Progeny - O Intruso

I wanted to see this movie since a long time ago, and i finally got it. Boy am i disappointed or what? The whole story was terrible! Bad screenplay, bad fx, i can go on and on. It's about an ER doctor (Arnold "The mummy" Vosloo) whose wife is pregnant, but the baby is not normal. Well it sounds like that lousy movie about the astronaut with Charlize Theron, i can't remember the name, except that this one was made with a very low budget. Anyway, I enjoy low budget movies sometimes, like "The return of the living death" and stuff, but this one is not among my favorites at all!

As a big fan of Brian Yuzna and the majority of the movies he's been involved in, I guessed I'd enjoy Progeny. I didn't, although in ways it has it's moments. However, if you're expecting something of the calibre of Society or Beyond ReAnimator, you could be in for a shock. In a way this is similar to Society, being a tale of a seemingly ordinary world with a horrific supernatural underbelly...but that's where it ends.

I'm not covering for Yuzna when I say that the fault doesn't really lie with him, as bad direction is bad direction, but the direction is sound. What trips the movie up is both script and acting. Stuart Gordon (ReAnimator, Dagon) has written an intelligent script, but one that doesn't really work with Yuzna's style of direction, leaving him paused on actors delivering lengthy dialogue when really he wants to throw that camera around and get down with his bad self. This matter makes the movie awkward enough as it is, but there's worse.

If the movie had been made with great actors, the movie would have probably held it's own. Unfortunately this is very far from the case. The acting is wooden, shockingly so even for a low-budget B feature. The inexplicably successful and renowned Arnold Vosloo wrecks every damn line with near pinpoint precision, handing in one of the worst performances I've seen in a long while. The man manages to turn every line of well considered dialogue into the kind of ham-line you'll be throwing drunkenly at mates next time you're in the pub. 'Hey Bob! GOOD GOD, AM I GOING MAD! WHAT'S...COME OVER ME! NOOOO!' In fact I may try that one myself next weekend. The last minute addition of genre veteran (and personal favourite) Brad Dourif, instead of enriching the film like it should, almost seems to hand Dourif the movie in a last ditch effort to stop Vosloo from hamming, but quite frankly Dourif looks deeply uncomfortable (possibly waiting for the next assault of bad acting) next to Vosloo, and even an eccentric turn from him fails to resuscitate the film.

If the acting was better, this movie would have been okay. Hell, it might have been pretty enjoyable, but the lack of character makes the movie a soulless affair, and makes the horror element seem tacked on and tasteless instead of an organic part of the film. I found the alien torture/rape scenes a little difficult to stomach already, but the fact that the characters were so lacking made them seem gratuitous as well as unpleasant, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth.

So, if you really like Sci-fi and don't have a problem with bad acting, pedestrian pacing and a really garish, nasty rape scene, Progeny will probably be your cup of tea. But since I do, I'm probably never going to watch it again. Once was enough. On the plus side, this is the only Sci-Fi movie Yuzna ever bothered to make, so he obviously wasn't really that pleased with it himself.

What do you get if you cross Rosemary's Baby with The X Files? 1998's Progeny, or something like it anyway. Surprisingly thoughtful, restrained and adept for a B movie, it's got a tightly wound little story about a human woman (Jillian McWhirter) who is impregnated by extraterrestrials that are tinkering around with our biology for who knows why. Her husband (Arnold 'Imhotep' Vosloo) is at a loss and doesn't know where to turn as her condition gets progressively more… icky. Help comes in the form of two kindly doctors (Lindsay Crouse and Wilford 'Diabeetus' Brimley) and a UFO-ologist played by an unusually laid back Brad Dourif, but will their collective effort be enough to save her life, remove whatever being is in her womb and escape the attention of the aliens for good? Browsing the shelves this looks like a full on schlock-fest based on the cast and general vibe, but it's something a bit more tasteful that takes itself just seriously enough to separate it from the mass of junk in this arena. Don't get me wrong, there's some slick scares and a few gooey wtf moments, but they're used with a modicum of discretion and as such feel earned, always taking a backseat to the actors who give the human drama weight. Great little forgotten sci-if/horror.

This movie will undoubtably not go over well with some, because most of the horror is mental. But it does have a little something for almost everyone, including a couple of really cool abduction scenes with aliens. The film makes extensive use of alien abduction mythology, while also showing a bit more intelligence about some facets of abduction myths than you would expect out of a movie. Jillian McWhirter is excellent in what had to have been a grueling performance.

i caught this movie on showtime one weekend afternoon, expecting a good ole b-grade gore-fest... boy, was i surprised... :OP this turned out to be one of the better horror movies i've seen in a long time, and i've seen my fair share... while there were a couple of scenes which were extremely gory, they were the exception, rather than the norm... i rather liked the way in which the entire film kept you really wondering if the good doctor was really crazy, as everyone else thought... one thing i didn't really like about the film was the very last scene, which i personally felt detracted from the film... i thought it would have been more effective if it had left the ending more open to interpretation, which it would have been had they not included the very last 30 seconds... but that was about my only substantial complaint about this film, which provided a good sense of suspense and dread, as well as keeping you guessing as to the whole "crazy vs sane" aspect of the story... the alien abduction sequences, in particular the last one involving the wife, were quite reminiscent of japanese hentai, specifically tentacles... just thought i'd mention that... quite disturbing...

overall, i'd give this an 8 out of 10, but be aware that it does not cater to a large audience...