The second John Carpenter episode in the series is pretty good if clearly a lesser achievement than his previous one, CIGARETTE BURNS (2005), which had been one of the very best. Still, for all the genre felicities and competent acting (especially mismatched father Ron Perlman and daughter Caitlin Wachs) on display here, the overall impression remains that of being a disparate collage of earlier and much superior movies like ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968; the demon impregnating a human being), LEGEND (1985; the look of the demon is virtually identical to Tim Curry's Darkness), as well as Carpenter's own ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976; the besieged institution i.e. abortion clinic) and THE THING (1982; the hybrid look of the monster infant). As with most contemporary horror fare, there is much unnecessary splatter/gore effects but these strike one as ludicrous (such as when a brain is blown off merely from a hand-gun bullet)! At least, Carpenter's son Cody provides an effectively subtle, piano-led score a' la his father's classic theme for HALLOWEEN (1978).
Review of Pro-Life
