Pro-Life

 

Post In the Mouth of Madness this is my favorite thing Carpenter has done. I do like how he brings horror to a polarizing sociopolitical issue. Like They Live what happens in this movie only seems more plausible and relevant now given what happened recently with the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion. This movie takes Carpenter back to his roots with Assault on Precinct 13 happening outside of the hospital and Rosemary's Baby happening inside the hospital. There are some great gore and makeup effects by Nicotero and Burger. The only negative I have against this movie is that I almost feel I have to discuss this movie through the prism of my political beliefs. Because Abortion is such a polarizing issue I feel like whether people like or don't like the movie could be determined by what their views are and if they think this movie is too extreme on the right wing side of things. 

Synopsis: Pro-Life" is the fifth episode of the second season of the American anthology television series Masters of Horror. Directed by John Carpenter, the episode stars Caitlin Wachs as a pregnant girl who seeks to abort an unborn demon within her, while her gun-toting father tries to prevent her from doing so.

I really liked all of the makeup effects in this movie. I enjoyed all the bloody gunshot wounds including some awesome headshots and blood coming out of the throat. The demon creature you finally see at the end, played by Derek Mears looks awesome. I enjoyed the look of the creature moving underneath the woman's stomach. The little quadrupedal baby at the end reminded me of the Norris creature in The Thing. In their own way both this and Cigarette Burns are Carpenter's greatest hits type of movies because of callbacks and similarities in plot to his previous works. 

While the political side of this movie could be extreme to some I think it is still plausible. I could certainly some religious extremist who owns guns breaking into an abortion clinic. I think what Carpenter and the writers try to highlight though is that your interpretation of such things could be extreme. Ron Perlman's character hears someone telling him to save the baby yet it is found out at the end it was the demon and not God or some other higher power. His daughter was raped by a demon yet he still wants to save the baby. There are people who believe in such things, that a baby should live no matter how it was conceived. His daughter is 15 so he can legally make the decision, though he can't because the clinic has a restraining order against him. Yet should a parent really be the one making that choice? Those are all interesting issues this movie could inspire debate about. I do know most states apparently have some exceptions to their illegality of abortion but I don't know what those exceptions are. I think the movie is trying to say that the way people interpret the abortion issue could be wrong or too extreme. At the same time he tries to show how life is still valued in such a place as an abortion clinic.

The scene where the dickhead Father of that other family in the hospital goes to slap his daughter is an interesting. The one nurse stops him, and says how dare you raise your hand to your daughter, she is still pregnant. Yet the daughter is there for an abortion. At the same time he could be highlighting the hypocrisy in religion. Ron Perlman spends most of the movie killing people which is forbidden by religion and doing it to save his daughter from an abortion doesn't justify that. I did like the scene where Perlman gives the head doctor a symbolic abortion through castration which is just disgusting and violent but still memorable. 

I liked most of the cast and performances in this. I enjoyed seeing Emmanuelle Vaugier playing one of the nurses. Perlman was great. I liked how just like Rosemary's Baby there is something supernatural feeling and not quite right about the pregnancy as the main character is going through a rapid pregnancy cycle in way shorter amount of time than normal. While this movie lacked the same Carpenter style that was on display more in Cigarette Burns it does feature a great piano score from his son. Some of the acting undoes this from being even better. The Father, and that other family in general was not good. There is some not so great mid 2000s CGI as well. Apart from that though I was really satisfied with this and what it had to say while still being entertaining. 

Rating: 9/10