The Brood (1979) Horror Anger Therapy

The Brood (1979) - David Cronenberg's The Brood is a pretty remarkable film, the horror Cronenberg focuses on is a visceral physical horror not necessarily based in the supernatural. ( Could argue never based on the supernatural) Certainly it is fantastical but based in the body not the soul or ghost or the such. In this case the idea that anger can "give birth" in physical form. In normal therapy the idea is to work through past feelings and abuses through talking and exercises so that they can be accepted and negativity of the experiences can be dispelled. Create a situation that takes power away from those experiences so that they will not have subconscious affect on the patient's life. Or to recognized the effect and learn to control it. Understanding and accepting your past while expressing the feeling that stay with you allows you to work past the hurts and move on. Cronenberg takes a different approach, what if the expression of the feeling of anger and anguish were to take physical form? What if strong emotions manifested in the body? What if the therapy brought those hurts into the world as phyical entities? This film explores that idea in a very unique way.
Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is estranged from his wife Nola (Samantha Eggar) while she undergoes a very unconventional therapy using a technique called psycho-plasmics.  An instance shows man breaking out in boils as he works through the role playing with head of the facility Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed).  He shows physical signs of the unresolved issues he had with his Father. This releasing of pent up emotions and feeling through physiological changes to her body makes Nola the prize patient. This new form of therapy for Nola was spurred because of abuse issues she had as a child and the fact that she can't express the anger so openly bother her husband. Frank does not approve of the therapy as it seems to unconventional but she has taken this path without him.  When he picks up his daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds) after a visit with her Mother he notices bruises and bite marks on her. Frank is enraged that the staff would allow Nola to harm his little girl and all the denials she expresses only creates tensions between the couple and between Frank and Raglan who is supervising her treatment. Not permitted to see his wife in the stage of therapy she is in he threatens to end all visits until she talks to him.
  What we learn as we go between scenes of people getting killed who just happen to connected to Nola, and scenes of Nola working through issues in session, is that some how her feeling about the people being killed are connected to their deaths. Cronenberg does a nice job slowly connecting the audience, to the killings and the therapy that the woman is going through. The murders, done by strange creatures that look like mutant kids. Are well executed horror scenes, with a similarity in size and how they dress to Candice. We know that she is not involved and more to the point is traumatized by the killings. While Noal works through not only the abuse issues she suffered as a child at the hands of her Mother, but also feelings of abandonment and anger at a Father who did not stop the abuse. Cronenberg does well to run a parallel with Frank being the father who can not stop the traumatic abuse suffered by his daughter Candice at her Mother's hand.
  There are subplots about Frank trying to find out what exactly the secret therapy is that Raglan practices. Unfortunately the only people he can talk to are somewhat crazy sounding former patients. If he was to try to get the courts involved on their words he would probably not get far. Another subplot is that of the Candices's school teacher Ruth Mayer (Susan Hogan) that takes such a wonderfully evil turn. She is the adult noticing the change in her student, and comes to talk to Frank about her at his house.  She baby sits for Frank one night when there is a personal crisis he has to deal with. Nola calls while she is there and becomes really angry when she hears a woman's voice answer the phone. She thinks Mayer is moving in on her husband while she is in treatment. She swears and threatens the innocent teacher before being hung up on. Since the theme of the film is that the mutant creatures seem to go after the people Nola is angry with it is no surprise that the little mutant devils target the teacher. It's the scene that is so shocking and has to be seen to be believed. It is a well set up kill scene.
  In the end even though through most of the movie Dr. Raglan seems adversarial with Frank he helps him deal with Nola in the climax. The mutant kids have taken Candice and Frank needs to get her back. We learn the secret of the therapy in one of the most sickly creepy scenes in film. The relish that Eggar has in the big reveal scene has got to be seen to be appreciated fully. Cronenberg with his wonderful sense of how to visually shock gives us a scene that is just awe inspiring. This film probably falls into the category of woman as monster and may be viewed as somewhat less than feminist in its ideas. Motherhood and birth are the most shocking horror in this film. Frank as the protagonist is somewhat helpless against the female expression of pent up anguish.
Like Nola's father who did not protect Nola from an abusive Mother Frank is not capable of protecting her from her pain thus leading to the therapy the film centers around. Beyond that he is not able to protect Candice from Nola's madness thus repeating the cycle. The visuals in the last third of the movie are worth the viewing. I want to tell you every detail but can't make myself  ruin it for you. Sure most horror fans have seen The Brood and are right with me on this one. Cronenberg is a master and if you haven't and want to see gore in a non-gory way while heightening the tension of the climatic scenes then this is the film for you. This classic is most definitely recommended to all readers of this blog.

