Pictured: A moment of marketing brilliance.
The Lowdown: The Unborn is one of the funniest horror movies I’ve ever seen, and no, that’s not a compliment. Almost every aspect of the film is faulty; there is an overreliance on jump scares, a nonexistent scary atmosphere, a giggle-inducing screenplay, wasted actors, and a PG-13 rating. As far as horror movies go, this one is just flat out bad. It’s good for laughs though, for what that’s worth.1. The Plot: Casey (Odette Yustman) is an incredibly attractive young woman who is being plagued by bizarre nightmares. It all begins when she is babysitting and she dreams about finding a glove, seeing a dog with a creepy mask on its face (for no reason), and then finding a fetus buried in the ground. This is made weirder when she finds that one of the children she is babysitting tells her that “Jumby wants to be born now.” Hilarity ensues.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???
From that point on, Casey begins to see disturbing images of a young boy everywhere. Then she discovers that one of her irises in her eyes is changing color. She goes to the ophthalmologist, who tells her that she might be a twin. Casey approaches her father, who reveals to her that yes, she would have been a twin, but her unborn twin brother died in the womb. Shocking! For no real reason, Casey then tracks down an elderly Holocaust survivor who has some connection to Casey’s dead mother. This old woman somehow deduces that Casey is a twin (she probably read the script too) and fills Casey in on the creepy experiments that were done on twins in Auschwitz. The old woman believes that the evil spirit haunting Casey is a dybbuk, a Jewish spirit that can’t enter the afterlife and must possess a host, or something. It also apparently thrives on fear and will attack those that Casey loves most, or something. By this point, it is useless to make sense of the story. Then Casey approaches Rabbi Sendak (Gary Oldman in a wasted role) because she wants him to perform an exorcism on her. He is skeptical at first, but soon believes her when he sees disturbing images too. Then the exorcism happens, the camera shakes, people die, lots of flashy jump scares ensue, and I fall asleep. End of film.2. The Characters: Odette Yustman is Casey, the film’s protagonist. The only thing noteworthy about her character is that she is incredibly attractive, and the filmmakers gratuitously show off her physique. Many scenes feature Casey in only a white tank top and underwear for no real reason other than to offer the audience some eye candy. A shot of her like this also graces the posters and DVD boxes for the film. It’s an obvious and shameless selling point for the young, male audience.
Case in point.
Meagan Good (Brick, Stomp the Yard, Think Like a Man) is Romy, Casey’s superstitious friend and the most annoying character in the film. Aside from spouting random and made-up-sounding superstitious babble, she also throws out tons of insensitive comments for no reason. This happens most notably when she and Casey are in an old folks’ home, which is the most inappropriate place to say things like “It smells like diarrhea in there.” I don’t know what purpose this serves other than to make the character unlikable, because it certainly doesn’t make her character more realistic. It’s also a sign of poor writing. The Unborn also features tons of A-list actors that are wasted like it’s nobody’s business. Gary Oldman (Leon the Professional), Idris Elba (Prometheus), Jane Alexander (Kramer vs. Kramer), and Carla Gugino (Watchmen, Sin City) have all seen better days. In The Unborn, none of them have any real notable impact on the plot (to be fair, none of the characters do), and none of them have more than five minutes of real screen time. Carla Gugino gets the worst of it since she has no dialog and her only scene is of her sitting in a chair and staring blankly into space with glazed eyes. Kind of like myself when I was watching this movie.
Our careers! Noooooooooooooo!!!
3. The Screenplay:The writer and director of the film is David S. Goyer, whose work on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy I admire. Sadly, many of his other projects have been letdowns. Goyer is responsible for films such as Blade: Trinity (2004), Jumper (2008), and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), all of which have been rightfully panned by critics and moviegoers alike. Needless to say, Goyer has had a shaky career. At least Man of Steel (2013) was decent. Sadly, The Unborn is one of Goyer’s disappointments. The plot, as I mentioned above, is barely comprehensible. There is also the matter of the pretentious dialog. The lines are supposed to give off an ominous and mysterious vibe, but they end up just being vague and nonsensical superstitious babble. There are many instances of where a character poses a question, and the response is not really an answer. A lot of the remaining dialog is corny. Not even Idris Elba or Gary Oldman can deliver these lines in a convincing manner. There is also the glaring issue of the name of the evil spirit. “Jumby”? Are you freaking kidding me? What kind of a name is Jumby? Is it supposed to be scary? I honestly hope not because it isn’t scary in the slightest. Instead, it is HIGH-LARIOUS! You try watching the scene where the evil little kid says “Jumby wants to be born now” and try to not laugh. You will find that it is almost impossible. Probably the worst aspect of the screenplay is how it saps all of the tension from the film. Within the first ten minutes of the film, there are at least half a dozen jump scares and half a dozen setups for the next round of jump scares. For instance, Casey discovers a fetus in the ground, and then she gets hit in the face with a mirror by a possessed kid, and then she cracks an egg open and a large insect pops out of the yolk. All of this happens in the first five minutes of the film. If the screenplay started off slowly and built up an unsettling atmosphere, then big scares would actually pay off. By throwing fistfuls of “scary” stuff at us in the first few minutes of the film, there is no room for atmosphere, and it lets the audience know exactly what to expect.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???
4. Platinum Dunes:The production company behind this abysmal film is none other than Platinum Dunes, which is run by the king of Hollywood excess, Michael Bay. Over the years, Platinum Dunes has become notorious for remaking/rebooting many popular horror franchises, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Hitcher (2005), Friday the 13th (2009), and Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). All of these films pale in comparison to the originals, and only exist as cynical creations to make money from fans of the originals. The Unborn, while an original idea from Platinum Dunes, is just as shallow as all of the horror franchise remakes. It’s also not really original, since we’ve all seen the “person gets possessed and must be exorcised” plot before (and done better).5. PG-13: Ah yes, it’s one of those. It’s almost enough to make me shudder. Faithful readers will know of my beef with PG-13 horror films, and The Unborn is a prime example of everything that is wrong with them. Having a PG-13 rating means that more people can see the movie, and the movie can therefore make more money. However, potentially interesting or impactful aspects of the film must be shortened or omitted, which decreases the quality of the film.
The Bottom Line: The Unborn is a nearly unredeemable horror film, although it earns a couple points for providing unintentional giggles. As such, it should only be viewed either 1) drunk, or 2) with a group of friends who get a kick out of watching crappy films for laughs. Those looking for a scary film, a good film, or a memorable film experience should look elsewhere. Even the unintentional hilarity can’t save this film. Truth be told, probably nothing can.
The Unbornis property of Platinum Dunes. This review was written by me.
Like the review? Post a comment. Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/filmaholicreviewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FilmaholicRvews
Copyright © Filmaholic Reviews, 2013
