"The Clinic" has been called a horror film, but sick is probably a better description. There is nothing supernatural about it but ultimately it is the things human beings do to each other that are really horrific. Set in 1979, this Australian film sees a heavily pregnant woman travelling through the Outback with the father of her soon to be born child.They check into a motel, he takes leave of her for awhile, and when he returns, she has disappeared. At this point and in view of his later actions, the viewer might be expecting him to rescue the damsel in the nick of time. Alas, he perishes in a car crash en route to do so. Meanwhile, she wakes up in a tub full of iced water minus her baby.The rest of the plot is equally sick, not to mention extremely implausible, although it is said to be based very loosely on true stories of infant abduction. Ironically and most sickeningly, not only is infant abduction a reality but so is foetal abduction; there have been a number of cases in recent years, perpetrated by lone, deranged women, perhaps most notably that of Julie Corey in the United States (where else?) who murdered her neighbour, cut out her baby, and tried to pass it off as her own."The Clinic" is not that gory, and the mastermind is not the usual villain, but unless you like depravity for the sake of it, best to give this one a miss.

The Clinic is an Australian horror/thriller starring the beautiful Tabrett Bethell as a young mother-to-be named Beth and tragically the late Andy Whitfield as her fiancé, Cameron. After a near accident on the road they stop at a motel and things take a turn for the worse.It is loosely inspired by true stories of infant abduction, and after nipping out for some food, Cameron returns to the motel only to find his pregnant fiancée missing. Naturally he reports her disappearance to the police but things do not improve for either of them. We then cut too Beth who wakes in an ice bath naked and no longer carrying her baby after someone has performed a homemade c-section. Naturally distraught she sets about trying to find out who did this to her, and on her way she finds other women in the same situation and discovers they are all locked in an abandoned facility.I knew nothing of the film so went in blind when this came on TV last week. I didn't know if it was a horror, torture film, about serial killers or creepy ghosts, but it was on the horror channel so I thought I would give it a watch and without spoiling it too much I was glad I did. The Clinic is set in the year 1979 which we are told is six years prior to the advent of DNA testing. I thought this was a strange statistic to open a film with, but as it progressed and ultimately concluded the movie would only work in this time frame, in the current day and age there would be no point to any of it. However, overlooking this and trying to appreciate the film for what it is, I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw.The lead actress Tabrett Bethell is brilliant as Beth. She really made me care about her journey and nice to see someone beautiful who can really act. She is on-screen pretty much the whole time, and her journey gets worse and worse. She meets other women in the facility who have all had the same surgery, and they eventually they find a room with all their babies in. With no idea who is doing this to them, they are made quickly aware (by someone or something!) of the fact that they each contain a clue to the identity of their baby – inside their freshly stitched wounds. One by one the numbers dwindle and I really like the direction the film took with this, very reminiscent of Saw II in particular. Naturally we get a bit of bloodshed but nothing too graphic or extreme, the film relied more on the story and characters with some brief moments of killing and wound opening thrown in.The main tragedy of the film was that the ending was a let down. Don't get me wrong, I liked the conclusion of Beth's journey, and some neat little revelations about her past thrown in added to it, but her partner Cameron just disappeared. After he located where Beth was being held hostage, he set off to save her only to have an accident. Like in most films I was waiting for him to return and save the day but he never appeared again in the film. After doing some research, I found out the actor Andy Whitfield was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in the same year The Clinic was filming and the rumours were he was too ill to continue filming, and whilst he still appears in the first half of the film his character was just written out of the second half. It would have been interesting to see how they originally intended to use his character if he tragically wasn't ill, but sadly it really tarnished the film as it felt incomplete. A real shame, as he was a great actor and had a real commanding presence about him in the scenes he is in.Visually the film looked good, the barren Australian outback looked beautiful and desolate, and the facility the girls were held hostage in was claustrophobic enough without getting boring and the director worked well by changing the scenes enough to keep offering us something different. The other girls all played their parts well and whilst I kept waiting for the usual horror film clichés none of them happened really so that was a positive. Mix this is with a killer in their midst, some silent bad guys watching on video cameras and a bent cop/disgusting pervert motel owner and you have a very different horror film. A least it offered something unique and this is always good to see.I really feel that if we had seen a better ending this film would have been a much bigger hit and ultimately a more enjoyable experience, as it was I saw a great effort but it fell away and felt incomplete towards the end, with too many loose ends and unanswered questions that made the whole film seem a little far-fetched. The villains were never really explained, and whilst you will find out the motives it just doesn't make much sense, such a shame as the film started so well and had so much potential.More of my reviews - http://headinavice.wordpress.com

While traveling across country with her fiancé, Beth (Tabrett Bethell) wakes alone in an isolated clinic to a mother's worst nightmare. Just how far will she go to save her child? Let me say first of all I had the lowest of expectations for this one. I look at the cheesy cover, lack of known actors, the plot description... and all I can think is that this is clearly going to be a knockoff of "Turistas" or "Hostel". Which, as it turns out, is completely not the case. It has some elements of "Turistas", but is a far better film, with a healthy dose of "Battle Royale" mixed in.My instinct is to fault the makers of this film for saying it was inspired by true events. Almost all books and movies are inspired in some loose way (because it only makes sense you would write about what you have experienced). But this film was not inspired by true events except in the loosest way possible. There are simply too many improbabilities.In fact, the film is full of plot holes. Why does the one woman know the farm so well? How does this happen without the cops stepping in? Where are all the other women's husbands? How did they find so many women pregnant at the same time? How are freshly surgeried mothers so energetic? And it gets weirder at the end when more is revealed. So do not try to make sense of it, because that is your first mistake.But yet, I found myself fascinated and drawn in to the story, waiting for each new twist and turn. As much as I found it hard to believe and wanted to dislike it for being far-fetched, it was entertaining and had just enough mystery to make the audience think. Thinking movies and horror together? Oh my!

This film manages to be quite entertaining, the cast is decent at acting, the main couple is really good looking, the drama scenes are good.. but it could have been more innovative. You know, you see bunch of things you've already seen in lots of other movies. It seems like they're repeating the same old story over and over.I'm being generous by giving it a 7; for an indie non-US movie, "The Clinic" is satisfying and worth a watch, even thought the ending could have been a thousand times better.And I have never heard about James Rabbitts, but his directing here is fine and much similar to a Hollywood one.