On Halloween, teenager Dora (a solid Chloe Rose) is surprised to learn she is newly pregnant. Dora is still unsure how to tell her conservative mother when mysterious figures, costumed and silent, begin to menace her. They first encircle her house and then submerge her in a dreamily violent half-world in which they conspire to steal her unborn child. Terminator 2's Robert Patrick co-stars as a salt-of-the-earth policeman who tries to lend a hand and, in an amusing moment of forced exposition, expounds on and translates ancient runes. General ambition far outpaces quantifiable skill in this low-budget psychological horror film. It gesticulates toward a thesis—the discomfort of an unready mother-to-be, indecision regarding the morality of abortion—but it never achieves cogency. (Part of me wonders if I just watched a stealthy hour-and-a-half pro-life public-service announcement.) And after a nicely atmospheric and suspenseful first act, the film's relatively limited assortment of scare tactics (Strangers/Purge-style disguises, queasily rosy color timing) wears thin.

C