Okay, okay! I can clearly see from the other reviewers this one is a mixed bag. Either love it it or hate it, well that's fine. That's okay because it deals with a touchy subject.Set aside the politics for a moment, the movie is about a teenage girl who wants an abortion because she feels the baby is evil. But her father wants to protect the baby at all costs.Ron Perlman is excellent as usual playing the tragic hero who knows it's there is going to be bloodshed. He knows it's going to get ugly and he's not happy about it, but he feels it has to be done. Catlin Wachs is great playing the victim. Bill Dow and the rest of the cast is great too.I feel the both sides of the issue is being served. But it's Ron Perlman's character that really sells me on this. He is a father who loves his kids and do whatever it takes to protect them. I feel if you love this movie or hate this movie you can't hate Ron.John Carpenter has never been above pushing people's buttons, just look at 'They Live'. He said of this "it's just a monster movie", and Cody Carpenter's score captures the mood.I'm not trying to mock other people when I say this one is not for someone with a closed mind. If you feel strongly one way or the other about abortion, I suggest you avoid this one. I myself enjoyed this not because I am pro-life or pro choice. I enjoyed it because all of the characters most notably Ron and Catlin because they were real people.

"Pro-Life" actually reminded me a little bit about all those pathetic late 80's/early 90's made-for-TV movies based on real-life tragedies. You know the ones I'm talking about… They usually always starred former sitcom stars (like from "Beverly Hills 90210 etc…) and dealt with topics like unwanted teenage pregnancies, rape and forced abortions. "Pro-Life" features some of those elements as well, but naturally lengthened with totally bonkers and over-the-top grotesque horror ingredients à la John Carpenter. His episode "Cigarette Burns" already was one of the highlights of season one, and "Pro-Life" definitely ranks amongst the finest efforts of season two. It's a fast-paced and incredibly gory short film with a handful of original ideas and truckloads of disturbing imagery, but sadly also an underdeveloped screenplay. Perhaps John Carpenter needed to make this a long-feature film, so that he could elaborate on some of the potentially very intriguing aspects of the story. Two doctors working in the private abortion clinic ran by Dr. Kiefer pick up a young and tremendously confused pregnant teenager by the side of the road. The girl claims to have been raped by a demon from hell that attacked her one week earlier in her backyard. The doctors naturally don't believe the story, but have to admit the fetus grows at an incredible rate and shows many signs of being pure evil. Meanwhile, the girl's father and brothers are outside the gates of the abortion clinic. Dwayne Burcell is a reputed troublemaker and religious fanatic who came into conflict with Dr. Kiefer before. Now he's determined to get his daughter out of the clinic and, especially, rescue the baby because God ordered him to. Qualifying as a genuine Masters of Horror installment, "Pro-Life" contains a lot of truly grueling images (like close range shotgun kills) and flamboyant special effects and monster designs. There are also some very icky moments, like when Dwayne uses the surgical instruments to perform an abortion on a male patient. Yikes! As said, the screenplay is sadly underdeveloped. Carpenter borrows terrific elements from previous horror classics (including some of his own work, like "The Thing") but it's all very incoherent and lacking logical sense. But since sense isn't the most vital elements I expect to find in a Masters of Horror episode, I can still safely say I loved "Pro-Life". Watch this if you want extreme gore and a stellar performance from Ron Perlman.

The second John Carpenter episode in the series is pretty good if clearly a lesser achievement than his previous one, CIGARETTE BURNS (2005), which had been one of the very best. Still, for all the genre felicities and competent acting (especially mismatched father Ron Perlman and daughter Caitlin Wachs) on display here, the overall impression remains that of being a disparate collage of earlier and much superior movies like ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968; the demon impregnating a human being), LEGEND (1985; the look of the demon is virtually identical to Tim Curry's Darkness), as well as Carpenter's own ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976; the besieged institution i.e. abortion clinic) and THE THING (1982; the hybrid look of the monster infant). As with most contemporary horror fare, there is much unnecessary splatter/gore effects but these strike one as ludicrous (such as when a brain is blown off merely from a hand-gun bullet)! At least, Carpenter's son Cody provides an effectively subtle, piano-led score a' la his father's classic theme for HALLOWEEN (1978).

What happened to you Johnny-boy? John Carpenter never used to rely on special effects (and bad ones at that) to make things entertaining. He used them judiciously to add to the story, but not to fall back on because there is nothing else in the script. The effects in this are terrible, ranging from lame CGI (added in at the last minute to "pump-up" some of the gore) to a cheesy guy-in-a-rubber-suit demon. Gah.Remember Prince of Darkness, John? The huge black hand - the only part that we see of the Anti-Christ - that was scarier than anything in Pro-Life. Much. much more frightening than a rubber monster. I realize that if you just had a big, shadowy figure roaming the halls in Pro-Life, many viewers would think it was a cop-out, but your fans wouldn't. Instead, most of us probably think that showing us everything was the cop-out. Whatever your next budget is, cut it in half so you make a good movie.