Our Father (2022) – Terrifyingly Real

Released: 11th May
Seen: 13th May

Donald Cline, the villain that the entire Our Father documentary revolves around, is one of the vilest human beings to walk this earth and that is not a statement made lightly. Specialising in infertility treatments, Donald Cline worked on multiple women who came to him either to have help with a fertility issue involving their husband or who were going to use a sample from a sperm bank… and for many of those (we have no idea how many) Donald Cline would use his own personal semen sample to impregnate these women and he would’ve gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for his own meddling kids getting a 23 and Me test.

Our Father might be a documentary but it plays like a horror movie and rightfully so because this story is one of the most horrific things you could imagine. With a combination of interviews with just a few of Donald Cline’s children (As of the time the documentary was released, they’re up to 94), a couple of phone recordings and recreations, the story of Donald Cline’s deception and violations of multiple women is laid out in horrific detail that will have you screaming bloody murder the more info leaks out.

Our Father is brilliantly assembled to slowly reveal the extent of the violation that was done by this man. It starts simple, only a few strange incidents here and there with a couple of kids and the more that they pull at the thread of what happened the more is revealed. From fertility cults to autoimmune diseases and dozens upon dozens of kids that were born out of a secret semen switch, every few minutes a new horrific thing is revealed and it’s time to pick your jaw up from the floor as you realise what an absolute monster Donald Cline actually is. 

The more that Our Father goes on, the more and more people are introduced and along with their names they’re designated a sibling number, something that is almost always thrown on the screen to remind everyone of just how large this brood of children is. They make it very clear to also explain the way sperm donation is supposed to work if done legitimately, which only helps to paint an even clearer picture of how insane everything is. You might think you’ve started to get a handle on how bad this situation has gotten, you might think that you can picture just how bad everything is and then the sibling number counter pops up and starts spinning so we can be introduced to another one of these kids.

There are also several interviews with the mothers who were inseminated by Donald Cline, the women who you truly have to feel the worst for and every time that one of them pops up, be prepared for your heart to break. Be it the woman who isn’t sure if she wants to be angry or happy (because, as is pointed out, she was having fertility issues and then got a baby) or the woman who said the sentence that should be put right up front to make it clear how horrific this is “I was raped 15 times and didn’t even know it”. The moments these women have to talk about just what Donald Cline did to them are the most heartbreaking parts of Our Father, but they’re essential to really get the full picture.

Probably the most heartbreaking part of Our Father is the realisation that Donald Cline is not alone in this, according to the documentary there are at least 44 other doctors who have done something similar and that’s just the ones we know about. It’s an absolutely jaw-dropping documentary that doesn’t shy away from the worst details and is so full of the most horrific surprises that you will be uncontrollably angry by the end of it, as you should be. It’s absolutely worth a watch, a completely horrific affair that’s not to be missed… oh, and if you’re in Indianapolis and anyone in your family dealt with a Dr Donald Cline, you might want to get a ancestry DNA test just in case.