Unsettling horror topic
My review was written in April 1991 after watching the film on video cassette.
Pregnancy fears make for an effective horror topic in "The Unborn", an entertaining though tasteless shocker. Film is currently in regional theatrical release and will turn on video fans.
Brroke Adams returns to the paranoid horror turf of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", portraying a young wife and author of children's books who has a history of miscarriages and turns to a mysterious doctor (James Karen) for help.
Unfortunately for her, he's your friendly neighborhood mad scientist, altering sperm (in this case from Brooke's sympathetic husband, Jef Hayenga) to create a master race of superintelligent babies who will supplant humans.
Manic-depressive Adams has a medical history that makes her suspect, so when she starts to cry wolf, beginning on a tv talk show promoting her latest tome, no one believes her. Though well along in her pregnancy, she gets an abortion (illegally), but her worries aren't over.
The fetus lives on and debuting director Rodman Flender gets good mileage out of her ambivalent findings towards the monstrous offspring. Film's open ending is quite unsettling.
With good performances, notably by Adams and Karen, the film draws in the willing viewer. The monster baby, as created by Joe Podnar, is unconvincing, but Podnar's makeup effects are suitably gruesome. Flender's one misstep is the inclusion of an unnecessary subplot ridiculing two lesians who run a nautral childbirth class that excludes men.
Pregnancy fears make for an effective horror topic in "The Unborn", an entertaining though tasteless shocker. Film is currently in regional theatrical release and will turn on video fans.
Brroke Adams returns to the paranoid horror turf of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", portraying a young wife and author of children's books who has a history of miscarriages and turns to a mysterious doctor (James Karen) for help.
Unfortunately for her, he's your friendly neighborhood mad scientist, altering sperm (in this case from Brooke's sympathetic husband, Jef Hayenga) to create a master race of superintelligent babies who will supplant humans.
Manic-depressive Adams has a medical history that makes her suspect, so when she starts to cry wolf, beginning on a tv talk show promoting her latest tome, no one believes her. Though well along in her pregnancy, she gets an abortion (illegally), but her worries aren't over.
The fetus lives on and debuting director Rodman Flender gets good mileage out of her ambivalent findings towards the monstrous offspring. Film's open ending is quite unsettling.
With good performances, notably by Adams and Karen, the film draws in the willing viewer. The monster baby, as created by Joe Podnar, is unconvincing, but Podnar's makeup effects are suitably gruesome. Flender's one misstep is the inclusion of an unnecessary subplot ridiculing two lesians who run a nautral childbirth class that excludes men.
- lor_
- Jun 17, 2023