Devil's Due (2014) Horror Pregnancy Satan

Devil's Due (2014) - Going into this film I had all kinds of reservations, first I had just finished watching and writing about Rosemary's Baby and lets face it every Satan baby film will pale compared with that. Second I made the mistake of hearing about this film before going into it. I knew basically what it was about and I also heard it was a "alternative footage" film. This last thing ending up being the most problematic part of the experience. Normally avoiding seeing and "found (alternative) footage" film in the theater because lets face it, the quality of the filming is poor. This method leaves the audience looking at shaky poorly framed scenes, that are stunted and often poorly written. Instead of allowing the audience to relax and enjoy the well written characters in a flowing stream of scenes, we are subject to a collection of clips that with a bit of skill tell a story. The character development and story suffer because the audience unfortunately has to fight to understand the camera angles. Then there is the whole explanation of why the filming is happening at all. I am not saying that all alternative video films don't work. I am saying that it is very easy to fail if the footage does not make sense. While trying to save money pretending the film is taken from in life sources, you create the need to explain why the film has been put together and by who.
  A good example of this is The Bay(2012). No matter your opinion of the film itself, it does alternative footage right. Donna (Kether Donohue) has put the film together from a variety of sources as a way to get word out about an environmental incident that was being covered up by the Government. So there is a person who assembles the clips and is responsible for presenting them to us the audience.
 In the case of Devil's Due it was simply infuriating. Presented as a film but just with alternative sources but cut like a film some of the time, switching POV to suit directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett but without the edifice that this film was put together by someone within the film.
 The film starts with a biblical quote, 1 John 2:18 which leads the viewer to think this is a film not an alternative footage film, but that idea is immediately dispelled.
       "Little children, it is the last hour, and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour."
  The story of why the primary footage is being filmed is given right from the start. Zack McCall (Zach Gilford) says that his father used to film everything and he now that he is getting married to Samantha (Allison Miller) he finds the idea very nostalgic. Unfortunately for us in the audience Zach starts all of his videos with the camera pointing at peoples feet. He also videos everything, and obviously does not know the pain of editing video. So we get to see lots of doors as they open, people as they walk away and shoes. Of course it is needed to tell the story but it is not how people use video recording. An example that shows the good and bad of the process happens early in the film. Zach is recording them partying in Santa Domingo on their honeymoon and at some point they wander off the beaten track and get lost.
   Well Zach keeps video rolling as they try to figure out where the hell they are. I am sure this would never happen. One because batteries run out and two because when we get nervous or scared we stop doing extraneous thing and focus in on the problem at hand. Where it works is when they are rescued by a cabbie who then convinces them to go to an underground party. Because Zach is filming this part we get to see just how drunk they get and also when they pass out that they are carried to a chamber filled with candles. On the floor Samantha (Sam) is laid in a circle like image drawn on the floor alter. When the chanting and strange glowing come we know that we are in a world where magic actually exists. Captured by Zachs camera he will not see this footage for some months but we already know that when Sam takes her pregnancy test that she is carrying Satan's baby.
  What I have written so far is just the beginning of the annoying filming that would never happen. After the couple comes home Zach just happens to be filming when Sam comes downstairs to tell him she is pregnant. Why? What important life moment was he filming. None that's what, but the filmmakers wanted us to see a scene where she tells him she is pregnant so he just happens to be  filming. This is the kind of thing that makes me angry, the alternative footage was needed for the story so we are subject to it for no other reason. When people in the story film it has to be for a reason not because the director needs the scene. insulting the audience further, fucking Zach films in the doctor's office when they head in for the ultrasound. Now sane people would do a small video after the visit explaining to the unborn child the visit and maybe showing the image capture from the ultrasound but no since later there will be a surprise doctor switch we have to see the visit. Again the need for the scene outweighs common sense.
  It gets even worse, Zach apparently has unlimited battery life on his two cameras because he films fucking everything. The required night vision shots, one scary one where Sam opens her eyes and grabs his arm but you just can't by the amount of useless filming he does. He sees people watching the house and happens so we see that and later when chasing people watching the house he is filming. It makes no kind of sense that he would film while going out to chase someone. Again in stressful times we are not going to be thinking about getting it on tape. Then there are the added sources of video added to the film. Well who the fuck put this story together so that without explanation we see clips from security cameras in a supermarket. Again the story called for us to see how Sam is changing, a vegetarian suddenly craving meat so much that she eats it raw in the store. Why are we seeing it though it does not fit the premise established to this point.
  When the cult wants to check up on the development of the Antichrist we see them as they turn on the 16 or so cameras they have hidden in the McCall's home. Perfect for the directors of the film because it will make the telling of the rest of the story so much easier. We can see Sam as she suffers mood swings, bouts of anger and creepy trances. We see her worry more clearly and understand that she starts believing things are not going well. Of course the audience has to wonder how these clips get into the movie, FUCK! the whole alternative footage premise does not work in this film without an knowing how they got into the movie. Like later when the coolest part of the film takes place, we shift to video from some teens down by the river again how did it get into the film? They come across a dead deer and then notice a creepy Sam digging into another deer a little ways away. They die in a very cool supernatural way that would have been even more awesome if shot like a real film. Still the three death are pretty damn sweet.
  In the end the story written by Lindsay Devlin is okay, we are not breaking a lot of new ground but certainly the story arcs of our two main characters are well defined. Sam a new wife is impregnated with the Antichrist while on her honeymoon does not know it and nor does she particularly want to be in that condition while trying to finish graduate school.  Her story is a story of physical and emotional changes as her baby grows. Actress Allison Miller is competent in the role that calls for her to display a fairly wide range of emotion. Zach plays the male lead as an average loving guy. Not particularly macho but not afraid when the need is present to push forward into danger. He goes from enthusiastic father to be, to a man trying to save his family from an unbelievable evil. The story of the effects of the devil baby growing inside an unsuspecting women is interesting enough also so it is a shame that the film was framed in a way that really ruined it. This story made as a film and with a killer score could have been a very excellent film.
  The worst insult of all as a viewer is the bookend scenes that surround the McCall's story. The shame of the film is that the story could have been so much more creepy but the film design took so much of the mood away from it. I can't even remember if I heard a score. Interrogation footage from a police station with Zach as the main suspect in a couple of hideous murders. What they do is pretend that Zach is recounting all that went on for the police. Well then why the fuck was the whole film alternative footage then? Did Zach recall it from video clips. What the fuck?!
  This is all about money in the end which means that the seven million dollar budget was more important than good film making. Since they made 9 million in the first weekend the makers are probably going to make a profit if word of mouth does not kill attendance. Its a shame because I see what was done here as a really cynical approach to horror. It does not care about the audience and seems only to care about the bottom line without regard to what would tell the story best. So I am not recommending this film in fact I encourage you to only view pirated copies.

