Progeny

The basic story is the usual "Astronaut's Wife" thing. Guy and his wife both blacked out one night for two hours, after they saw a flash of blue light in their bedroom. The husband is a physician, and he knows something was wrong, so he starts to see a psychiatrist. Some time later, it turns out his wife is pregnant and she thinks she conceived that very night. The doc is worried for two reasons:

under hypnosis, he has revealed that his wife was abducted by aliens that night
his sperm count shows that he cannot father a child

Oops!

So the baby starts kicking at two months, and the baby starts controlling the mother's actions. Wilford Brimley is her gyno, puts her on an all-oatmeal diet and does an ultrasound, because it's the right thing to do. The oatmeal doesn't do much, but the ultrasound reveals that the baby looks like a cross between Bruce the Shark and one of those wide-eyed kids in the Walter Keane paintings. But the parent aliens, always vigilant, need to protect their vile spawn, so they short out the ultrasound and give Wilford a heart attack. Without Wilfy's testimony, nobody will believe the father when he says what he saw.

Finally, after a few uninspiring plot twists, the doc decides that he has to give his wife a c-section to save his wife and the world. But during the operation the blue light appears, he blacks out again, and when he comes to, the girl is stone dead and he's being arrested for her murder. The alien fetus is nowhere to be found.

Brad Dourif had shown up as some kind of UFO expert with evidence that the exact same thing happened in Russia. But he disappeared in the middle of the c-section, and was never heard from again. (Even though he was filming the operation, and presumably had exculpatory evidence germane to the trial.)

We see the father in prison. He sees a blue light. Then - a guard walks by, and his cell is empty.

The End ????

Interestingly, the script was based on some "actual" documented cases of alien abduction, and some of that documentation is included in the extra DVD features. Sadly enough, that was the most interesting thing about the film.

DVD info from Amazon.

Widescreen letterboxed, 1.85:1. The quality of the transfer is inconsistent.
Full-length director commentary
interviews with the cast, the crew, and actual alien abductees!
the complete script line-by-line, clickable to the scene if you have a DVD-rom drive.
storyboards, and trivia game

It seemed unusual to see people like Wilford Brimley and Brad Dourif in a script like this. Didn't they read it? Those two and the lesser known actors all did well, the film has a rich look, and the DVD has good features, but the script is the same-old same-old, and the aliens are made out of silly looking rubber, with octopus tentacles. They look like those plastic worms that boys use to make the girls scream.

The film would definitely have done better by making the presence of aliens a mystery. The script revealed almost immediately that there really were aliens and showed us exactly what they looked like (gummi worms).

I think they would have profited from a psychological approach where the parents were never quite sure about the aliens. Toss out the low sperm count factor, and toss out the hypnosis. Let them wonder why things were not normal. That would have heightened the drama when he gave his wife a c-section, knowing that the whole thing might be in his head, and he might be destroying his own human daughter. That also would have eliminated the problem inherent in showing the silly latex monsters. The unknown is always scarier than the monsters they can create on screen, especially when they choose to show the monsters in clear and lingering shots.

The Critics Vote

no major reviews

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 4.2

I don't think it was released theatrically, although there is a widescreen version, so I guess they were hopeful.

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a D+. Should have been better. Had aspirations to be better, but the wrong script and cheesy special effects kept them from pulling it off.