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Generally speaking, viewers cut horror movies a little slack - we can overlook nonsensical plots and stupid characters, but in return we want decent scares, an intoxicating atmosphere of visceral terror, and perhaps a bit of blood and violence. The Unborn contains all the elements one would expect to put up with, but without the compensation. Writer-director David S. Goyer's tedious, flat, convoluted, agonisingly dull horror movie ultimately spends so much time explaining itself, it forgets its purpose to actually scare. Think The Grudge meets The Exorcist, as written by an inept screenwriter like Uwe Boll.
The average, well-adjusted teen taking centre stage in The Unborn is a girl named Casey Beldon (Yustman), who is having trouble unlocking the meaning behind her recent dreams. Sensing that a demonic force in the form of a child named "Jumby" is pursuing her (yes, according to this flick, the root of all evil is a one-time foetus named Jumby), Casey turns to the clues left behind by her late mother (Gugino). This leads her to the Wise Old Woman Whose Sole Purpose Is To Provide Exposition (™) in the form of an Auschwitz survivor (Alexander) who turns out to be Casey's grandmother. So instead of acting like a normal teen and paying a visit to the psychiatrist, Casey spends time with granny and is informed that she had a twin brother who died in the womb. Apparently it's this twin brother who's haunting her...or something to that tune. Casey's only hope is to request the services of Rabbi Sendak (Oldman).
The plotline is merely a ridiculous mishmash of Auschwitz, Nazis, demonic possession and twins, resulting in a barely coherent story. One would expect a review of a horror movie like this to state that it simply shifts from one lazy jump moment to the next...but in the case of The Unborn, the "scary" sequences are bridged with 15 or 20 minutes of a teary-eyed Casey seeking the truth. This could've been at least a watchable film, but Goyer provides far too much exposition. As the convoluted babble about twins, demons, the door being open and other such nonsense unfolds, the more preposterous the movie becomes and the less entertainment one can ultimately find within it.
In desperation to market The Unborn as something more substantive than it is, the distributor used the fact that writer-director David S. Goyer was also involved with 2008's The Dark Knight. But, you see, Goyer only helped develop the story with Christopher Nolan, who then wrote the script with his brother Jonathan. For a more accurate representation of Goyer's cinematic legacy, look no further than the Blade films - he wrote all three and directed the appalling third movie. As bad as that film was, Blade: Trinity is still better than this tripe. The Unborn has been directed by Goyer with conventional touches, with set-pieces straight out of the horror handbook. But when the scares are telegraphed so far in advance, do they even qualify as scares? (For instance, when a character is wandering around for 5 minutes in an uneasy atmosphere before the sloppily-formulated "scare moment" eventually happens.) If Goyer deserves any praise, it's for devising a few unsettling images, like upside-down heads and mutilated faces which barely slip under the PG-13 radar. Yet a lot of this stuff seems lifted directly from other genre movies, particularly The Exorcist, and they're only slightly scary.
Goyer also drops the ball when it comes to basic logic; filling the movie with a multitude of plot holes and behavioural whoppers. He appears to make no attempt to establish a coherent set of rules by which possession occurs, with the evil "Jumby" conveniently leaping from body to body, which makes one wonder why it's so fixated on possessing Casey outside of the fact that a character claims it has a taste for her family's blood. On the topic of family, Casey's father (Remar) appears in two scenes before completely disappearing from the story. Apparently he went on a business trip, but it's mentioned that he's supposed to return the following day. And he doesn't appear to. I guess his plane crashed and nobody noticed.
In the dybbuk (as the Jews call it), Goyer found an interesting and little-known piece of folklore around which to form his story...but he had no idea what to do with it. The film is a mess of dead-end exposition and credibility-stretching coincidence. The dybbuk mythology never amounts to a compelling story and it rarely makes sense, even despite a tonne of mind-numbering exposition. And of all the dumb characters, the dybbuk might be the dumbest - Rabbi Sendak is initially sceptical of Casey's claims when she goes to see him, then the spirit decides to intimidate the Rabbi with a show of natural force, thus proving its existence to a guy who can banish it! Without spoiling the ending here, this can be said: you'll see the ending coming a mile away, will convince yourself that Goyer wouldn't possibly pen a conclusion so utterly lame, then either laugh or cry at the realisation that he did it. The film's conclusion is a stunning blend of predictability and hardcore stupidity. No amount of blood or gore could be added to improve this inert horror throwaway that was obviously cut to PG-13 standards (the unrated cut only adds a whole 49 seconds of footage).
In terms of casting, there's Gary Oldman who should have taken a much-deserved vacation instead of taking part in this clunker. How he ended up in this film is a true mystery for the ages - he was probably drunk, bored, or doing someone a favour. Odette Yustman, who was last seen escaping the tentacled behemoth in Cloverfield, is only nice to look at in a deeply generic sense (think Megan Fox). Goyer is completely aware that Yustman looks good in underwear, so he included two scenes in which the camera focuses on the actress' white-cotton-covered derriere. Even the poster takes advantage of this.
There's only one thing of interest about The Unborn: it's not a remake of an Asian horror film, but it certainly feels like one. Not just because it's incoherent and nigh on unwatchable (a common trait of said remakes), but because the plot contains the same basic characteristics; a nasty demon or ghost messing with a poor heroine in sinister but PG-13 ways. Perhaps that's how David S. Goyer got the green light for this movie - by fooling some gullible producers into thinking it was an Asian horror remake. At the end of the day, there is nothing to like about The Unborn. It is not scary. It is not interesting. It is not worth watching. Making a really obvious crack about it being a cinematic abortion is too easy...so I'd rather just belt out a bold, italicised "avoid" and get on with my life. So yeah...avoid! I've warned you. I've done my duty. Let's never speak of this movie again.
0.8/10
