Movie Review: The Unborn

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Little is to be said about The Unborn except that it is a predictable piece of Hollywood garbage. It is the horror movie equivalent of those over processed packaged cheese slices you find in grocery store dairy aisles. But it’s hard to expect anything less from producer Michael Bay, who has made a career of specializing in big budget artistic travesties that crush the souls of critics.

The poorly constructed plot is this: Casey Beldon (Megan Fox look-alike Odette Yustman) starts having crazy dreams involving bull terriers, formaldehyde-encased fetuses and a ghostly little boy. Then the psychotic child she’s babysitting starts giving her ominous warnings about something “wanting to be born.” Turns out Casey had a twin brother who died in the womb. This and the strange mental decline and suicide of Casey’s mother cause her to seek out her grandmother, who claims the family is being cursed by a dybbuk, a bad spirit whose origins can be found in the Kabbalah.

Weird stuff keeps happening until the movie turns into a flimsy Jewish mysticism-infused version of The Exorcist, complete with possession victims crab-walking down flights of stairs (this movie gets negative points for lack of originality and besmirching the good name of William Friedkin’s classic).

In an attempt to make up for the horridness of the rest of the movie, writer and director David S. Goyer gives us plenty of gratuitous shots of Yustman doing sexy things. The audience sees Casey in her underwear about 50 percent of the time. Apparently, she also likes to take showers and sleep in the nude. Go figure.

The Unborn has a pretty decent supporting cast, but most of the screen time goes to the prettier-looking, younger lead actors. Blink, and you’ll miss Idris Elba, Carla Gugino and, most disappointing of all, the great Gary Oldman, who gets about fifteen minutes onscreen as a rabbi performing Casey’s exorcism.

Do not waste time or money seeing The Unborn. This bland, hardly frightening heap of flaming dog poo is not worth it. It’s not even so bad it’s good. It’s just bad.

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