An abortion clinic is besieged by an enraged activist and his boys because his pregnant 15 year old daughter wants her unborn demonic child(!)killed before birth.
Yep, Dwayne Burcell(Ron Perlman, not overplaying the role, playing his character less intense, and more like a burdened father)has been a nuisance towards the abortion clinic to the point that they got a restraining order against him. A religious man, pro-life, has a pregnant young daughter who wants an abortion..certainly rife with irony and the true meat of this Masters of Horror episode's story. The daughter, Angelique Burcell(Caitlan Wachs), was molested and impregnated by the demon whose hands rose from the earth to pull underground from a swing-set. Dr Alex(Mark Feuerstein)and his nurse/lover Kim(Emmanuelle Vaugier)are the ones Angelique confides in to kill the thing inside her. This episode also has another family with a grumpy father who shows his disgust towards his young daughter rather loudly.
A monster movie with social commentary, much like the old days whether it was stopping nuclear testing or catching commies, John Carpenter's mini-film focuses on the issue of murdering an unborn child. I didn't find the story as a whole satisfying, but I liked the idea of having a film about abortion where both sides have their say. But, this episode goes a bit off the rails when Dwayne, believing it's God's will to save his daughter's unborn child(..it was actually a demon whispering to him in prayer), performs a similar abortion procedure on the head of the clinic, Dr. Kiefer(Bill Dow). I found this rather unpleasant exercise a bit over-the-top in the examination of how the child might feel if it were eliminated by the hand of a physician. Not only does this exercise take an insane amount of time(..time he could be spending searching for his daughter), but it paints Dwayne, who seems rather reasonable, into a sociopathic monster. Perhaps that's the point, but it's awfully chest-pounding. Was it really God's will for Dwayne to torture and cruelly administer that procedure on Kiefer making him "see how it felt to be killed the way the unborn infants were." That's an extreme example of how religious folks protesting against abortion must seem to the writers of this episode. There's one murder, Dwayne's weak son kills the father of a family for no apparent reason whatsoever, that should've been left out of the episode..it serves no real purpose other than to show that the sins of a father can influence a son.
The monster is quite nifty. Sure it's a demon creature suit with a man inside, but I was proud to see it in this episode. While the gore effects from gun shot wounds were clearly CGI, seeing a good old fashioned monster, not created digitally was a great thrill to this horror fan. The half-human/half-demon baby is obviously modeled somewhat from the spider-head of Carpenter's "The Thing"..it's quite a wild concoction. The CGI effects consist of Dwayne blowing a hole through one victim's skull with brains splattering on the sidewalk, and a shootout resulting in one of Dwayne's sons getting caught in the throat opening a bloody wound. I found the CGI effects underwhelming, but okay..I've seen worse. I'd say this is an entertaining, if flawed, episode in the series, with some great, and not-so-great moments. I do feel the message of the film regarding abortion comes across as muddled..perhaps siding with the pro-choice crowd.
Yep, Dwayne Burcell(Ron Perlman, not overplaying the role, playing his character less intense, and more like a burdened father)has been a nuisance towards the abortion clinic to the point that they got a restraining order against him. A religious man, pro-life, has a pregnant young daughter who wants an abortion..certainly rife with irony and the true meat of this Masters of Horror episode's story. The daughter, Angelique Burcell(Caitlan Wachs), was molested and impregnated by the demon whose hands rose from the earth to pull underground from a swing-set. Dr Alex(Mark Feuerstein)and his nurse/lover Kim(Emmanuelle Vaugier)are the ones Angelique confides in to kill the thing inside her. This episode also has another family with a grumpy father who shows his disgust towards his young daughter rather loudly.
A monster movie with social commentary, much like the old days whether it was stopping nuclear testing or catching commies, John Carpenter's mini-film focuses on the issue of murdering an unborn child. I didn't find the story as a whole satisfying, but I liked the idea of having a film about abortion where both sides have their say. But, this episode goes a bit off the rails when Dwayne, believing it's God's will to save his daughter's unborn child(..it was actually a demon whispering to him in prayer), performs a similar abortion procedure on the head of the clinic, Dr. Kiefer(Bill Dow). I found this rather unpleasant exercise a bit over-the-top in the examination of how the child might feel if it were eliminated by the hand of a physician. Not only does this exercise take an insane amount of time(..time he could be spending searching for his daughter), but it paints Dwayne, who seems rather reasonable, into a sociopathic monster. Perhaps that's the point, but it's awfully chest-pounding. Was it really God's will for Dwayne to torture and cruelly administer that procedure on Kiefer making him "see how it felt to be killed the way the unborn infants were." That's an extreme example of how religious folks protesting against abortion must seem to the writers of this episode. There's one murder, Dwayne's weak son kills the father of a family for no apparent reason whatsoever, that should've been left out of the episode..it serves no real purpose other than to show that the sins of a father can influence a son.
The monster is quite nifty. Sure it's a demon creature suit with a man inside, but I was proud to see it in this episode. While the gore effects from gun shot wounds were clearly CGI, seeing a good old fashioned monster, not created digitally was a great thrill to this horror fan. The half-human/half-demon baby is obviously modeled somewhat from the spider-head of Carpenter's "The Thing"..it's quite a wild concoction. The CGI effects consist of Dwayne blowing a hole through one victim's skull with brains splattering on the sidewalk, and a shootout resulting in one of Dwayne's sons getting caught in the throat opening a bloody wound. I found the CGI effects underwhelming, but okay..I've seen worse. I'd say this is an entertaining, if flawed, episode in the series, with some great, and not-so-great moments. I do feel the message of the film regarding abortion comes across as muddled..perhaps siding with the pro-choice crowd.