The Unborn

Just saw The Unborn, when I saw the trailer I thought well this might actually be a good little horror flick. While I would not say this was a terrible movie, it unfortunately did have some mistakes.

This entire film is basically a marathon of shocks, crazy situations and (some) pretty creepy ghosts/demons, so I guess, being a horror fan, thats a good thing, right? well, in this case, its not. The Unborn certainly does not lack in the horror department, showcasing some rather creepy moments, but unfortunately the movie lacks of any suspense, buildup, character development, nor does it have a good script.

Odette Yustman does pretty good, but it's not her fault her performance comes through less, its the script. The movie, from the exact second it begins, delivers 'scare' after scare after scare, but the sad thing is, its not that scary because you don't care about the characters or the story, and there's no buildup whatsoever to speak of.

Its actually a terrible waste, because this movie could have been a solid genre effort, too bad the director/ writer chose the easy way out, and delivered what is one the laziest, been-there-done-that productions of the year.

Entertaining it is to some degree, but its not a full recommendation

Funny thing. Just before this weekend I was thinking to myself, 'Where the hell are all the bad movies? About time you searched one out, lad.' Phew! In the nick of time "The Unborn" turned up.

Make no mistake, "The Unborn" was a real stinker. A horror in the worst sense of the word. I cannot imagine the wager that fine actors like Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino must have lost to get them to appear in this poo, but it must have been a big one.

Hurrah! There were some good things.

Some of the twisted body imagery was quite effective. (It was effective when it first appeared in "The Exorcist", twenty six years ago.) Also, Megan Fox lookalike Odette Yustman looked quite nice in her underwear.

Boo! There were many more bad things.

A predictable plot, cobbled together from a million other direct-to-video movies. No tension or scares whatsoever, with every story twist sign posted miles ahead. Awful acting, of course, with 'best friend' Meagan Good being top of the list of shame. Slow, boring, terrible.

I thought that "The Unborn" was absolutely dreadful. A rotten film.

Avoid.

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.

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.

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.