Progeny [DVD]

Description

OK, brace yourself--this could get messy. Craig Burton (Arnold Vosloo, the eponymous vengeful goon in The Mummy) stars here as a dedicated, overworked hospital doctor whose sterling abilities in the emergency room are sadly unparalleled in the bedroom given that he still can't father a child with his spouse Sherry (Jillian McWhirter). Until, that is, he finds himself undergoing a dizzying--and inordinately lengthy--out-of-body experience in the middle of the night. Subsequently troubled by grotesque paranormal visions, Craig is distressed to discover Sherry is pregnant. Convinced his unborn child is, in fact, the product of his wife's abduction by aliens, he's not a happy man. In his fevered state, he first dispatches Sherry to alarming gynaecologist David Weatherly (Wilford Brimley), before visiting both shrink Susan Lamarche (Lindsay Crouse) and alien abduction expert Bert Clavell (Brad Dourif). And from here on in, it gets really dumb. Adorned with the kind of icky, low-rent effects and weird fixation with medical procedure that anyone acquainted with the work of director Brian Yuzna (Society) and scriptwriter Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) will no doubt already be familiar with, Progeny is a boon for the connoisseur of straight-to-tape nonsense. Just check out that cast-can't you hear the deep, gravelly voice on the trailer now ("Together at last--Crouse. Brimley. Dourif. Vosloo!")? Obviously, anyone after plausible moments of human drama is in entirely the wrong place and, yes, both the direction and performances are erratic to put it politely (Vosloo appears in a state of near-catatonia throughout), but, in its own, stomach-turning, sub-Rosemary's Baby kind of way, Progeny is a prime example of sci-fi/horror nonsense at its best (and most nonsensical). --Danny Leigh