The Unborn

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Horrorphile - February 2009

The Unborn

February 27th 2009 00:05

Hollywood writer/producer/director David S. Goyer has some serious credentials to his belt. He wrote the Blade vampire series (as well as producing the two sequels and directing Trinity), he co-wrote Batman Begins and provided the story to The Dark Knight (2008), and he’s currently in pre-production on the X-Men prequel, Magneto. However one should keep in mind he also produced Mission to Mars and Ghost Rider.

He’s written and directed The Unborn (2009), which is produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes company, so it’s a “high concept” horror movie, which ultimately means it’s as vacuous as a black hole, sucking all your intelligence into a void of flashy special effects and sweet little else. The sweet little else happens to be Odette Yustman’s underwear-clad derriere which, rather oddly, appears to be used as a selling point on the main poster, and in the corresponding scene(s) in the movie has garnered an enormous amount of unnecessary lewd attention (read: camel-toe). But I digress …

Odette Yustman as Casey

Young pretty Casey (Odette Yustman) is plagued by nightmarish visions and terrifying dreams after being slapped in the face with a mirror by her neighbours’ kid whom she is babysitting. One of her eyes begins to discolour and she learns she is a twin and that her unborn sibling died in the womb. Her mother (Carla Gugino) committed suicide in a mental hospital when Casey was a young girl and her father appears to be so wrapped up in his work that he’s hardly ever home.

Meagan Good as Romy

Casey begins to suspect that she is being haunted by some malevolent spirit, and after seeking out an aging Holocaust survivor, Sofi (Jane Alexander) whom her mother had known she discovers the soul of her dead twin Barto (Ethan Cutkosky) has been possessed by an evil dybbuk, a demon-like entity that refuses to remain dead and so inhabits the bodies of the living in order to seek revenge. Casey contacts Rabbi Sendak (Gary Oldman) and pleads for him to help her and perform a Jewish exorcism in order to drive away the demon spirit.

Gary Oldman as Rabbi Sendak

I ended up walking out of The Unborn bitterly disappointed. I loved the trailer. It’s a real pity the movie itself is so disappointing. Writer/director David Goyer totally dropped the ball on this one. What the hell kind of movie was he making? More importantly, just who the hell was he making it for?!

Ethan Cutkosky as Barto

It starts of promisingly with Casey encountering the first of her surreal grotesque visions. It is these nightmare sequences that provide the movie with its best elements. In fact, they are the only decent scenes in the whole movie (well, that and Odette in her underwear, but I digress once again). Goyer doesn’t really make any sense with his use of Hell motifs, but then neither did Dario Argento. The use of what is called a potato bug aka Jerusalem cricket was inspired ghastliness, especially if you have a phobia of large insects that look like the New Zealand weta (for reference watch the giant carnivorous cave worms and insects scene in Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake).

The Unborn Odette Yustman and Cam Gigandet

Casey and boyfriend Mark (Cam Gigandet), dazed and confused

There is one stand-out sequence in The Unborn that sticks in my mind for sheer nightmare shock effect: Casey is throwing up in a (oddly empty) nightclub toilet as the dybbuk is wreaking havoc on her general well being. Suddenly from out of a (glory?!) hole in the adjacent wall those bugs start to pour out in a river of dark putrid slime. A crack opens in the wall and large horrendous tentacles probe through flapping violently as hundreds of the bugs continue to swarm and slither out of the wall and toilet and across the floor toward a screaming, cowering Odette. Then the zombie ghost of her mother stumbles out of one of the toilet cubicles her arms outstretched, her glazed discoloured eyes dead and glazed. It’s a powerful and intense scene of pure horror. Such a shame the rest of the movie wasn’t as intensely sustained as this.

