The Unborn

Its ironic that this movie came out the week that the nominations for the Razzie Awards were released. I have a hunch that this film may garner a few nominations for that "prestigious" award next year.

This film is awful. It has no clue where it wants to go and takes quite a lot of time getting there. The story is about young Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman). She is a girl in school, working as a babysitter for some extra money. This is when she encounters a four year-old kid that she is sitting who appears to be evil. Soon, she is seeing the evil of that kid in her daily life. To rid herself of this, she begins examining her family history. This includes a mother (Carla Gugino) who was depressed and killed herself, a mysterious old woman in her mothers photos (Jane Alexander) who has had issues in the past, and her friends. Upon recommendation, she decides to have an exorcism performed by the rabbi (Gary Oldman). If you are getting ahead of me in the plot, you've basically got it right in your mind.

The writing is mediocre, and that is perhaps kind. The beginning of the story is simply about showing as much of Ms. Yustman's body that can be allowed in a PG-13 movie. If that couldn't be done in one scene, they come back to it four or five times. The story follows cliché after cliché and takes forever to really begin. The frights are minimal and within 20 minutes I was laughing at what I think was supposed to be scary. This movie is unintentionally funny once you pick up where it is going and what it is trying to do.

The one minor redeeming factor of this movie was some of the camera work. There were a few angles that were used that felt greatly different than the others, felt fresh and felt well placed. Those few shots cannot, however, overcome some of the worst over-acting I've ever seen, a poor script, and a lack of direction for a vast majority of the film. If you are an absolute horror film junkie, go ahead and have a laugh. If you are a fan of bad movies, enjoy. If you are looking for an enjoyable fright, look elsewhere.

I've read a lot of comments on this movie, I didn't think it was all bad. I have seen better horror movies, but this certainly wasn't the worst, someone said, that it was unoriginal, but I thought that the plot was quite original, I don't recall seeing anything similar before, but then, that's my opinion. I thought Odette Yustman was a fair leading actress as Casey and I thought her best friend Romey was quite entertaining. I have this film downloaded onto my computer, I probably would not have paid to see it at the cinema, but it's a good freebie, I've watched it several times and still find it fun to watch. I think it is worth watching.

We get them every year now; so much so that it would probably feel a little odd, maybe even a little perplexing to the most avid of cinema goers not to be treated to the cinematic trite that is the generic Hollywood horror. And yet, despite the frequency and predictability to which such movies subscribe themselves to upon release during the lowest peaks of the year—they never seem to loose their impact. Of course, I must iterate that by using the term "impact" that I by no means indorse the idea that movies such as The Unborn manage to strike up any sort of reaction sans mind-numbingly potent boredom. No, instead the form of "impact" that The Unborn manages to achieve is one that is recycled year in, year out with such ventures in the clichéd and banal world of the modern cash-cow horror. It's the impact of "Wait, this is it? This is what I paid £8 to see? Wasn't this released in 2003?"—If your average Hollywood Horror is horror by the numbers then this is a severe case of number crunching gone mad on the part of those involved.

It's somewhat ironic then that such feature should be so confusingly named The Unborn. As if the notion of an unborn idea or concept could be so potent within the mind of film-maker big-shot David S. Goyer, the entirety of what happens to be one of his few ventures into directing makes clear why he should stick to producing and writing. From beginning to long overdue end, The Unborn is an uncouth, contorted mess of genre clichés, underdeveloped ideas, paper-thin characters and scares that manage to become even more tiresome than the regurgitated protagonists that they inflict themselves upon. From the creepy looking children pulling out the Ominous Stare of Death on empty roads to the wise, prophetic old coot who obviously took too much LSD in the sixties talking in riddles and spiritual mumbo jumbo-isms, Goyer's script here serves not as a testament to how horror should be done, but the exact antithesis. Of course, there are certain highlights to the feature which are infrequent and nevertheless rendered obsolete by the brain-dead mediocrity that surrounds them, but even the cliché of the pretty brunette panicking in her skimpy underwear doesn't offer much hope. What then, do you have? Well, nothing really.

