omething happened the night of September 20--Craig Burton (Vosloo) is sure of it. He's not certain what it was, only that while he was making love to his wife Sherry (McWhirter) there was a bright light, and then two hours had vanished. Since then he's felt disoriented in his work as an E.R. surgeon, and he's also started hallucinating. At first he's thrilled when his wife announces she's pregnant, then disturbed when she traces conception back to that fateful night.
Under hypnosis performed by psychologist Susan LaMarche (Crouse), Craig relives the missing time, watching helplessly as Sherry is mysteriously lifted away and then, two hours later, returned. Meanwhile Sherry is starting to feel her baby move, even though she's only in the second month of her pregnancy. Craig's bizarre-sounding worries only unsettle her further. Her own hypnosis unearths terrifying memories of being brought on board a spaceship and probed, which LaMarche interprets as evidence of a serious emotional disorder.
After a disastrous ultrasound, Sherry bolts the hospital, finding herself on a deserted road. Horrified at what might be inside her, she tries to force herself to abort the fetus. But she can't, and when a cop surprises her, she attacks him in a frenzy, and is taken into custody. By the time LaMarche meets Craig at the police station, Sherry is saying "my baby's fine." LaMarche, concerned, visits the next morning while Craig is on call and finds her in a tub of ice water--the baby has "told" her it likes the cold. LaMarche has Sherry committed.
Craig is convinced that Sherry's baby isn't human, and though LaMarche won't listen, he's sought out a mousy ufologist, Clavell (Dourif). Together they drug Sherry, forcing her to remember more about the abduction; but they are discovered. Craig is bounced from the staff, and Sherry is to be transferred. Desperate, Craig and Clavell decide they must remove the fetus before the transfer. That night they undertake a risky operation, finally realizing that the only way to save Sherry is to endanger her life.
Let's roll the videotape
Progeny is billed as being "from the special effects wizard behind Re-Animator"; but the word from can be used in creative ways. In fact, Stuart Gordon, who directed that 1985 cult classic, is one of the executive producers of Progeny. And just as Gordon is further from the material now than he was then, so Progeny is muted, brooding and ultimately dull compared to the vital, wild-eyed zeal of Re-Animator.
In a way, there are two films here, each vying for attention. In one, a pedestrian thriller, Vosloo--a kind of poor man's Michael Keaton--broods and broods while McWhirter frays and Crouse grouses. This film, bearing the thumb-prints of director Yuzna (Return of the Living Dead 3, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4) is so by-the-numbers that in one late scene sodium pentothol is used to "get the truth" out of poor Sherry Burton. In the other film, excerpted in dream-sequence-style hypnosis sessions, low-budget but high-quality special effects are showcased, creating a terrifying atmosphere without a trace of plot. It's kind of like being abducted from the film: Viewers float in a dreamlike haze, admiring the visuals while everything else is suspended.
Nonetheless, there is something to this movie. The "twist" ending prevents the story from being nothing more than a National Enquirer headline, and on occasion interesting camera angles and effects intrude into Yuzma's workaday part of the film. McWhirter's emotional rollercoaster is believable; Vosloo performs well throughout, though with an odd heaviness even when angry or excited; and breezy Brimley, as the obstetrician, is not as much of a sore thumb as viewers might think.
Overall, Progeny doesn't really fit together, and neither the gore-lover nor the craver of suspense is likely to be satisfied with it. While viewers might have expected the once-visceral Stuart Gordon to have mellowed over the years, perhaps indulging in John Waters-like self-parody, he seems hardly present in Progeny, and there is certainly no parody a la Re-Animator--at least, none that was intentional.
