The Clinic is set in the Australian outback on Christmas Eve in 1979. The film opens with pregnant Beth and fiancé Cameron on a drive across a desperately lonely looking road as they make their way to visit Beth's mother for Christmas. They are spooked after a reckless driver forces them off the road, and although unharmed they decide to spend the night in the closest Motel they can find. Once there, Cameron meets a very strange man (Marv) who runs the Motel and Cameron is put out as Marv speaks inappropriately about Beth. Hungry and unable to sleep, Cameron goes in search of food but on his return Beth is nowhere to be found.

Up to this point, my husband was huffing and puffing away and laughing at the film, and although it was obviously a fairly low budget film, the acting was pretty decent and was certainly believable. I decided to watch it on the iPad (I found it on the on demand section on Sky Movies) in bed in the dark, so being a girl (!), I could feel myself getting anxious fairly early on. Knowing that she was pregnant and that this was most likely going to be the main focus point of the 'horror' I was a bit more spooked (being a mum myself!). I did at one point, rather lamely cover my eyes (what a girl!).

The film is a little silly, but no more far-fetched than 99% of horror movies out there. The effects were good and as I said, the acting was good enough to keep you watching to find out what happened.

The film really gets going when Beth wakes up in a bath full of ice with a fairly obviously missing bump and an apparent c-section performed. It gets slightly creepy (if it wasn't enough already!), when she sees a uniform of sorts with roman numerals stitched on the front and back. In an attempt to break free she discovers she isn't alone.
I found this film slightly different to the normal 'horror', in so much as there doesn't appear to be a bad guy. Of course there is someone performing these atrocities but the bad guy doesn't seem to appear, and the cause of her concern is totally different to a mentally deranged surgeon or baby snatcher. This is what made the film chilling. This won't make any sense to anyone who hasn't seen the film, but I don't want to give away the concept as it's quite clever.
There is also quite a good twist at the end which certainly made it slightly different. All along (as in most horror films) you can kind of guess what's around the corner (literally in some cases!) and it was nice to see that it broke away from the rules slightly.

The characters are easy to like (obviously the ones you are meant to like!), and you really feel for Beth and the loss of her child (or prosthetic fake bump), as you do for Cameron in his desperate attempts to find his fiancée and unborn child. Beth comes across as intelligent and a survivor, but not in a stick your fingers down your throat way! There are a few scenes with actual babies in and this was really creepy, but again, I won't give anything away.

You may recognise Cameron, played by Andy Whitfield, from Spartacus. Having looked him up to find where I recognised him from, I found out he died on Sept 11th last year from cancer.
Tabrett Bethell who plays Beth has been in Legend of the Seeker TV Series and a few low budget films.

You may see tags that this film was inspired by true events. It wasn't, it was based upon several cases of child abduction, but this story isn't a real event (thank god!).

All in all a pretty decent film, and if you have Sky, you can watch it for free on demand at the moment (June 2012).

Run Time: 94 minutes.