Rosemary's Baby (1968) Horror Pregnancy Satan

Rosemary's Baby (1968) - I was trying to come up with a way of talking about this film and really struggling. What can any writer write about a film that over the last 40 years has become one of the most revered horror films in cinematic history? What has not been written? Now I have to admit it has been a good twenty years or so since I viewed this film and when I decided to include it in my set of films on pregnancy horror I wanted to make it special. It is after all a special movie. A horror thriller made by a great director with excellent acting, but how to honor it. I decided on a couple things to start the process. First I purchased the book by Ira Levin and read it in less than a week. It holds up for the most part. It is a novel that breaths the New York, chock full of references to the neighborhoods and famous building of the city that never sleeps. Equally it draws on the time period of which it was written, Levin references the Theater of the time since his characters are actors and lovers of culture. From the plays that husband actor played in Luther (1961) and Nobody Loves an Albatross (1963), to the plays they read about, Skyscraper, Drat! The Cat, The Impossible Years, and Hot September.  It may date the book so any years later but adds a depth to the place and time. Not really something to base a blogpost around. It was shocking to also see the word "negro" when referring to black characters even though it was appropriate to the time period. It is after all the sixties when the book was written and the nation had not long since passed the civil rights act. These things though are not at the heart of the attitude of this story. So this is not the solution either.
 Like I said in my introduction I don't think there is a lot I can say about this film that has not been said.  What I am going to try to talk about now has probably been written about before but I did not see much about it in my research so here goes. The film certainly reflects some of the attitudes of the old guard sixties when it looks at the relationship that Rosemary and Guy. The patriarchal approach that Guy and the neighbors in the apartment building display feature prominently. The see Rosemary as a housewife to be taken care of, they impose there male will on her often completely ignoring her autonomy. In fact it could be argued that early in the film Rosemary was happy to be taken care of. The polite wife of a struggling actor she is happy to decorate the house and lunch with her older wise man Hutch instead of seeking work or going to college.  Even though in the sixties 38% of women worked, mostly in teaching. nursing or secretarial jobs, woman were not yet welcomed in many professional fields. Still the women's movement was on the rise, with the book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedman America was realizing that housewives across the country were unhappy being house wives. It was a stark wake up call about the roles of women in the 1950s and how those roles were not satisfying to many women, There is no such dissatisfaction in Rosemary she seems perfectly accepting as her role as an unemployed house wife.  In her relationship with Guy she is secondary, he makes all the decisions, she even has to beg him in order to move into the Bramford.
"Oh Guy, let's take it! Please! Please! Its such a wonderful apartment! She didn't do anything with it, old Mrs. Gardenia! That living room could be - it could be beautiful, and warm, and oh please, Guy, let's take it, alright?"
This is not a conversation between two equals discussing the finer points of why an apartment is good or bad. This is more of the child begging for the puppy in the window, hoping Daddy will say yes.She is the happy wife satisfied to spend her days buying furniture and picking curtains. She does not even do much of the physical labor, men delivery men place the newly arrived items, male painters change the colors of the apartment. Sure Rosemary directs but she does not do the manual labor.
  She does not make a pact with the devil she is the unsuspecting victim of her husband's deal. While he gets fame and success she becomes property to be used as a vessel. There is no consultation on his part, one evening after talking with Roman Castevet he sets things in motion never thinking that she is even valuable enough to give a choice to. Not only that she does not even get the chance to fight, drugged and raped by the devil she has no autonomy at all. The scene before the rape when her husband pressures her to eat the ill tasting desserts, using force of will to intimidate her, pushing her buttons knowing she is too polite and submissive to resist, at least outwardly to his will.  She would not have even remembered the events of that night had she not, finding a bit of strength, hidden the uneaten portions in a napkin. After that drugged night, when she wakes with scratches from the ordeal she can't really recall. She expresses dissatisfaction with Guy's ruse of being drunk and having sex with her while she was unconscious. Even that is a passive response to a serious act, she is not sure she likes the thought of it, not WTF! you raped me in my sleep.
  Later when in early pregnancy Rosemary is drawn and losing weight, she has a pain in her pelvis that won't go away. She goes to the older male doctor forced on her,  Dr. Sapirstein. He is from the start very pushy not wanting her to read about pregnancy, to talk to other Mothers, or to draw any conclusion about her pregnancy without consulting him first. Think about it, even the sole act that is completely in the realm of femininity is co-opted by a man. He is suddenly the expert and she is expected to strictly depend on him for direction. It is only after being cornered by her "pre-Bramford" friend at a party that she realizes that his advice could be detrimental. She knows on a deeper level that something is wrong but without the advice of other women she trusts she can not decide to act. Even then a sudden alleviation of the pain she is suffering quickly sways her back to the control of those around her. This turn in the story is necessary to move to the final act but reenforces her character as a woman looking to not be in charge of her own life. She immediately forgets all the bad that has happens and falls into line. So much so that we cut from early pregnancy to almost her due date.
This is completely necessary for the story to play out. In fact her character as a pre-women's lib wife is the character the story needs. The final act where those seeds of dissatisfaction start to grow to paranoia are essential to the third act.
  When Rosemary starts reading the book left to her by Hutch she finds such disturbing information about Satanic rituals, how they use baby blood and flesh in their spells. She thinks that her baby is at risk to Minnie, Roman and those in the house. Her suspicions when relayed to Guy are dismissed and not only that he insists on taking the book from her, treating her more like a child than an equal. Its about what he will allow and she folds and allows him to put the book high on a shelf out of reach. Talk about parent child imagery. Making it worse he later throws the book out without her permission. Her property rights are not even equal in his eyes, even though it was a gift from a friend.
  Although not reflective of the growing women's movement the role of Rosemary is fitting for the story. I am not saying that this story could not be told with a more empowered woman character in the role, its just that so much of the story relies on her doubt. So much depends on her dependence on those around her that I think it would lose something if she was more proactive in her life. She is a player in a patriarchy and never questions that structure. Even when she finally acts she does not do so out of a need to protect herself, or to empower her desires, instead it is as a Mother thinking to protect her baby. Where does she turn in this time of need? Not her female friends but to Dr. Hill the first doctor she saw. Another male authority figure who she suddenly feels safe with because he listens to her seemingly crazy story. Adding to the  stereotypes of the patriarchy Dr Hill sees her as a hysterical woman and instead of validating her in any way calls her husband and doctor to come deal with her. She is left a not women delivered into a new world of empowerment but a captive, then a source of milk, and finally a Mother with limited influence in the life of her child.
  The film closely follows the book, almost exactly. The dialog is pulled from the pages almost verbatim. There are some sections that are shortened in the film for pacing reasons. Also unlike the book Director Roman Polanski left the idea of the supernatural being part of the story as a paranoid thought. The only time you think something can be supernatural is the devil rape scene but that is filmed as a dreamy sequence and where Rosemary is drugged and might not be reality. She dreams her husband undressing her but it is mixed in with dream elements. Never really knows if she is actually having sex with the devil or if she is dreaming it as her husband fucks her in her unconscious state. So in the film even though she sees the nude neighbors chanting around she might be dreaming, we never actually see the devil just her dream interpretation of his eyes. Even though her famous line states "This is no dream, this is really happening." is followed by dream images.
Already in the book is the idea that people can believe that they are praying to Satan, but is clear that they just believe they have power never really confirming they do have power from Satan. At the end of the film when Rosemary has the initiative to stand up to the cult and claim her child as its Mother she only imagines the eyes from her dream, Polanski never shows the baby just implies that something is wrong. She says the line about his eyes but we never actually see the baby.
I love this film and recommend it mightily it is such a wonderful story full of suspense. Well directed and acted, Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet were nominated and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The screenplay was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, both Gordon and Mia Farrow won Golden Globes for Supporting actress and Best actress respectively. So if you have not seen this film take the time to get to know it.
Odds and Ends

