Horror Classic Rosemary's Baby Was Reimagined In A Forgotten Ron Perlman TV Movie

Back in the mid-2000s, John Carpenter directed two episodes of "Masters of Horror." The celebrated horror anthology series gave a lot of creative leeway to well-known auteurs in the horror world, so each episode was, essentially, a full feature film unto itself. Carpenter's first episode, "Cigarette Burns," was a clever riff on his own 1995 film "In the Mouth of Madness." The episode centered on a twisted film collector (Udo Kier) who tasks a private investigator (Norman Reedus) to track down an ultra-rare film print. The film is said to feature a real-life angel being de-winged, which will cause the person watching it to mentally deteriorate. As a whole, "Cigarette Burns" is pretty dang good, gets some details about film archiving correct, and even features a scene of a man feeding his own intestines (!) into a movie projector.

Unfortunately, Carpenter followed that episode with another one titled "Pro-Life," a curious 2006 riff on "Rosemary's Baby" but with crummy horror and muddled politics. The premise is promising: What if a young woman who was pregnant with a demon baby checked into an abortion clinic? And what if her dad (a violent anti-abortion crusader) was trying to break his way into the building to prevent her from aborting the demon? The political possibilities are endless, and one would think that some interesting conversations could be instigated with such a setup. Sadly, the screenwriters (Drew McWeeny and Rebecca Swan) didn't write in those conversations. Carpenter and his writers were either instructed not to allow their film to get too talky or were merely too focused on mayhem to let anything of substance be said.

"Pro-Life" isn't terribly well-remembered by "Masters of Horror" fans and remains a footnote in Carpenter's filmography. It was the second-to-last film he ever directed before 2010's "The Ward." Ever since then, Carpenter has stuck to playing video games, composing film scores, and performing his music in a series of successful tours.

Because we've all seen Roman Polanski's 1968 classic "Rosemary's Baby," we're already kind of endemically familiar with the premise of "Pro-Life." The young Angelique (Caitlin Wachs) checks into an abortion clinic, wanting to terminate her demonic pregnancy. She explains that she was assaulted by a demon and wants to make sure its offspring doesn't survive. (Audiences should have no trouble rolling with the idea that a young woman might be impregnated by a demon spawn.) Meanwhile, her father Dwayne (the incredible Ron Perlman of "Hellboy" and "Sons of Anarchy" fame) is outside of the clinic with some riled-up friends, claiming that he has received a vision from God concerning the pregnancy. Specifically, he insists he was instructed by the Divine to protect his unborn grandchild at all costs and is willing to fire guns to accomplish his goal.

What follows, however, is a low-budget creature feature. Angelique gives birth to the baby, and, lo, it is indeed a demon. The baby's demon father then rises up out of the ground and starts killing the hospital staff, hoping to pick up his child. (The demon is played by Derek Mears, who also portrayed Jason Voorhees in the 2009 "Friday the 13th.") Eventually, of course, Dwayne realizes that he wasn't receiving messages from God but from the demon, while Angelique has to ... well, it involves a shotgun.

The message, obviously, is that one should support abortion rights because it might be the last line of defense against the infiltration of demons. Also, those who claim to be receiving anti-abortion messages from God are actually being hoodwinked by demons who want pro-life attitudes in the world. All kidding aside, the episode might sound didactic as described, but that's bogged down by all the silly action and monster effects. Really, any politics are undone by the mere sight of the ridiculous demon baby.

While the episode has received some positive reviews (like the one on the Scared Stiff website), few people seem to love "Pro-Life" and only hardcore Carpenter fans have likely even watched it nowadays. "Masters of Horror" itself is available on streaming services like Roku, Hoopla, and Pluto TV, so check out the episode there and see what you think.