The dybbuk makes grotesque appearances

The movie actually gets worse as it goes along. It becomes sillier and sillier and less and less plausible. it’s a supernatural horror movie, so you need to suspend belief in the first place, but come on guys, don’t spend more than half the damn movie with expository dialogue). It doesn’t help a big-budget production when you can plainly see Odette’s “damaged eye” contact lenses. And how come Casey’s father was so absent, or for that matter, Romy’s parents? And how did the weird-looking diabolical kid Matty (Atticus Shafer) get to wander around the streets all the time? The screenplay is riddled with inconsistencies. It’s hard to believe the same man responsible for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight penned this insulting hokum.

The Unborn Odette Yustman and Ethan Cutkosky

Odette has a nightmare where Barto slowly tears her belly open in the movie's second best sequence

Overall the acting is barely adequate. Yustman isn’t talented enough to carry the movie, Jane Alexander is wholly unconvincing as the Jewish “oracle”, Oldman is slumming it (does he need the money this bad? Perhaps he signed on with an early draft that read well?), and Odette’s boyfriend Mark (Cam Gigandet) is a two-dimensional waste of time and space. The best performance was perhaps Odette’s best friend Romy (Meagan Good), but if I was being really sarcky I’d say Carla Gugino’s “featured extra” role was the most believable.

The Unborn Gary Oldman and Odette Yustman

The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ ... oops, wrong movie!

The first sign of trouble was discovering the movie was rated M (PG-13 in America). That’s a surefire way of making horrorphiles uneasy. The trailer made the movie look like it would be rated R (NC-17 in America), or at least an MA (R in America). But it seems the producers were keen to get as many bums on seats. So what the hell is that poster about?! It makes the movie look like it has lascivious intent … which I wish it had, it would’ve added some much needed luridness.

Odette Yustman has a turn when she realises just how bad the movie really is

The Unborn is good for a handful of “Boo!” shock-scares, but that’s about it. The score is okay, but director Goyer scuttles everything around the half-way mark when he introduces the Auschwitz angle, and the subsequent Rabbi involvement, and the last twenty minutes are just awful. If Dario Argento had directed this movie back in the early 80s it probably would’ve kicked serious ass, but in today’s world of deeply savvy horrorphiles it just doesn’t cut the mustard. The Unborn kicks out a few times, but it’s bloated and ultimately it’s stillborn.

The strangely lurid main poster

Here's the trailer:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

5 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

February 27th 2009 01:28

The trailer look terrific.
I was looking forward to seeing this.

Yet even the Movie Show on ABC bagged it.

I guess the Catholic Exorcisms have been done to death. Now the Jewish exorcisms will get a shot at the movies. What next? Buddhist exorcism?

Comment by The Rusty Can

February 27th 2009 02:45

Everything

So that's what those bugs were! I didn't like how Casey's father was always conveniently on business - it's like he was introduced for the sole purpose of taking the young Casey to see her mother in the asylum.

And now that you mention it, where were Romy's parents when she was being attacked? I usually freak out when they possess kids in movies, but I didn't find that homicidal stalker of a kid scary in this one.

Great review as usual

Comment by Bryn

February 27th 2009 04:21

Horrorphile

Damo, yeah the trailer rocked. But you know what they say about great trailers of course ...

Rusty, when that bug fell out of that cracked egg I shuddered something chronic! I love eggs, but I have a fear and loathing of bugs that look like that! And yeah, that kid didn't scare me much, although I jumped when Casey opened the bathroom cabinet and he was tucked inside and he opened his mouth wide and roared at her! Cheers for the props too.

Comment by Jason King

March 1st 2009 20:50

Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness

I finally got my review up last night - I haven't read yours until now as I wanted to make sure I wrote all my opinion and after reading this I believe we are on the same page pretty much word for word. LOL
Anyways have a suss HERE
Hey - I still lose a lot of your text on the RHS and have to imagine what the words would be.

Comment by Bryn

March 1st 2009 21:53

Horrorphile

The missing text might have something to do with using the widescreen youtube clips ... do you use those? I might have to stop using youtube clips.

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