Obviously I'm not hiding my opinion of the film in the title here.
I saw the movie in the theater a while back. It was matinee priced and I had to kill time while I waited for my car to get serviced....and a showing of My Bloody Valentine 3D wasn't for another hour or so.
Now don't get me wrong, The Unborn wasn't on par with The Forsaken or Exorcist: The Beginning with it's suckery. It really hasn't earned that rant. The Unborn actually had a LOT of potential to be great. But it pissed it down the toilet and was just a boring film about Odette Yustman's butt cheeks in white panties. I'm sure that appeals to a demographic and that's cool. I just don't happen to be in that demographic.
To bring you up to speed, The Unborn is a film about a young woman named Casey (Yustman) who we find out was supposed to have a twin brother. He never made it out of the womb. Well the unborn twin was possessed by an evil spirit and that evil spirit is ready to be born and is planning on using Casey. Many bizarre plot twists and pantie shots follow.
There were two things about The Unborn that were promising . 1- a great back story 2-A different approach to movie exorcism. Otherwise, the movie is what you'd expect it to be. A series of cheep scares, Somewhat interesting imagery but nothing you haven't seen in The Ring, mediocre acting, and a lead actress with a fabulous hiney.
The back story actually goes all the way to WWII where this spirit has been pursuing twin siblings for a way out into the world. There is a flashback from one of the characters, Sofi, who happens to be Jewish. She speaks about how in WWII her twin brother and her were taken by the Nazi's and experimented on. During the experiments, the brother died then mysteriously came back. Its implied he killed all the Nazi soldiers in the camp they were held in. Sofi comes to the realization that her brother has been possessed. This demon pops up again with Casey's mom, then finally with Casey. Now see, if the movie was just about that back story I would have ate it up. But unfortunately we are only exposed to this interesting story in one flashback scene.
I also liked that they approached exorcism from the Jewish viewpoint. Ever since The Exorcist, we've only seen the Catholic side of things. Diving into Jewish mysticism and the Jewish religion in a horror film was refreshing. And it could have once again been awesome if it was more focused. But it felt tacked on in an attempt to be different and give Gary Oldman something to do. Why was Gary Oldman even IN this movie? They barely used him and didn't even use him in a good way. I mean come on...Gary Freakin' Oldman should have something to do other than play a mildly shocked rabbi who pops in during the last 20 minutes.
I really do wonder if the writer of The Unborn had a completely different screenplay written then was pushed around by the studio to make it into the next teen thing. Because it did have moments of creativity. Unfortunately The Unborn's greatest crime was it was boring. I don't even have more to write about because it was so dang boring and unmemorable.
And not even Odette Yusman's supple ass could save that.
2 comments:
Man, that blows! The effects in that looked absolutely TERRIFYING-- like the dog and the upside down dude a la Silent Hill. I was so excited for this when I saw previews, dammit.
Isn't the demon supposed to be a dybbuk, or something?
A Dybbuk, yup. It really had potential to be really interesting too! To be honestly the upside down guy was really the most scary thing in the movie and was a great scene. But that was pretty much it.
To be honest I wasn't expecting much when I went to see it so I was surprised it even had potential.
Personally, I wish the movie started in WWII and was a story about the women in each generation battling the dybbuk instead of just focusing on Casey's story. Because Casey's story was the least interesting of the three.
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