• In researching this film for background I ran across this sort of cool article at Cinefantastique Magazine. talking about a movie cheat in one of the more climatic scenes. Whats amazing is this same scene is described in the book almost as it appears in the film.
• Here are a couple more reviews of this wonderful movie, one by Roger Ebert and one at the Cinefantastique site.

Hell Baby (2013) Horror Pregnancy Comedy

Hell Baby (2013) - Taking a break from the horrific baby horror of the last couple of weeks I went for a new horror comedy called Hell Baby. Leslie Bibb plays a soon to be Mom, Venessa expecting twins and moving into a dilapidated house in post Katrina New Orleans. With her husband Jack ( Rob Corddry) they want to rehab and sell it but have to deal with more than just a bad neighborhood. Quickly learning that the house is haunted but wanting to hold onto their deal the couple stays on. They have a neighbor living in the crawl space, the hilarious  F'resnel (Keegan-Michael Key) who shows up for  jump scares at the most inconvenient times. He is used for  Corddry is the sounding board for a lot the comedy while Key play the comedian. Exposition is the main reason Key keep showing up and he is such a funny guy you don't even mind the silly plot.
  Bibb is a good actress, is the more and more possessed Mother-to-be and plays the growing evil seriously which makes the reactions Corddry displays in reaction all the more enjoyable. I believe she is an underrated actress who does a great job moving into this comedy role. Corddry I think of more of a natural comedian is steadfast in his role as the husband and expectant father. Also filling out the cast is actress Riki Lindhome as Venessa's hippie sister Marjorie, two priest sent from the Vatican,  Fathers Sebastion (Robert Ben Garant) and Padrigo (Thomas Lennon) and two New Orleans cops Micky (Rob Huebel) and Ron (Paul Scheer).
  Marjorie the sister and the naked conversation and oiling with Jack is wonderfully uncomfortable. The scene is long which is a comedy trick in making the uncomfortable scenes longer to bring the audience to a point where they may want to have it over with but then pushing through that barrier. Still the scene works because by the end of the conversation you know who Majorie as a character is. "I didn't know you were circumcised Jack. It's genital mutilation you know, slicing off the tops of boys dicks because a couple thousand year old book about some medicine man named Moses says to do it." This is pretty funny and again Corddry gets to do what he does well and react to the situation.
 One of a couple of sexual situation the other of note is a ninety year old Mrs. Nussbaum (Alex Berg in a weird naked suit) gives Jack a blow job under the covers only to be clocked in the head and buried alive.
Sister tries to cleanse the house of evil spirits but instead the group more just gets really high with the cable guy. The bit are not hilarious but there is some reasonably funny stuff in here. Now anyone who reads this blog knows that I have a problem with comedy. The problem is a simple on, I don't find most of it funny. Now here I am undercutting my opinions on this film but hey you good reader deserve the truth.
  The thing I did not find funny at all in this film has to do with a recurring bit around eating poor boy sandwiches, slow motion and grunts and groans of satisfaction for way too long of a time just was not funny to me. Remember that hamburger ad where Paris Hilton sexual interaction eating a burger, well that is what they were going for in these scenes. They make the scenes too long stretching the patience of the audience hoping that this will be uncomfortably funny, instead it is just uncomfortable.
It seemed the crew had fun making this film, shot on location in New Orleans the cast got to have a great time when not on the set. I watched an interview with Rob Huebel who relayed how much fun it was and how laid back and fun the town is. Written and directed by the team of Tom Lennon and Robert Ben Garant the film was seen as  part of the Sundance Film festival. Playing in the midnight movie part of the festival from what I read it was not very well received. Lennon in interviews is pretty clear that his history in film making is spotty at best. He sees this film as a funny but very stupid movie.
 The final scene where the priests and cops come to do the exorcism is silly fun with first the birth of a perfectly normal baby and then a little devil baby. The slapstick antics of the climax are not totally original but they are funny enough. I enjoyed parts of this film but in the end I will not make it a recommendation for this blog.

"Ghost don't kill people, people kill people, and sometimes ghost make people kill people."

