Post by Bartwald on Dec 31, 2005 9:13:56 GMT -5
PROGENY (1999)
DIRECTOR: Brian Yuzna
CAST: Arnold Vosloo, Jillian McWhirter, Brad Dourif
GRADE: 5/10
What a movie! ...I mean – not that extraordinarily good one (please note the five star grade) but a... well, special one. OK, so probably starting with ‘What a damn fine and cheap piece of CHAOS, this one!’ would feel more appropriate; let’s leave it like that then.
The movie’s about aliens, generally. They go down to the Earth and impregnate an attractive blonde (Jillian McWhirter here) after a grotesque and delusional act of love that’s filled with a variety of bad f/x. The blonde’s husband (Arnold Vosloo) is happy at first but being a doctor he checks his sperm quality only to find out it ain’t good enough to give him offspring. Puzzled, he starts to think about the night of the mysterious conception, he starts to bore his wife with too many questions, and after he contacts a UFO specialist (Brad Dourif, yeah!) and watches a bad quality VHS tape showing an alien birth (recorded in Russia, no less), he suddenly starts fearing for his life.
You know what’s good about this movie? First thing: that the plot is so over-the-top and yet neither did I lose my interest in it, nor did I feel the makers treated it all as a stupid joke (usually you watch such movies only for dirt-cheap laughs, nudity and violence – here you’ve got it all plus you can’t stop wondering how the hell it’s going to end...). I mean, at least I myself was curious if Jillian’s character survives or ends up in the puddle of blood, if the doctor’s so damn cool or so damn fucked up in the head... you know, those kinds of philosophical questions. The second good thing is... the actors. Vosloo (call him Imhotep, if it helps your memory) seems to be mimicking Nicolas Cage here – and that’s Cage in his best cocker-spaniel-eyes-and-mouth-agape mode; think ‘City Of Angels’ and you’re so close to the picture it’s scary. But you know what? He doesn’t irritate, really! Nicky does, sure, but Arnold doesn’t. No idea why. Then there’s Jillian: a fine, sexy woman, you can trust me; and I really like her acting, too – not just the way she undresses so often. Brad Dourif is strange as usual but his role is more of a cameo, to be honest. A nice one, though.
The special effects are bad, I said that already. Sometimes shockingly so (when the naked Barbie doll used instead of Jillian floats out of the window and into the sky), sometimes just ‘way below average’. The ending may not be the cleverest in the world, but at least I kept waiting for it without being bored too much, so that’s something.
I guess ‘Progeny’ is one of my cheesiest guilty pleasures but this word ‘pleasure’ is still there in the name, right?
DIRECTOR: Brian Yuzna
CAST: Arnold Vosloo, Jillian McWhirter, Brad Dourif
GRADE: 5/10
What a movie! ...I mean – not that extraordinarily good one (please note the five star grade) but a... well, special one. OK, so probably starting with ‘What a damn fine and cheap piece of CHAOS, this one!’ would feel more appropriate; let’s leave it like that then.
The movie’s about aliens, generally. They go down to the Earth and impregnate an attractive blonde (Jillian McWhirter here) after a grotesque and delusional act of love that’s filled with a variety of bad f/x. The blonde’s husband (Arnold Vosloo) is happy at first but being a doctor he checks his sperm quality only to find out it ain’t good enough to give him offspring. Puzzled, he starts to think about the night of the mysterious conception, he starts to bore his wife with too many questions, and after he contacts a UFO specialist (Brad Dourif, yeah!) and watches a bad quality VHS tape showing an alien birth (recorded in Russia, no less), he suddenly starts fearing for his life.
You know what’s good about this movie? First thing: that the plot is so over-the-top and yet neither did I lose my interest in it, nor did I feel the makers treated it all as a stupid joke (usually you watch such movies only for dirt-cheap laughs, nudity and violence – here you’ve got it all plus you can’t stop wondering how the hell it’s going to end...). I mean, at least I myself was curious if Jillian’s character survives or ends up in the puddle of blood, if the doctor’s so damn cool or so damn fucked up in the head... you know, those kinds of philosophical questions. The second good thing is... the actors. Vosloo (call him Imhotep, if it helps your memory) seems to be mimicking Nicolas Cage here – and that’s Cage in his best cocker-spaniel-eyes-and-mouth-agape mode; think ‘City Of Angels’ and you’re so close to the picture it’s scary. But you know what? He doesn’t irritate, really! Nicky does, sure, but Arnold doesn’t. No idea why. Then there’s Jillian: a fine, sexy woman, you can trust me; and I really like her acting, too – not just the way she undresses so often. Brad Dourif is strange as usual but his role is more of a cameo, to be honest. A nice one, though.
The special effects are bad, I said that already. Sometimes shockingly so (when the naked Barbie doll used instead of Jillian floats out of the window and into the sky), sometimes just ‘way below average’. The ending may not be the cleverest in the world, but at least I kept waiting for it without being bored too much, so that’s something.
I guess ‘Progeny’ is one of my cheesiest guilty pleasures but this word ‘pleasure’ is still there in the name, right?