A modern spin through Frankenstein-style clone zone

“Closer to God” is a decently made old-school horror film that puts a modern spin on one of the genre’s most venerable themes, the creation of a human life in a laboratory.

Writer-director Billy Senese certainly isn’t trying to hide the film’s roots in Mary Shelley’s novel, “Frankenstein”: The central character’s first name is Victor (as in the book), and a major secondary figure is called Mary.

Horror aficionados will also notice some movie references, including to David Cronenberg’s “The Brood” and Larry Cohen’s “It’s Alive.”

Dr. Victor Reed (Jeremy Childs — tall, earnest and far from a conventional movie lead) announces that he has created a human clone, a girl named Elizabeth, partly from his own DNA.

An angry crowd (think of the torch-bearing villagers in the 1931 “Frankenstein” movie) gathers outside the home Reed shares with his wife (Shannon Hoppe) and two children, girls who came into the world by normal means, and a couple of housekeepers (Shelean Newman, David Alford).

Inside the besieged house, Reed begins to seem increasingly creepy, which boosts the tension and prepares us for the movie’s underwhelming take on the morality of the doctor’s work.

Senese’s accomplishment — and it’s done with a certain restraint — is to replicate the look and feel of ’70s horror films, which had become more assaultive on audience sensibilities than their predecessors, breaking taboos and borrowing techniques from exploitation films.