The Unborn

The Unborn

2009

Action (Horror)

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 88 minutes

Starring: Gary Oldman, Carla Gugino, Odette Annable, Idris Elba, Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet

Directed By: David S. Goyer

Rated: 2.5 out of 10

Outline

An evil entity is trying to possess a young woman’s body.

Review

There is something really unsettling when it comes to kids and horror movies. Some movies that have memorable evil kids are The Exorcist, The Omen, and The Shining. Years later these iconic kids are still fresh in our memory. Kids are supposed to be the world’s innocents and that is why it is so creepy when our children turn evil. The Unborn is a story about an evil kid but it is no way going to make the list of good films. This is a story about Casey Beldon. She is in college, has a great boyfriend, and things couldn’t seemingly be better. That is until she is plagued with strange dreams and occurrences leaving her questioning her own sanity. Casey and her friends must battle an unknown entity trying to slowly take over her body and their very lives are at stake.

The Unborn is a film that relies too heavily on imagery and not enough on story. The film never really gets going as there is too much happening with Casey. She has strange dreams, she hallucinates, her eyes change color, and she gets sick. All of this is happening and yet it is more puzzling then scary. The film bounces gummy bear style from scene to scene never fully explaining what in the hell that is happening.

Casey played by the beautiful Odette Annable does a passable job with the role. She is able to carry the film right through to the end. While this wasn’t a challenging role she still didn’t mess it up.

This film has a surprisingly strong supporting cast. Gary Oldman playing Rabbi Sendak and Idris Elba playing priest Arthur Wyndham must have owed someone a favor for showing up in a film like this. They stand out by being too good for these roles and actually were a distraction when lesser known actors would have sufficed. This movie also has Carla Gugino, Meagan Good, and Cam Gigandet in small supporting roles if you are fans of theirs.

As the film carries on the evil entity obviously gets stronger. Its powers are ludicrous in comparison to what it is trying to achieve. It seems to be able to control people, make monsters, kill at will, be everywhere at once, control insects, everything but possess Casey for some reason. The religious connotations and back story of this entity is extremely weak and seems only in place to incorporate an exorcism type feel to this film. Bottom line this film is a mess. It tries and fails to scare the viewer with a number of strange scenes but rarely succeeds. They even go as low as to incorporate a horror scene involving a glory hole but it comes off limp (yeah I did)

Director and writer David S. Goyer failed right across the board with this film. A surprisingly strong cast was never able to wrangle this confusing religious story into something remotely watchable. The camera work is decent but the script is so poor and has so many holes you will stop caring about the players in this film very early on. Goyer must learn that turning people’s heads upside down is not going to sell a horror movie to its audience when the plot is so weak.

I cannot recommend this film as the story is more fecal than fetal.

T Factor + If you like scary imagery than this film could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor – If you need strong storylines than this could score lower on the rating scale.

If you liked this film reel recommendations: The Omen, When a Stranger Calls.