In “The Clock”, available on Disney+, a woman enters a strange clinic to “repair” her biological clock. A horror film which is not free from faults, but which deserves a look for its original concept.
Motherhood is a delicate, sometimes taboo subject that has long inspired horror cinema. The most telling example remains that of Rosemary’s Baby, a classic of the genre directed by Roman Polanski in 1968. In this film, Mia Farrow embodies a pregnant woman who fears that her unborn child is… the son of the Devil.
With L’Horloge, written and directed by Alexis Jacknow, motherhood is once again at the heart of the story. Nevertheless, here, it is rather a question of the non-desire of children.
Dianna Agron, actress revealed by the series Glee, plays Ella, a blooming renowned interior designer. Only downside? She is 37 years old and everyone – from her friends to her family – criticizes her for not wanting children.
This injunction pushes the heroine to isolate herself in a clinic to follow a strange treatment that could solve her physiological problem. Because according to the director of the establishment, Doctor Simmons (Melora Hardin), Ella does not want a child because she would suffer from “chemical and mental imbalance”. The tone is set.
The rest, we can guess. The treatment traps the patient in an infernal trap, between hallucinations and ghostly appearances. The Clock is not a great film, it even has a lot of flaws, but it still deserves some interest for the original treatment of its subject.
Disney+ Dianna Agron in “The Clock”.
Childlessness is a perfect theme for horror. It is, still today, singled out and L’Horloge manages to transcribe this feeling of anguish. Sensitive souls abstain: some sequences feature furtive images but likely to disturb some viewers, such as that of a baby, connected by an umbilical cord, swinging like a pendulum between the heroine’s legs.
Before being a movie, The clock – Clock in English – was a three-minute short film, directed by the same director, about a woman in a parking lot haunted by the sound of a biological clock. The two works are very different but share the same theme.
Discover the short film that inspired the film:
The Clock is available on Disney+.