22 October 2005

Yuzna (1998)

1998 - Progeny - More medical horror, but unfortunately nowhere near The Dentist's league (though Dr. Burton's hospital seems to have acquired two of Dr. Feinstone's staff). The film desperately wants to be a sort of Communion-Rosemary's Baby hybrid. Its Communion segments are, for the most part, pretty cool. I like the design of the alien's first form and I like the fact that Yuzna shies away from showing them clearly. Jillian McWhirter's extended nudity in those scenes is both welcome and realistic. The details are nicely accurate to "true" accounts of alien abductions I've read. However, those scenes just weren't eerie in the way Communion and Fire in the Sky were. I'm not sure what the difference is. The Rosemary's Baby stuff was mostly boring due to predictability. The ending, in which the aliens effectively kill Sherry with missing time while husband Craig has her open on the operating table, was very creative. The film should've stopped there. Instead, we get an unnecessary dream-abduction-jailhouse coda. Overshadowing all of this, however, was Arnold Vosloo's utterly wretched acting. He sleepwalks through his lines without a hint of emotion; it's a shame character actor god Brad Dourif had to share scenes with him.

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