Horror films about scary offspring have a built-audience, and this low-key chiller just might get its baby teeth into the easily spooked. Schoolteacher Samantha Howard (Heather Graham) longs to unleash her maternal instinct on a child of her own, an as-yet unfulfilled dream shared by her husband, Craig (James Purefoy), who's also struggling to find a publisher for his novel. Fertility problems lead the Howards to a gynecologist who recommends an innovative facility in upstate New York, the pet project of tycoon Earl Sydney (David Hemmings). What no one talks about is the clinic's experimental cloning program. Samantha conceives a baby and grows accustomed to the picturesque village surrounding the clinic; in fact, serendipitous events keep conspiring to prevent the Howards from returning to Manhattan. First, a dream house becomes available; then the well-connected Sydney uses his clout to get Craig an advance for his book. Blinded by good fortune, Samantha ignores signs of trouble, like the squabbling neighbors who simply disappear in the middle of the night. A hooded figure named Father Carlo (Andy Serkis) begins trailing Samantha, and when Craig's literary agent, J. L. Samuel (Fionnula Flanagan), begins poking her nose into Sydney's finances, the secretive mogul serves her poisoned tea. The fact is, Sydney can't risk exposure of his true goal: He heads a religious cult that plans to use the stored blood of Lucifer to inseminate women with satanic babies! Breaking with church dogma, Father Carlo begs Samantha to abort the evil fetuses growing in her womb. In the same vein, if not the same class, as ROSEMARY'S BABY, this fright flick forces a yuppie couple to pay dearly for wanting a bundle of joy. The scariest scenes involve Hemmings' cloven chicanery and the bad seeds' reactions to a bully. --Robert Pardi