Progeny (1998) Horror Pregnancy Alien

Progeny (1998) - I watched the extra features of this film before viewing the movie itself. So I knew going in that this was probably not going to be my kind of movie. Included in those features was two different interviews of people recounting their alien abduction stories. First Pamela Stonebrooke and American actress, jazz singer and radio talk show host. A woman who was featured in a show called "The World's Strangest UFO Stories" on the Discovery Channel where she claimed to have a three year on going sexual relationship with a 6 foot reptilian alien. She also has an Album called "Intergalacticdiva". The second by a school teacher in LA who did not identify herself but talks about her abduction through the prism of being a regression therapy client of the last interview on the disc Barbara Lamb. She is a long time ET believer and experience recorder who uses the dis-proven regression therapy as a means to get the stories from supposed abductees. Now the first two women I could argue are actresses brought in on the DVD project for supplemental features to sell this film. Lamb though is a true believer and so when I saw her piece it made me wonder about how sincere the film was going to be. Since we all know there are no aliens visiting earth and no humans being taken and experimented on I felt uneasy that the film might take the subject seriously.
 Director Brian Yuzna he with Producers Jack Murphy and Henry Seggerman even talk about abduction stories as "true". I think the characters throughout the movie could be viewed as a bit off. The film starts with a voice over and an alien abduction taking the form as lost time. A couple is making love and when the light changes and the couple seem frozen, then the light changes color and they start moving again but its two hours later. This incident which bothers our lead character Dr. Craig Burton (Arnold Vosloo) so much that he goes to a therapist to talk about it. The Therapist (Lindsay Crouse) even though gives the film bonus points since she played Professor Maggie Walsh on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Although probably the worst season of that show.)
 Luckily I think there was a nice balance in the film between treating regression therapy and alien abduction as real things and the recognition that the people taking part in these things are just a wee bit crazy. Even though the makers of the film,
  Craig bothered by dreams about the events of that night starts getting hypnosis and remembers his abduction. It works and before you know it he is torn with the idea that is just too unbelievable. His therapist is clear she thinks he is stressed but won't make the leap that he was really taken by aliens. So as more and more memories come back and as he researches alien abduction he is pulled more and more in to believing that is what happened to he and his wife.
  Sherry  (Jillian McWhirter) is pregnant and really not into her husbands new interest in thinking he was taken by aliens. Because of his low sperm count he also starts wondering if he is the father of her child. Could it be the aliens. In the Trivia quiz on the DVD one of the answers was that most people start remembering more about their abduction by talking to others with the same claims. So when Craig start talking to Sherry about his ideas it plants the seeds of her own false memories.  When Sherry has her own scary dream she really freaks out. This is the part of the film I don't really like. It is taken straight up seriously but even still Director Brian Yuzna leaves it open enough so viewers could believe that they are feeding off each other.
  Still in the end the the film does a good job at creating the feeling that the two people may not really have been taken by aliens at all and the problems they are having are psychological. Only after that do they ruin it for the rational viewer with a ridiculous question mark ending that left me frustrated. Overall though this is a quality film, a bit slow to start but building to what seem a real break for the couple. The consequences of their diluted fears are real and the script by Stuart Gordon and Aubrey Solomon is tight enough to make this film quite viewable.
 Wilford Brimley as Sherry Burton's gynecologist, William E. Pugh as the hospital administrator, David Wells as the insensitive and annoying E.R. chief  and Brad Dourif as a UFO expert are all wonderful competent character actors fill out the cast.
  So another pregnancy movie this one with the chance to see a half alien baby in a nightmare delivery seen. Written after The Fly (1986) it steals a bit from that now famous seen and adds some special effects to raise the ante. So even though this is not really my favorite kind of film I am reluctantly recommending it.

