Masters of Horror: Pro-Life [reviewed by Lackey]

Season 2 episode 5, 2006
Directed by John Carpenter
My rating:
IMDB • Netflix

News flash: apparently ideological fundamentalism is bad!

* * *

Here we go again with another attempt on the part of Masters of Horror to do social commentary! “John Carpenter’s Pro-Life” (actually, I suspect he isn’t) is the story of Angelique Burcell, a 15-year-old girl who makes arrives at her local reproductive services clinic to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. First complication: her father is Dwayne Burcell, a local pro-life activist with a history of harassing the clinic, and he and his three sons are willing to go to extreme lengths to protect Angelique’s unborn child from the Satanic machinations of the abortion doctors. Second complication: Angelique claims that the child’s father is a demon.

As with the season one episode “Homecoming,” “Pro-Life” is the sort of story that’s got a point to make about What’s Wrong with These United States and it’s going to shout the point at you to make sure you don’t miss it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this episode wishes to educate the viewing public on the dark side of anti-abortion activism. And, as with “Homecoming,” the episode desires to make that point in the bluntest way possible.

It’s really too bad that the filmmakers had to stoop to such preachiness, because I actually kinda like the central thesis of the story. Instead of simply damning Dwayne Burcell for his religious/ideological fundamentalism, the story balances the character’s effect out by making the clinic’s director, Dr. Kiefer, someone who’s as willing to resort to violence as Burcell. The story also makes several side trips to examine the collateral damage of such a political turf war. It’s also got a bit of a nice…I don’t really want to say “twist,” because “Pro-Life” doesn’t really have a twist in the Masters of Horror sense. But I liked the final sequences; they were weirdly poignant, and definitely not what I was expecting.

That being said…Carpenter along with writers Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan (who also wrote Carpenter’s first-season contribution “Cigarette Burns”) aren’t willing to possibly dilute their message by populating the story with people. Instead, they stock the script with characters who are little more than mouthpieces for whatever idea they’re supposed to represent. They make a vague sketch of a religious fundamentalist, hand it off to Ron Perlman and say, “Here, turn this into an actual character.” (I’m not saying that there aren’t pro-lifers out there that are like this; I’m just saying I’ve never met any.) Perlman succeeds with flying colors; he gains a lot by not going over the top and putting in a subdued performance. He understands that shouting isn’t always the best route to intimidation, and in the process he turns Burcell into someone we can believe might really exist somewhere. Most of the rest of the cast don’t fare as well. Caitlin Wachs has brings a certain amount of winning vulnerability to Angelique; Bill Dow is fairly memorable as Kiefer. But for the most part, it’s a bunch of bland actors playing a bunch of bland characters who are only defined by their social and political beliefs.

Despite some slackness in the production values–a hilarious example is of a clinic security guard who has about a third of his head blown off by a shotgun blast, but whose wounds apparently largely healed themselves in a later shot–Carpenter is in fairly decent form as a director. He’s still able to bring whatever ephemeral quality he has that makes even his substandard work worth watching. (Again: haven’t seen Ghosts of Mars.) Still, shame the material isn’t better.

Look, I’m not going to opine that social commentary doesn’t belong in horror. Nor am I going to theorize that horror works best when it’s subtle. What I am going to say is that, as a viewer, I don’t appreciate the filmmakers shouting the moral of their story to me through a megaphone. And, no, my own pro-choice viewpoint doesn’t make me any less pissed off about this. I’m pushing forty, guys. I’m a bit old for fables.

Season 2 Episode Ranking

1. “Sounds Like” (2.04)
2. “Family” (2.02)
3. “The V Word” (2.03)
4. “The Damned Thing” (2.01)
5. “Pro-Life” (2.05)

Up Next: “Pelts,” directed by Dario Argento, based on a short story by F. Paul Wilson, starring Meat Loaf and John Saxon.

• May [reviewed by Jori]
  [4 stars] Disturbing, uncomfortable and brilliant.
• Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah [reviewed by the Drudgeon]
  2 stars: King Ghidorah’s creation and wait for it...we get BOTH forms! Sometimes life can be great!
• Diary of the Dead [Reviewed by Lackey]
  1 star: What happened, George?