Aside from the odd visual effect here and there that at least doesn't look terrible by contrast, and a few cameo performances that help bring the feature up a small notch; the majority of The Unborn is a dreary mix of mundane plotting and direction with lifeless portrayals by B-grade thespians who are as disconnected from the project as you could possibly be. For the most part, the story follows our protagonist as she seeks to reveal the scientific fact of why she has starting having horrific visions featuring a pale-skinned boy who keeps going on about someone wanting to be born. From here the feature tries to rationalise the irrational; throwing in some superstitious mysticism as concrete explanation and tossing it around as some sort of "aha!" logical slice of catharsis. Of course, with every horror feature, one must accept that certain leaps of faith must be made in order to indulge in the experience—yet with The Unborn, such a leap would mean to abandon faith entirely and subscribe to sheer lunacy; so how does an endless plummeting freefall sound, and would you pay for it? Again, this wouldn't be so detrimental if indeed Goyer had portrayed the events depicted here as anything but a contrived mess of over-indulgence existing only to challenge the viewer's perceptions of reality; but this isn't the case.

Instead what Goyer achieves here is a diabolical train-wreck of derivative horror movie absurdities infused with an uninspired sense of misdirection and humourless drivel. With every release of such a nature, there are of course the proponent objectors who will argue that the horror film is nothing to be taken seriously. And yet, I must ask; if I cannot be moved, scared, compelled, or even amused by a movie akin to the ninety minute catastrophe that is The Unborn, then what exactly is the point in watching at all? Indeed, if there are any advocators of Goyers' work here, I make no qualms at questioning their sanity, attention span or affliction for cinematic sadism. And yet, I honestly feel like David summed up the problem with his feature rather ironically through one of his own characters' words that I will use here to send off The Unborn back into the confines of the memory waste-basket.

"I can't say I truly believe in what's afflicting you, but I think you believe." - A review by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)

OK, let me get this out in the open immediately: this movie is pretty predictable if you have been watching any 'new' American Horror flick within the past five years, complete with gratuitous shots of Fox's, excuse me, Yutsman's backside. To its credit, the movie does have a great amount of potential from the source material, but fails to give birth to it. The effects are well done, the acting is decent (for the genre at least), and I left the movie feeling that I was at least entertained for the last 87 min (although I did wish that they would have cut out 10min. or so in the middle and made the final confrontation longer and better).

If you already like watching these kinds of movies, the Unborn certainly doesn't try to do anything different then what has already been done, and is worth watching; But you are expecting a radical departure from the typical Horror flick, this ain't it.

The Unborn is terrible on all levels. Making use of awful horror clichés, packed with unintentionally funny moments that the director thought would be scary, and putting a dent in the careers of Gary Oldman & Idris Alba, there isn't a thing about this turd that's redeemable, for it is one of the worst examples of its kind.

The Unborn tells the story of a young woman who starts having nightmarish hallucinations about a kid with bright blue eyes, which soon escalate & continue to intensify in the subsequent days, thus compelling her to get to the root of all this. Eventually, she learns that an evil entity is trying to take possession of her body.

Written & directed by David S. Goyer, The Unborn jumps right into the middle without any proper introduction or foundation, and expects the viewers to jump aboard just like that. The characters are cardboard cutouts who have to utter garbage dialogues for 87 long minutes, and none of them are worthy of any emotional investment.

Even worse are its cheap attempts to scare, for most of those moments simply turn out to be lame, silly & predictable. Cold colour palette is finely utilised yet camera-work is sluggish, Editing isn't up to the mark either, for it is unable to provide a smooth narrative flow & also paces it unevenly. And further hurting it are its slew of bad performances.

On an overall scale, The Unborn is a poorly directed, lazily scripted & shoddily performed horror that's never for once compelling, takes uninspiring shortcuts at every available opportunity, and concludes with a wholly uninspiring finale that's devoid of any tension or terror. In a sentence, it's one of those instantly forgettable flicks that aren't worthy of your time & money. So just skip it.