DANCES WITH FILMS LA FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! The controversy over abortion has been present for my entire lifetime, and even more so in the three years since the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision was overturned. I grew up under the law of the land that it was always a woman’s right to do with her body what she wants, but that is no longer the case in many States. It is under these conditions that filmmaker Nate Hilgartner has crafted a low-budget horror movie titled No Choice, about a woman named Amy (Hannah Deale) who accidentally gets pregnant and then starts having terrifying visions of dying if she can’t get an abortion.
After a surreal, calm, and beautiful dream of being in the wilderness, and then getting ready for the day with her cat, things shift quickly to show the chaotic real home life of Amy, taking care of her volatile mother Debra (Jennifer Herzog). We then see Amy working at a convenience store with her best friend Lucas (Robert Denzel Edwards), an eccentric gay man who cares for his friend, but not for the dead-end job or their manager Randy (Adam Ratcliffe).
At the store one day, a stranger walks in who has a magnetic, unspoken chemistry with Amy. Lucas prods his friend to go on a date with the stranger named Seth (Hayden Frank), and next thing you know, things get hot and heavy and then the condom breaks. Seth doesn’t seem too concerned, nor does Lucas, but Amy’s dread grows as she quickly realizes how limited her options are without much money while living in a state that does not allow abortions.
Amy (Hannah Deale) and Seth (Hayden Frank) trapped in a haunting nightmare sequence in Nate Hilgartner’s No Choice.
“…visions of dying if she can’t get an abortion.”
This fear, likely not helped by having to deal with a drug addict for a mom, and no one willing to help Amy get her abortion (due to being caught up in issues in their own lives), brings on blood-soaked, grotesque nightmares. Lucas ends up getting fired by Randy for covering up a lie that Amy told about her mom overdosing, which only adds to the snowball of Amy’s anguish.
This is a movie that Hilgartner made on a shoestring budget, yet the story and cast, and especially lead Hannah Deale, show the true power of independent film. No Choice is not a scary movie in the conventional sense, but it definitely plays on the psychological side of horror, letting the tension build all the way up to the grand finale. It’s the little things that add up, like Amy cutting her own hand in order to get a pregnancy checkup at the hospital. These are wise story choices by Nate Hilgartner because they show the desperation of the character while allowing us to empathize with her.
The supporting cast all lend to the authenticity, but the film really hinges on Deale to carry it, and she delivers. It’s a fine line that she has to walk with the emotion and terror, because it could easily slip into unintended comedy in the wrong hands. No Choice allows you to walk in the shoes of a woman who has no options, and that is truly terrifying.
"…walk in the shoes of a woman who has no options, and that is truly terrifying."
