Pro-Life (Masters of Horror)

 

 

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John Carpenter's career has been one of hits and misses. His early work was mostly hits and he became a reference in horror directing. From the mid-eighties and on, his films didn't quite have the same impact. I think he came back with a good entry with In the Mouth of Madness and relaxed back again until the acclaimed episode of Masters of Horror: Cigarette Burns.

Well, this time it's a miss again although not a total failure. Although the movie's description may sound like drama, I found the beginning of the film to be the best. A pregnant girl takes refuge in an anti-abortion clinic while her pro-life activist father Dwayne (Ron Perlman) waits outside the gates. The tension is well created and we are eager to see if hell is going to break loose. In that sense, Carpenter borrowed from his excellent Assault on Precinct 13 ambiance. The problem here is when hell actually breaks loose. After a little rampage of Dwayne and his sons through the clinic (where they don't really rush to get the girl), bad "Rosemary's baby" wants out and everything turns grotesque. In films like The Thing, the grotesque aspects are comical relieves in a first grade horror film. In Pro-Life, it's just plain ridiculous. The music by Cody Carpenter, so far atmospheric, turns over the top at the baby's birth. Fans of The Thing will associate immediately the baby to a trick already been done and far better by special make-up specialist Rob Bottin.

It might look if I'm reviewing a 1 star movie, but all the "alien" action happens only around 40 minutes in the film. There is some gore in this episode, mostly from damages from gun shots. The weaknesses of Pro-Life are the script and acting, Ron Perlman excepted.

Pro-Life is no Cigarette Burns. Rent it or like I, buy it at low price. Fortunately, John Carpenter's best work compensates for his misfires.

"Pro-Life" was by far the most anticipated episode of the second season to Masters of Horror, and for good reason too. As "Cigarrette Burns" was by far one of the best installments to the first series, and the writers of that episode would be returning to write "Pro-Life", things seemed set for Carpenter to yet again provide a stellar installment. Sadly, things didnt go down that way and as more people saw the episode air on TV, the more negative reviews seemed to come out.

Now thats not to say "Pro-Life" is a bad episode, it's actually really good in some senese. For one, Ron Perlman is fantastic as the overly religious and fairly frightening father of four who is hellbent on stopping his daughter from having an abortion. The storyline is actually really interesting to as its themes of good versus evil and blinding religious devotion provide an interesting commentary amongst the horror elements that take over as the episode progresses. While his daughter believes the father of her baby is an unnamed demon, Perlman believes that the child is that of God's as a mysterious voice has asked him to protect the unborn infant. What first starts off as a typical thriller story (which can be related in its depiction to Carpenter's classic "Attack on Precinct 13") slowly evolves into a satanic tale with MANY fantastic visual effect and monster effects.

But the few things that hurt this episode sadly turn out to be rather significant. For one, the editing is horrendous at times. In the midst of a huge action scene the camera will cut away to other events, leaving the fates of characters unresolved. As a result, you never really know what happens to some major/supporting characters and can only assume their fate. While this may not seem all that detrimental, I actually really found it to be a huge problem as there are scenes of one character's death shown in great detail while another character is just never properly resolved (one of these unresolved fates is particularly disappointing as you will see). Perhaps it was just due to time constraint, but "Pro-Life" feels like it would have been much better had it been a 90 minute feature.

Secondly, the intelligence and rationalization of events which some of the characters partake in is rather stupid. Some typical horror cliches such as "dont go down that hall" and "why do that at a time like this?" occur at strange moments which just has you shaking your head wondering why the characters are doing these things in the first place.

Finally the episode is just not as creative or engaging as "Cigarrette Burns". Yet again this proves that over-hyping something can really take away from its true potential. Maybe if people didnt praise this movie for so long before it came out then the rest of the viewing public, including myself, would have enjoyed it more for what it was rather than comparing it to the mastery of "Cigarrette Burns". So basically, if you havent heard much about this episode before in terms of reviews, DO NOT hype it up for yourself and just go into it open minded and I'm sure you'll find a lot more enjoyment with that mindset.

All that set aside, "Pro-Life" is a fun episode. It's not as intelligent nor creative as "Cigarrette Burns" but still makes for an entertaining hour in front of the TV. While it didnt make my top five for the second season, I respectfully place it sixth.

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