[The Unborn]
Plot:Sometimes the soul of a dead person has been so tainted with evil that it is denied entrance to heaven. It must endlessly wander the borderlands between worlds, desperately searching for a new body to inhabit. And sometimes it actually succeeds. Writer/director David Goyer (Blade: Trinity, The Invisible, Batman Begins) gives a terrifying glimpse into the life of the undead in The Unborn, a supernatural thriller that follows a young woman pulled into a world of nightmares when a demonic spirit haunts her and threatens everyone she loves.

Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, Casey begins to understand why she left. Plagued by merciless dreams and a tortured ghost that haunts her waking hours, she must turn to the only spiritual advisor, Sendak (Gary Oldman), who can make it stop.

With Sendak's help, Casey uncovers the source of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany-a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything that is getting stronger with each possession. With the curse unleashed, her only chance at survival is to shut a doorway from beyond our world that has been pried open by someone who was never born.

Cast:Meagan Good, Carla Gugino, Jane Alexander, Idris Elba, Rhys Coir, Cam Gigandet, Gary Oldman, Odette Yustman, James Remar.

My Thoughts:Nothing new.

Review:I was pretty stoked for David Goyer's "The Unborn", but after seeing it I find myself empty. The film does give a staggeringly impressive effort with visual effects, and terrifying visuals of terror and suspense. As well as very eerie sceneries and set pieces. But when it gets right down to the nitty gritty, the real deal......the film just fails to scare. The pic follows Casey Beldon (Yustman), who is having dreams about being stalked by a young boy with pale skin and dead eyes. The kid is a victim of some horrific nazi experiments from back in Auschwitz, trying to create the "perfect race" once more. They felt twins were the key to said experiment, so they decided to operate on this kid.

Who after they disposed of his body when the experiment failed, they thought he was dead. Which he was, but his body was then inhabited by a spirit called a dibbuk...an evil spirit which seeks to enter the world of the living. Casey having had a twin brother who wasn't born and who died in the wound, a revelation she learns after visitng her dad (Remar), makes her the perfect conveyance for the dibbuk to be born through, which is why the spirit begins to stalk, pursue, and terrorize Casey.....or is it? Odette Yustman is given her first opportunity to carry a movie, after playing what was mostly a bit part in "Cloverfield". She does a good job I thought, but the script for her character is so cliche that it actually hampers her performance.

Yustman is a good actress with some talent yet to be unearthed within her, but any good young actress who is given a character to play who's the same old, same old, well....what can she really do with it? Casey Beldon looks like every other girl in a slasher, supernatural, or other -- horror film. She has the same type of A-typical boyfriend (Gigandet), she's a college student of course, and she has a hot black female best friend in Romy (Good), who has some understanding of the supernatural world and believes in it. Oh....and did I mention she also babysits and does all the WRONG things at the WRONG time?

Goyer who wrote the film, has obviously watched one new-age ghost movie too many. And has used bits and pieces of those characters to build up this Casey Beldon. The first scene of the film, the opening scene.....is a dream sequence. And while Yustman's character makes a really foolish move during the films opening scene, because it's a dream sequence...I'm willing to give it a pass. But then when the dreams over, her character continues to make stupid decisions, For example, there's a running scare gag in the movie where Yustman's character goes into the bathroom...and upon exiting the bathroom she hears a tapping sound coming from the medicine cabinet.

Instead of ignoring it, she goes to investigate atleast...9 times I counted. And of course on "bad move number 9", she finally gets a spook moment when demon boy roars at her from the cabinet and she leaps backwards screaming and yelling. It's stupidity like this that just makes me shake my head and wonder who's writing this stuff? Goyer did a much better job writing "The Invisible", which is sad considering that film had mostly unknown actors, and Gary Oldman's in this film for crying out loud. I will admit the scare moments are well-placed, well done, and have alot of gross stuff in them such as vomit, bugs, and tentacles. But it's the moments leading up to those moments, that just annoy the hell out of you.

Because they're so predictable. The demon boy himself doesn't really do anything super scary, other than looking scary. He just watches Casey alot, and follows ehr places. Follows her home, follows her to school, follows her to the bathroom, hell....he even follows her to the club when she's trying to get her "swerve" on. The only cool powers this kid has is the ability to possess people and twist their bodies around so he can chase other people. Eventually Casey seeks out some assistance from an old woman with what's happening, and why she keeps seeing this kid, and actually this is when the film gets good....because the story is finally opened up a bit beyond the constant toddler stalking of Odette by this creepy ass kid.

Goyer manages to craft a nicely creepy and entangled web of lineage and lies between Casey, the old woman, and the history and backstory of both their families. A story which involves Casey's mom played by Carla Gugino. If you're looking for scares in "The Unborn" though, you might get them. Then again you might not. It depends on your age, and probably not your gender. Because my audience men and women left the theater without a peep. Obviously they weren't impressed. The films final act does boast a cool exorcism scene and for what it's worth, some awesome stuff happens during that scene where a few people of faith try and exorcise the dibbuk and send it back to where it came from.

Of course that's easier said than done, and so havoc, death, and mayhem ensue. The setting of the exorcism scene, and how it unfolds are really the things that make it work so well. The movies final scene leaves things a bit unclear and open a bit, all the while trying to give the audience a pretty startlign revelation about why Casey was being targeted. But most won't be startled by the ending because it plays as an easy-to-figure-out twist which is poorly covered up by the twin subplot.

But on the other side of things, nothing makes up for the movies flat middle part, which in this 90 minute movie...makes up atleast 65 minutes of so of the picture. I could easily bash PG-13 horror here, and say how it never measures up like it should. But I honestly think this movie suffered from bad writing, and probably some studio heads who figured adding some cheap scares here and there would make the girls clench their boyfriends arms a bit tighter.

"The Unborn" is a good attempt at supernatural horror, and a very scary ghost movie. But the script holds it back because it follows the usual rules, does the usual things, and is just too usual. Had it been more unique and taken more risks...I might've liked it better.

Positives:Good set pieces and sceneries, good visual effects during the scare moments, an interesting story, great exorcism scene.

Negatives:Too many cliche moments, the script lags in many areas and affects the characters, many cheap and repetitive scares.

Overall:Two out of four stars.





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