The Clinic (2010)

The Clinic (2010)
Directed by: James Rabbitts
Written by: James Rabbitts
Starring: Andy Whitfield, Claire Bowen, Freya Stafford, Sophie Lowe, Tabrett Bethell

The Clinic (2010)
Directed by James Rabbitts
Written by James Rabbitts
Starring Tabrett Bethell, Andy Whitfield, Freya Stafford, Claire Bowen and Sophie Lowe

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_HgO8iHWoI[/youtube]

A young pregnant woman named Beth (Tabrett Bethell) is travelling across Australia with her fiance, Cameron (Andy Whitfield), to visit her parents for Christmas. Running low on fuel, they decide to check in at a roadside motel. Despite being a bit dingy and run by a sweaty, slightly perverted middle aged man, the couple have no choice but to stay at the motel with the next one over 2 hours drive away. During the night, Cameron is unable to sleep and leaves a note on his pillow to say he’s going in search of somewhere to eat. When he returns to the room after an unsuccessful trip into town, he finds his future wife gone. After looking everywhere around the motel, he calls the local police who attends the scene and asks him some incriminating questions. Coupled with the motel owner leering over a photo of his missing fiance, Cameron snaps and accuses the motel owner of kidnapping her and proceeds to attack him, which leaves Cameron inside of the police car and no further towards the truth of his whereabouts of Beth.

As we are clueless as Cameron, the shot opens with Beth awakening from an unconscious state, naked in a bathtub of ice. As she slowly regains conscious of her surroundings, she looks down as the camera follows to her stomach, where she’s been left with a fresh caesarean section and no baby. Distraught and weak, she puts on a top and pair of bottoms left out for her, embroidered with Roman numerals, and makes her way through the deserted, cold building discovering more rooms where similar scenes have taken place. As Beth reaches the outside and spots nobody around, she makes her break for freedom and runs out into the wilderness. Her escape proves futile as she is greeted by a barbed wire fence and a gate chained and padlocked shut. Growing in despair, she eventually bumps into 3 other women with matching C-sections and the four decide to find their babies and to discover why they’ve been imprisoned – if they can survive.

The Clinic is based upon true events that have been reported all over the world, where pregnant women have been brutally cut open and their unborn child removed. This makes the story of The Clinic that much more real. Praying on the ultimate fear of mothers everywhere, the story grips the audience and shows how four women must not only rescue their child but try to survive themselves. One way I can describe this film is  Inside meets Hostel and whilst the film doesn’t have that many gruesome moments, it certainly builds up atmosphere. The blood lust in the film is never gratuitous and is quite mild, so this is especially good for those people who are a bit squeamish – unless you don’t like bleeding C-Sections of course.

The film stars the late Andy Whitfield, the Welsh actor who played Spartacus in the hit US drama of the same name. Andy gives a fantastic performance as the fiance who’s determined to find his wife and unborn child. The three women playing the other mothers put in some effort, but out of the three, Freya Stafford who plays doctor mother Veronica is the most likable and the better actress. Tabrett Bethell takes charge of the screen as Beth, and has almost an action woman feel about her despite just recently having her baby removed. This is where the film takes a slight knock. There’s an odd thing in the film that’s near impossible, running around after a C-section is one of them. Additionally, there are a couple of loose threads in the story that don’t get tied up but the main storyline does and in an inventive and believable fashion. If you’re a stickler for everything being tied up in a nice bow, you may be a bit disgruntled, but this film fan found it easy enough to look over and forget.

The bleak, isolated atmosphere played out well, with the four women embroiled in a hide and seek type game, as one moment they must seek out their children and in the next breath, hide from whats around the corner. The addition of snarling dogs and spooked cattle in the abattoir pen only add to the unease in the darkness.

The Clinic is an enjoyable horror film with interesting ideas and uses primitive instincts well throughout. Ideal for those who are easily scared, although if they are pregnant, you might want to think twice. 😉

Rating:

[pt-filmtitle]The Clinic[/pt-filmtitle]