Rosemary's Baby meets Alien, Brian Yuzna style! Actually, this is a surprisingly restrained effort from the man behind such gory classics as Bride of Re-Animator and The Dentist, though we do still get some nasty styled gore. The film is rather well put together and the acting is not bad; the only real criticism I have of the film is that it's not very ambitious. The whole film revolves around the central plot point and despite being at least interesting throughout, it doesn't really go anywhere once it reaches its conclusion, which is a bit of a shame. The plot focuses on husband and wife Craig and Sherry Burton. They've been trying for a baby but not had much luck; although their luck changes one day when Sherry discovers that she has finally become pregnant. However, this happens shortly after a strange night where the couple, during sex, both had a blackout. As time moves on Craig increasingly begins to suspect that there's something wrong with the baby and begins to question what happened during the blackout.The film takes obvious influence from films such as Rosemary's Baby, although the plot is much shallower. There's plenty of ways that Brian Yuzna could have taken the story but it's never really developed beyond the immediate ideas. The immediate ideas are good however and the film features plenty of decent set pieces - most of which are reminiscent of what actual expecting couples would have to go through (e.g. an ultrasound scan). The central cast is good with Arnold Vosloo and Jillian McWhirter convincing as the central couple and receiving good support from Brad Dourif as a doctor. The film is not particularly gory but we do get some inventive alien effects courtesy of Screaming Mad George. The aliens themselves are not seen all that often but we do at least get a general idea. The film might have been better had it been a bit more expansive and not focused solely on the pregnancy; but even so the ending is decent enough (if a little muddled) and while this film is not great; it is at least worth a look for horror fans.

Progeny starts as ER doctor Craig Burton (Arnold Vosloo) is chatting to a shrink named Dr. Susan Lamarche (Lindsay Course) as he's been worried lately & unable to concentrate, Craig says his recent troubles began on the night of September the 20th while he was having sex with his wife Sherry (Jillian McWhirter) & he saw a strange bright white light & then the next two hours are missing before he remembers shooting his load into Sherry. The missing two hours & the bright light are a definite concern though. That night Sherry gives Craig the good news that she is pregnant & is pretty sure they conceived on the 20th, Craig becomes even more worried & when he gets his sperm count back from the lab & it reads virtually zero he wonders just who's baby it is since his pencil doesn't have any lead in it. Then he hears of similar accounts on TV of people being abducted by aliens, could his wife have been kidnapped & impregnated by aliens? Craig hopes an ultra sound will show just what exactly Sherry has in her womb & he doesn't like the results...Directed by Brian Yuzna I quite liked Progeny for what it was, a simple & straight forward sci-fi based shocker. The script by Aubrey Solomon takes itself extremely seriously which actually works well considering the material & to me felt like some sort of mutant offspring between Rosemary's Baby (1968) & The X Files (1993 - 2002) if that's something you could imagine. A fair amount of the time is spent on the paranoia that Sherry & Craig feel about the baby & pregnancy which is alright but we, the audience that is, already know that Sherry is carrying an alien baby because the film has made that pretty clear from the word go so all the ordinary explanations offered up by other character's are a bit pointless & feel like a cheap way to pad the film out a bit as it's never in doubt. Luckily there are some nicely twisted scenes here, a dream sequence as Sherry drops her placenta & the alien baby emerges from it & a cool scene that looks like it belongs in a Japanese Hentai like La Blue Girl (1992) or Legend of the Overfiend (1989) where she is impregnated by a slimy alien. It moves along at a nice pace, it doesn't outstay it's welcome clocking in at about 90 minutes & is something a little bit different in the horror genre which isn't really known for it's originality. I have to mention the ending too which I liked as new dad Craig is beamed aboard the alien spacecraft & is seen holding a mutant freak half human half alien baby in a quite unsettling & amusingly downbeat final scene. Overall I liked Progeny although it's probably not a film for everyone given the subject matter & a few suitably yucky gross out scenes of gore.Director Yuzna knows how to turn in a decent horror flick & Progeny is no exception, it looks nice enough with his usual trademark gore. The aliens themselves look alright if a little silly & seem to be a mixture of animatronic on set puppets & CGI computer effects which work together well enough & I particularly like their Octopus like tentacle arms. I wouldn't say it's scary but the storyline is in suitably bad taste & outrageous enough to be memorable. Gore wise what's here is effective, there's a shot of an alien bursting through someones stomach while someones stomach is sliced open exposing all their guts & insides. The special effects are pretty good & there's a fair amount of blood splashed around along with a fair amount of female full frontal nudity if that's your thing.With a supposed budget of about $2,500,000 this had a decent budget & it show's with some nice aliens & special effects as already mentioned, it's well made with a pretty good cast who all do fine.Progeny is a film I didn't expect to like that much but Yuzna kept things moving & some of his trademark gore scenes make Progeny a reasonable way to pass 90 odd minutes, it ain't no masterpiece but to be honest it doesn't try to be. A good solid entertaining horror sci-fi with an agreeably nasty edge, I liked it.

Well, that's the paradox in this movie. It features some of the best acting I have ever seen in a B-movie (even better than most "A-list" actors) and yet the movie is mediocre at best. Why? Everything besides the acting in this movie screams "mediocre". Brian Yuzna's direction feels tired, as if he had been forced to make it; it's too far from his better works like "Return of the Living Dead III" or "From Beyond". The budget was OK, but he has done much better movies with less.The main problem was the script. As a mixture between X-Files and a generic TV show, the plot tells the story of a woman named Sherry (Jillian McWhirter) who was kidnapped by aliens while making love to his husband Craig (Arnold Vosloo), a young doctor. When Sherry begins to act strangely her husband suspects that both baby and wife are aliens. Enter Brad Douriff as Dr. Clavell, an UFO expert who is the only one who believes Craig and tries to help him to kill the baby, while everyone else thinks Craig is mad.An interesting plot nevertheless, but it was so poorly developed that even when the actors did an awesome job, it feels shallow and pointless. Andrew Vosloo, who has appeared in The Mummy, shines in his role and brings back good memories of Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby. Brad Douriff does his usual good job and Jillian McWhirter has very good moments.Yuzna's Direction and the weak script are what makes this movie boring and tiresome. The SFX did not help too much, some are quite good, others are pretty lame.In the end, the movie is good to spent some time with, but a disappointment to a Yuzna fan. Worthy for the good performances of Vosloo and Douriff.A solid 5/10

This was not a good film. Poorly scripted and acted - the concept was not new, the effects poor and not a showcase for Arnold Vosloo who really is a half decent actor. I watched this under some protest and only remembered having seen it before towards the very end - it's that forgettable. The acting seemed to consist of a number of glares & looks devoid of any sincerity. I kept expecting this to actually get going and before long I was just hoping it would finish. As for the medical bits - well I wasn't expecting a true version of ER events but this was just comical - I am a Dr so know what I am taking about - and the operative bits were just plain silly.Do not waste your valuable time - unless you have absolutely nothing else to do - go out, ring up a long lost friend, watch paint dry, sort out your sock draw, do some household task. AVOID at your peril.