Masters of Horror: Episode 18 Pro-Life

This is a good episode. It’s disappointing mainly because it’s John Carpenter’s second and final entry in this series, and it doesn’t even come close to re-capturing the glory of Cigarette Burns. Where that episode was a thoughtful deliberation on the nature of film, this episode’s pro-choice message has all the subtlety of a sack of bricks to the face.

As with many Masters of Horror episodes, this is an otherwise forgettable story, saved by great actors. Ron Perlman in particularly is always awesome. Bill Dow can also hold his own as a counter-force to Perlman, and the fact that he’s not a better known actor is sad. Looking over his IMDB page he’s guest starred on countless shows, but the highest episode count I could find for a single series was 8, so he's clearly far from a break-out star.

A girl named Angelique (Caitlin Wachs) shows up at an abortion clinic, with a late-term pregnancy, but claims she’s only been pregnant for a week. Her father Dwayne (Perlman), as it just so happens, is a pro-Life nut with a restraining order requiring him to remain 400 feet from the property. However, he demands to be given access to his daughter.

Angelique demands an abortion, even threatening to stab her own stomach with a scalpel, but she is underage. Her father, meanwhile, is hearing the “voice of God” ordering him to protect the child. The clinic workers become convinced that Angelique was raped by her father, and attempt to buy time. Before long he’s storming the building with his sons (Graeme McComb, Benjamin Rogers, and Chad Krowchuk), while the baby is reaching through its mother’s stomach to crush the scanner when they attempt an ultrasound.

This is yet another twist that you see coming. Just from my description of the episode, you probably already know that it’s the Devil’s child, and Dwayne is getting his messages from the other team. Quite frankly, this is an episode that should have laid its cards on the table upfront. The acting talent was clearly here to pull off something much more nuanced. Personally, I would love to see a pro-Life zealots confronted with the question of aborting the anti-Christ, rather than being deceived.

The episode also gets props for Dr Kiefer (Dow). He plays an abortion doctor who keeps a bullet-proof vest and gun at the ready for just such an occasion. His shift from dork to badass is awesome, and his eventual, and quite brutal, death at Dwayne’s hands is the most disturbing part of the episode. We're not explicitly given his back story, but it's strongly implied this is not the first time his life has been in danger from pro-lifers.

When Satan finally makes an appearance, it’s fairly generic. He looks like a Buffy-villain. I would have preferred he be kept off-screen. The baby, however, is a bit more creative, clearly drawing inspiration from Carpenter’s The Thing.

The episode is good, yes, but ultimately forgettable. It felt like someone was phoning it in the scripting stage, and with lower production values it might have been a Tales from the Crypt episode. I see it, and I think of what could have been.