The Clinic (2010) Horror Pregnancy Adoption

The Clinic (2010) - A different take on pregnancy horror comes from this small Australian film written and directed by James Rabbitts. His first feature it is a expecting Mother's nightmare in the outback of Australia. A young couple Beth (Tabrett Bethell) and Cameron (Andy Whitfield) are driving the outback to visit distant relatives. Beth is near term in her pregnancy so why she would drive long distance shows questionable decision making. They after a long day stop a a dusty rundown roadside motel and get a room. When Cam goes out late at night for some Chinese food he leave his sleeping wife in the room. When he returns back though the room is empty. Where did his wife vanish to? His journey is about trying to find her.
  At this point in the film there is really a thriller aspect to it. Is this some kind of Saw film where the woman must perform some gruesome task to get her baby back? It is a meat processing plant could the baby be a calf for some high paying customer with a unique palette? Questions abound concerning both Beth and Cameron things we are somewhat quickly brought into focus. Cameron for his part goes from worried husband to fugitive in just a couple short scenes. After calling the police to report his wife missing he gets arrested for assaulting the motel owner Hank (Boris Brkic). The creepy guy had made inappropriate remarks about Beth when they were checking in. So Cameron suspected him but was just frustrated with the cop, Marvin (Marshall Napier) being nice to the guy, his friend or at least neighbor. The police in this small town did the predictable thing running Cameron around and questioning him as a suspect. When Cam snaps at the motel owner it is a good reason for the cop to arrest him. This seemed the most predictable part of the film. It is obvious that something is not right with Hank or Marvin, they are being played to be suspicious, so is this a Red Herring? Problem really is that it does not matter in this film. The entire story line for Cameron is all for not. His story does not matter in the least for the outcome of the movie?
  The main story involves Beth who wakes in a tub of ice water with the scar of a cesarean section in her abdomen. She has had her baby stolen and finds herself in some strange compound that looks like a large cattle processing ranch. There are no locked doors to leave the building she is in so after painfully exiting Beth takes a very long walk until she find the outer fence, which is chained and too tall to climb over for someone in her condition. We had learned earlier that she had lost one baby so the anguish of this situation is poignant. She collapses in a heap crying for her loss and her helplessness. She is found by three other women all bearing the same tell tale blood stain from a c-section. Veronica (Freya Stafford), Ivy (Clare Bowen) and Allison (Sophie Lowe) have already looked for a way out and are now at a point where they want instead to look for their babies. Wait though something is not right, someone is killing off women in this complex and cutting their stomachs open. It is a Saw type story but without a bit of clever thinking or cool contraption.
SPOILERS ALERT!!!!!
  Since this is not a film I want to recommend I am about to spoil the fuck out of it. Strange when I really like films I also want to spoil them, what does that say about me? In this case the women find a room with six caged babies that they can in no way free. Each baby has a colored tag, or should I say one half of a colored tag. Because we are the audience we have seen the person killing the women dug a tag from in the c-section scar of a victim so we understand the premise. Each woman has the second half of her baby's tag implanted in her so there are a few ways she can find out which child is hers. One would be to work together and escape then bring the authorities to sort out the babies. Where they are so isolated though it does not seem like a possible solution at the time. Next they could try to get there own tags out of themselves and match the color to that of the baby. It would be painful and possibly kill them but they could survive it if they got treatment soon enough. Third they could do what the killer is doing, killing all the other women and digging the tags out of them so by process of elimination finding out what color tag must be inside her. Now you are probably thinking that this is pretty far fetched and you are right. The "ah-ha" moment when the women figure it out is very unbelievable which is part of the reason I won't be recommending this film. It is just too much of a stretch. It is not even the biggest stretch this film takes. We learn later when one of the characters explains the plot to us like we would not get it otherwise, that one of the six women was told about the tags but not the other five. You have to love when a writer needs a part just to explain the plot. On top of that is a leap just way to ridiculous to believe, so much so that I cringe even in wanting to relay it to you fine readers.
When she wakes Ms. Shepard ( Elizabeth Alexander) is there the head honcho at the clinic to explain everything that has happened the last hour and a half. Fucking hate this kind of character.    You see the clinic steals babies from women so that wealthy foreigners can adopt them, in this case a Russian couple. Its not quite that simple though, she explains that they only want the strongest genes to be put up for adoption so they have the Mothers fight to the death and the baby of the surviving Mother is the one that is adopted. Except the plot hole that only one Mother (Adrienne Pickering) was told about this fight to the death means that the strongest could be any of the killed Moms since they did not have the advantage of knowing about the contest. It is irrelevant though since the sole survivor was our Beth and now she knows with a broken heart that these Russians are going to take her child. Not only that but they get to kill Beth too, that way there are not loose ends. Well unless you include the fact that for 25 years women have been disappearing in late pregnancy. Also that there are still 5 other babies to be disposed of, and the previously mentioned not necessarily having the best genes because of the plot hole.
 Back to the story for a bit. So the film becomes a survival movie with the victims being murdered by one of the other victims one by one in the hope that this last survivor can identify the baby that is hers. Of course since Beth is our main character you can guess that she is the final survivor and learns what color tag her baby has. Rushing back to the baby room only to find it empty. She at this point is knocked out and chained to the floor of an office.
  There is only one thing to do when faced with this much bad script writing, make it even worse. So we get a big reveal that is so far fetched that it can not be mentioned in this blog. When in the end everyone is dead and Beth has won we still are left scratching our heads to why the fuck the final reveal was written. Then to kick us in the groin one final time we see that the writer needed to confirm uselessness of Cameron's independent story line. After her abduction the couples story lines never merged again and his was so futile and unhelpful that he could have been killed in the first five minutes and it would not have mattered in the story. On top of this shit pile we get a hopeful epilogue scene that made me want to spit at the television. So this film is a giant fail for me. Not that a survival story about a Mother trying to retrieve her baby is a bad idea it is that "The Clinic" was just so poorly written that it was not scary or worth the time I wasted watching it.

The Suckling (1990) Horror Mutant Baby Monster

The Suckling (1990) - Continuing on with the theme of pregnancy and baby horror I chose this little known and not very good entry into the sub-genre. The suckling may have some unintentional messages about the need for legalized prostitution, protections of a woman's right to choose, toxic waste cleanup and the dangers of illegal force back room abortions. Okay the writer director may not actually been making any statements at all but like any good English class the more you see in it the higher your grade. This film is not an exact fit for the theme because the monster grows so fast and is not a baby when it is doing the horror, but because of the ending I feel obligated to include it. It is not every day that the woman's condition is the same at the end of a horror birth movie as it is in the end.
  The film is a story sandwiched between two scenes that chronologically after the events. Starting the film is a plot outline in text that scrolls up the screen and then at the end the outcome for the main character who survived the ordeal.
    " On April 1st 1973 the most bizarre and macabre event in all of Brooklyn's modern history occurred. Twelve people, inhabitants of a reputed house of prostitution and illegal abortion clinic were killed. Only one occupant survived.
    When found by police she told a story so fantastical and horrific, she was believed to be insane. Authorities immediately placed her in an asylum.
    The most brilliant investigators spent years trying to solve this gruesome mystery, but to this day are still baffled.
    Could the rantings of a girl supposedly insane be true? The makers of this film believe so."
 Starting with the Girl (Lisa Petruno) having a double dream sequence that is amazing not in an original way but a cliche one. We certainly get that she is off her rocker right away as she imagines being rolled through a hospital and as she moves her groggy headed views are of nurses topless in rooms of patients disposing of them with axes. She wakes from the dream and starts another where she plods sleepily into the bathroom to get something from the medicine cabinet. When she closes the mirrored door a doctor is behind her and slits her throat. She wakes again and then the story starts. It is a bit off putting to have all this stuff before we get to the meat of the story. An outline and then these two tangentially connected dreams all to get to the real nightmare that is the story.
   There is a lot wrong with this movie, lets start with the characters, so many really unlikable characters that it is difficult to connect as the plot unwinds. You have the boyfriend Phil (Gerald Preger) who bullies the girl into going to an illegal abortion room in a whore house. Not only that but lies to her about why they are there. While the girl thinks they are there to talk, and she has no inclination to go forward choosing adoption over ending the pregnancy, he has other plans for her. Then there is Big Mama (Janet Sovey) a make up covered hefty who is willing to drug the girl and perform the abortion without her consent. Her son Axel (Frank Rivera as Frank Reeves in what is his first film role) who with a small man inferiority complex acts tough and bossy but really isn't. Candice(Susan Brodsky) the hooker from room five who through out the film is just the worst kind of irritant, constantly verbally abusing those around her with the anger only a forty something prostitute could posses. Along with this group of hideous beings is Customer #1 who besides liking a rotating dildo up the ass is just a dick to everyone around him. So many really offensive people that  it is quite difficult to pull for their survival. So when the killing starts besides Petruno's character and maybe the black prostitute Dawn there is no one you are pulling for. On top of this neither of those two characters show any agency of their own making pulling for them tough as well.
 
