The Unborn (2009)

Review

College co-ed Casey Beldon has a nightmare during her morning run about a strange boy, an even stranger dog wearing a mask, and a foetus in a glass jar. The boy, who looks like he might have stepped off a Charles Dickens dramatisation set, continues to make inopportune appearances, influences a kid Casey is baby sitting, and no doubt has something to do with the wetas that suddenly seem to be infesting the local neighbourhood.

A strange colourisation in Casey's eyes leads her to seek the opinion of an ophthalmologist, who wonders if she is a twin. Shockingly her father - Mum appears to have committed suicide in this rambling plot - simply tells Casey that yes, she had a twin brother who died in the womb. Throw in a narrative that somehow contrives to include Nazi experimentation during the Holocaust, an improbable grandmother, and heck, one of the worst exorcisms ever conducted and you have Goyer's opus. Needless to say Platinum Dunes was associated with this mess. Ready to check out the dybbuk of ultimate despair?

Every now and again I run across a film that reinforces the notion that not every Hollywood horror flick is worth reviewing, let alone buying when the DVD is released. And then there are movies like The Unborn that are so hopeless in their failures that you wonder how a studio could have been stupid enough to even consider putting their name and reputation against it. Mind you, Platinum Dunes - yes I know should have run screaming when their logo came up on my screen - haven't got much of a reputation left worth preserving. For those who simply must know all the details, The Unborn (insert your own aborted joke) is the Dunes' first attempt at an original horror flick after generally making a mess of a bunch of remakes. The folk over at the company clearly don't know why the original movies they are remaking are held in such high regard, and judging on the evidence presented by their first foray into original horror they simply have no idea what they are doing in the dark genre in general. This movie sucks the life out of the universe, and then does the same to several alternative realities close by.

Initially Goyer starts his movie well. Casey is jogging through a strangely empty winter landscape, and there's a slight feeling that we have maybe taken a step into the twilight zone. A few supernatural occurrences later and I'm ready to high five the Director for a good prologue piece that has set the tone. I'm settling down to catch up with the major characters and see what lies below. Unfortunately Goyer has apparently never heard of the term "prologue", as we simply roll from one shock scene to the next with no thought as to pacing or build. The Director can't go five minutes without throwing a jump scene at you, and quite frankly friends and neighbours it gets real old, real fast. Never thought I would hear myself say this, but we have a film here with way too many horror elements. Would it have been a lot to ask to get some character development going down prior to the gates of hell opening? And just to round out my general distaste of what Goyer is fumbling in the dark with here, would it also be too much to ask if a modern Hollywood director could perhaps not telegraph the upcoming scare scenes? Anyone with their horrordar on is going to pretty well pick the scares as they start cluttering the screen up.

Okay so what are we dealing with here? Apparently a dybbuk, a disconnected soul seeking to regain the land of the living via taking over someone's body. At various stages of the movie, and depending on plot requirements, we learn the dybbuk is either a former human with no humanity left, or an unexplained evil spirit. Goyer appeared to want six of one and half a dozen of the other there. Apparently your dybbuk starts out controlling the lesser creatures - still think those insects looked like wetas - before moving on up to dogs, before finally transitioning to humans. Remembering the dybbuk simply wants a body to call home - uhmm, how many does it actually want, and once in possession of one what was with the wild nights in Bangkok going down? I'm not exactly your Jewish scholar over here. I figure the dybbuk is either an Eastern European belief or, heavily hinted at, a Judaic evil spirit, but wouldn't the first body have sufficed? Of course then we wouldn't get a movie, but in the wash-up that probably would have been a real good thing.

Goyer does infuse his movie with a pretty good atmosphere, through the first half when we are talking evil spirits and evil deeds done dirt cheap, but as the convoluted plot unfolds you are taken out of the movie as you wonder what insanity could possible be coming up next. Casey learning she had a twin sort of had my bottom jaw hitting the ground - yes honey you had a twin brother who died in the womb, could you pass the butter - and it didn't have any further to fall when we find out Casey has a grandmother. If this movie had run another hour we would have probably found out that Casey has relatives called the Sawyers living in Texas. I can understand plot devices but the whole divergence into a Nazi concentration camp to explain things was simply the work of someone who doesn't give a crap about his audience. Goyer is not respecting us here and the movie deserved to tank.

Casey does eventually seek the help of Rabbi Sendak; apparently Jewish mystical education has had some cutbacks as Sendak is the only one who can translate a book Casey steals from the library. Once again there's that Jewish connection. After a supernatural event involving a dog goes down in his synagogue, Sendak is quick to agree that an exorcism should be performed - you can get two on any given Sunday according to Hollywood - and enlists the aid of Idris Elba, who is doing further damage to his career here. Goyer throws on your typical exorcism scene, high winds, hellish voices, a couple of kegs, but has no hope of matching the shenanigans that went down in a certain location in Georgetown. And hey, I'm talking the second Exorcist movie here folks. Having robbed without apology from a classic horror flick, Goyer then insanely goes for a Hidden vibe with the evil spirit jumping between bodies. At this stage I had been abused enough by a half-arsed Director and turned the movie off with ten minutes to run. Who knows how it ends up, it's a less than pressing question really, but I figure Goyer might dialed into a bit of Lassie Come Home territory. Hey, nothing else makes much sense in this grab bag of convoluted ideas.

On the bright side the film is unintentionally funny for those with a warped sense of humour. I'm going to count most readers into that category right here, right now.

Before I forget: Goyer, if you are going to use aerial shots then use them for a reason and don't insert them every fifteen minutes or so.

Odette Yustman (Casey) did okay in a role that really had no redeeming features. She's probably a lot better than this film allowed her to be, catch Yustman's next movie. Gary Oldman (Rabbi Sendak) - dude, what has happened? - simply stole every scene he was in and makes you wonder what an "A" grade actor is doing in a "C" grade flick. Meagan Good (Romy) was the token black chick, got to love the PC nature of Boredwood, and besides saying "dude" to a chick constantly was simply terrible. Once again the role wasn't all that, must catch Good in something else. Cam Gigandet (Mark) fronted a few scenes, spouted a few lines then took his shirt off. Great casting choice, and an excellent future in daytime soaps. Could Hollywood casting agencies actually go outside Rodeo drive and see what the real people look like? Another plastic actor from the conveyor belt, no wonder Aussies and Kiwis are taking names over in the U.S.

As the trailers indicated, Odette Yustman in her white knickers was almost worth the price of admission alone for hetero males and lesbos - though Goyer did go slightly overboard with the focus there. Gals of the hetero variety get good old Cam showing off the gym work, which is just as well cause he can't act.

Ramin Djawadi threw together a score we have all heard before and gets a passing mark. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Unborn starts well and for a while you are fooled into thinking you might be going to see another undervalued Hollywood flick. Everything is looking good atmospherically, there's bleak times in the town tonight going down, and Odette Yustman is looking pretty capable. Unfortunately, after the excellent opening five minutes the movie starts to descend into an occult melting pot of half thought-out ideas and tries to touch base with every dark genre cliche it can get within striking distance of. I ended up hitting the eject button with ten minutes to run as I was sick and tired of Goyer talking down to me and things happening because he had written himself into a corner plot-wise. No, didn't enjoy this one, got no jump time, and thought it summed up the current woes Hollywood horror is suffering.

Don't bother, it's another run of the mill horror outing fresh off the conveyor belt. Even the base premise is stolen from an X-Files episode so there is nothing new to be seen here. Odette Yustman is worth noting down, other than that not much to take home with you when the end credits roll. The delivery on this movie makes you wish it had never been conceived.