger, director of photography Attila Szalay, and visual effects supervisor Lee Wilson.
Next is the 5 minute “Baby Steps: Birthing the FX sequence” and concentrates on the sticky birth sequence and adds Emmanuelle Vaugier to the interview list. The extras are rounded out with a text biography of Carpenter, the Pro-Life script on DVD-ROM, and a photo gallery.
Although Cigarette Burns really floated my boat more, I did like Pro-Life. It doesn’t exactly shoot to the top of John Carpenter’s filmography, but it did entertain and is a good entry in the Masters of Horror line.
Here's daddy
Masters of Horror - Pro-Life is now available at Amazon . As of yet, this version of the DVD is not available in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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