  The story is a fight for your life story versus a monster. The monster is the fetus taken from the drugged girl and flushed down the toilet. We get the drainage pipe view as the toxic waste outside (labelled toxic waste) trickles down onto the fetus giving it life and deforming it into a vengeful monster. It quickly grows in size, teeth and claws to a critter to be reckoned with. It seals the group inside the house by somehow putting membranes over the windows and doors. It travels through the pipes and after it grows too big the walls to stalk and kill the people in the house.  While this is going on the people in the house are at odds all the while. Axel and his complex feels Sherman the only other alpha man is challenging him too much. Prostitutes are at odds with Johns and the girl is freaked by everyone's willingness to kill her baby without her consent. When she finds herself trapped with these people she is pretty useless offering nothing to help in the situation. Since we are sure that the girl is the survivor it is just these horrible people in their horrible interactions being killed off one by one until we get to the climax of Phil, the girl and the baby monster who recognizes its mother. None of this is very enjoyable and really the view will mostly wanting this film to end. I can't recommend this film but there are some unique moments in it.
  Odds and Ends

•   There are some places where there was some humor in what is mostly a not so funny film. First there was the customer / prostitute interaction. They had him where a propeller cap that spins when he gets excited. She with her whip catching the dildo he is holding and snatching it away from him. Then the sound effects as she uses the dildo on him.
• Big Mama picking the remains of the abortion from her bent up hanger and then reshaping the hanger to hang up her lab coat.
• The death of one of the characters trying to get the creature but instead getting electrocuted until his head blows up is just great.
• The creature running towards its mother making baby sounds as it moves forward. The end of this scene hilariously unique so I don't want to spoil it.
• There are several places in the film where stop action animation was used but unfortunately never well done.
• The addendum scene in the mental hospital was mean spirited and really offensive. Rape is never a good thing to have to suffer through even if the rapist gets this due. 

Grace (2009) Horror Pregancy Zombie

Grace (2009) - WARNING! Spoilers throughout, since so much hinges on the character development in this fine film, I want to talk about it so know I recommend it and watch it before reading my thoughts.  I was caught by surprised by the opening of this film. I had forgotten that the films opening scene is part of the last one too. The horror features of the film are present , a shot of a fly infested ceiling fan, the nude back of a woman as she seems to be in pain cringing away from us. Two bare feet splattered with blood, a black cat. this is it with excellent moody music by Austin Wintory bring us into the horror mood. It is not carried through this bit of horror film making but it is there just to stick the idea that this is not a sunny movie into our heads.
  Next we see our main character Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) having sex in a disinterested way with her husband Michael(Stephen Park). As he grunts and thrusts she could be thinking, "I wonder if we should change the living room drapes". Of course this is before we the audience know that this couple has been trying for a long time to have a child. That they have lost two pregnancies already so more likely she is hoping that this is the time where the egg attaches and stays there. After the act she pulls her legs up and closes her eyes imaging the success we know she so desperately wants. Sure enough we see her next seven months later and she is round as can be, the acts worked and she is close to term but not quite there.
  Grace is a good film really doing some smart writing that fill out the main characters in ways that drive the motivations throughout the plot. Writer and Director Paul Solet fills the interaction that grace has with her in-laws with so much disapproval and frustration that there is no doubt what the dynamics are. Madeline is a vegetarian new age type who wants her pregnancy and birth to be the most natural way possible. She wants to eat healthily and to give birth in a birthing center and to be centered in bring her new life into the world. This is contrasted by Vivian Matheson (Gabrielle Rose) who is a powerful judge and super pushy mother in law. She doesn't approve of the food and the plans and without saying it clearly lets Madeline know. You know those people who won't say, this diet sucks, but instead suggest better ways of doing things. This is Vivian and she seems a force to be reckoned with. Her own issues surface with this pregnancy, a Mother who is finally losing her boy to another women. She has reached the age of being anywhere close to child bearing age and is feeling with this child her son will be gone from her forever. She is a woman who thinks she knows best and is not afraid to push at the new age younger woman. It is a really well put together power struggle. It bases both women in their own approaches and shows how the places where they come together are frayed.

  Complicating things further is the choice of midwife, Patty Lang (Samantha Ferris) is a former partner to Madeline from college. Okay this particular thing is a bit cliche but it creates this dynamic where Patty is still holding onto feeling for Madeline while she seems to have moved on. Michael does not know about this past entanglement and surely with his Mother's influence is not high on the birthing center idea. He would probably flip out if he knew that there was more than a teacher student relationship between Patty and Madeline. The way this movie is structured you have to wonder whether Madeline only got together with Michael in order to conceive. They do not seem particular in love and he really is not approving of her ways. It really makes you question why he got into this relationship. This question very quickly becomes irrelevant when an accident starts a string of events that move very quickly into the horror realm.
  Before that though there is amazing dig at traditional medicine. The intent is to drive wedges and it is again skillfully written. Having established Madeline's intent with her birth the scene is she has chest pain and is rushed to the hospital. In this scene the pushy Vivian sends her male doctor in to take charge while Madeline pushes to get her midwife to the scene. The male doctors jump to the conclusion that Madeline needs to be induce way too early in the pregnancy while she screams in protest they start making plans to do the procedure. The established medical structure ignores the patient's wishes and acts as if it knows best. When Patty arrives they are restraining Madeline as she protests and it is only the knowledge of the midwife and the threat of a lawsuit that stops the men.
  That kind of strain on a pregnant woman can not be good but it also sets Michael and Madeline arguing on the way home, leading to an car accident that kills Michael and kills the baby in Madeline's womb. She wanting this child more than anything, now a widow decides to carry it to term to be delivered dead at the birthing center. Again the music should be noted with the direction for the delivery scene is excellent. African drums building to a climax with Madeline's labor screams punctuating the birth. Then the quiet as she holds her still child and cries begging the heavens for her life. Patty going against her instinct to let her have time with the little corpse watches on a camera in the other room as miraculously the child comes to life.
  Having established that Madeline will not take the baby to the hospital she relies on Patty for care after the birth. Patty obsessing about her former lover starts it seems to make plans to be reunited with Madeline but is not ready to make it known to her yet. Madeline struggling with the new child soon realizes that this is no ordinary baby. Mothers milk is not going to satisfy its unique nutritional needs, Beef blood is not going to satiate the hunger of this little tyke. Mom has to give in o a more extreme form of feeding. Named Grace the baby not only has issues feeding but also smells maybe like a rotten corpse? You get the picture things about this dead then alive baby are very unusual and the depressed Madeline does all she can to deal with these unique conditions.
  The story moves to climax with grieving Vivian feeling her own need to continue to be a Mother. Hatching a plan with Dr. Sohn to get Madeline declared unfit she is so fucked up in her own way its sad. This sets up a very interesting final third to this film. Sohn trying to see Madeline and the baby, she really probably unfit with the bloody demands of Motherhood and Patty planning to take her away from it all. When the doctor finally corners her, she is anemic and worn from feeding little Grace without outside help. Things escalate quickly and Sohn, Vivian and Madeline will make decisions that can not be reversed. The imagery of these scenes is compelling and like with most of the film the music is dark and effective. This is a very darkly entertaining film and is most certainly recommended with the caution that it gets a bit bloody. The one drawback I would note is the corny epilogue tacked on to the end of the film, it was very unnecessary.
 

Aswang (1994) Horror Pregnancy Vampire

Aswang (1994) - This is a story centered around a Filipino vampire myth called the Aswang a vampire with a long tongue that feeds on the fetus of a pregnant woman. The baby is either still born or may survive to become another creature, well at least that is the definition in this film. In the opening credits the myth is shown in shadow puppets with the appropriate horror oriented music by Ken Brahmstedt. It sets the stage for what is a pretty enjoyable little horror movie. I like when I get to see a common genre like a vampire film with a slant I did not know about. This one delivers with a slow building start and a chaotic and satisfying finish. There are a couple more movies out there with this title so pay attention to what you are buying so you see this one. The pacing works mostly because the film is a bit short in running time at 82 minutes. At a budget of $70,000 dollars the film makers Wrye Martin and Barry Poltermann certainly get their money's worth. Filmed in the midwest United States with mostly local actors you would worry that the film would suffer but the quality is most certainly passable.
  Katrina (Tina Ona Paukstelis) is a pregnant young lady looking to solve her problem through an arrangement with a wealthy man. He is Peter Null (Norman Moses) a rich single man looking for a heir to his fortune, an heir that Katrina can supply. In return she will come to the mansion for the birth and be well compensated for all her efforts. She arrives married in name to Peter in her seventh month of pregnancy. At the mansion we meet the sickly Mother Olive Null (Flora Coker) played with a simmering evil she is the matriarch of the vampire family. They all look human mind you it is only at feeding time do we see the cloudy eyes and hose like tongues. Also in the house is caretaker Cupid (Mildred Nierras) a Filipino nurse and protector for Olive. Katrina also learns that there is woman described as a touched sister Claire Null living in the small house out back and is warned never to go out there.
  I liked how subtly the script pushes at Katrina to warn her that things are not quite right with this family. At dinner in the house they are pushing an intoxicating cider on her without care for the fetus inside her. This leads to the disturbing scene where the Katrina passed out on the bed has her baby tasted by Peter. So uncomfortable a scene that the directors shot it first so figuring that if the actors could handle that they would get through the entire process. The scene plays so well because it is obvious there is no sexual connection between Peter and Katrina. She has a boyfriend and is selling their child to this family, it is strictly a business arrangement. So after drinking too much of the cider to see he writhing on the bed as Peter buries his head in her crotch it is very disturbing. Even creepier the next day when he reports to his mother that the baby is almost ripe, and it is a girl.
  When a trespasser on the land needs to be dealt with so we see how the Aswang can create a mucus sack around the victim and save the person for consumption later. This of course is never really explained in the legend. Do these creature eat live people as well as infants? Anyway the story really picks up pace in the second half as Katrina goes from feeling a bit uncomfortable with the group to waking up during a feeding time. The chain reaction from that propels the third act into its final crazy leaps that includes  an aswang hanging by its tongue, captivity in the crazy woman's house, a severed hand, fire, blood, birth and death It really is a great act and although Moses as Peter is a bit too over the top in his delivery it does not spoil the fun. So definitely a recommend from me on Aswang even with its flaws it is a very cool take on vampirism.

Odds and Ends

- Seemed like there was an ode to The Evil Dead (1981) in the film where we see the low to the ground camera shot as it travels out of the wood to the door of the small house which has a remarkable resemblance to the house in the Evil Dead movie. I figured it had to be on purpose but did not find anything online to confirm it.

- The epilogue scene that occurs 5 years later was probably unnecessary because it was pretty clear from Cupid's reactions in the final battle what was going to happen. Still the cloudy eyed Aswang child was creepy.

- Also known as "The Unearthing" I viewed the Aswang titled disc put out by Mondo Macabro