Alternate Takes 01.10.09: The Unborn

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 01.10.2009

Alternate Takes heads into the graveyard of January cinematic releases with a look at the films that influenced this week's horror film The Unborn, from Rosemary's Baby to The Exorcist.



Welcome to Week 34 of Alternate Takes.

I'm going to start off by answering a quick e-mail - this one concerning this month's movie's roundtable:

"Writing from Fox in Sydney. Felt compelled to write on reading Shawn's comments about Baz Luhrmann + Australia's box office today. He mentions that Australia has only made $51 million worldwide. Not sure where he got this figure from but as of last Sunday the figure was actually $130 million worldwide - it's already $30 million in Australia alone.

Wanted to make sure you had the right numbers.

Best wishes
Milly"

I checked it out and sure enough, there was a huge spike in the numbers since I turned in my responses to the column. At the time I wrote it, imdbpro listed the total at $51 million worldwide and thanks to Austrailia and other countries showing up in groves to see the film, it looks like it will break even, since it is sitting at $129 million worldwide as of today. The US totals are still still sitting at a paltry $46 million with the UK at 4.3 million but this is a global business. I assume the rest of the totals were reported late, and the site still doesn't say where the other $78 million is from, although the email states $30 million of it is from Australia. Australia, the movie, may not be a success here in the states but by the time the DVD lands, it will be a financial success. Congratulations Mr. Luhrmann.

On to the column.

Thanks for all the positive comments for last week's new look Alternate Takes. I hope I can keep up the quality of the columns even during weeks where the movies are lacking. Speaking of weeks with lacking movies, welcome to January - where bad films go to die. There are only two chances to see quality movies in this month. The first, and one evident with last week's look at The Wrestler, is the slow release of prestige pictures that only got limited releases to qualify for Oscar contention. January is where a lot of people last year got to see such movies as No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.

The second type of movie that might provide entertainment is the horror film. It seems studios have locked into the fact that January is a graveyard for dramas and action movies and have slated a number of their hopeful horror efforts in a month with little to no opposition. It is January that brought us Hostel and Cloverfield. Looking at this month's slate of movies, we get our fare share of horror movies as well. This week is the first one and will be the focus of Alternate Takes as we look at ...

THE UNBORN


Exorcism - (1) the act of driving out, or warding off, demons, or evil spirits, from persons, places, or things, which are believed to be possessed or infested by them, or are liable to become victims or instruments of their malice; (2) the means employed for this purpose, especially the solemn and authoritative adjuration of the demon, in the name of God, or any of the higher power in which he is subject. - The Catholic Encyclopedia

The subject of exorcisms is not an unusual topic for writer/director David S. Goyer to approach as he continues to work on his directing career to match his already successful writing career. The Unborn is his third big budget directorial attempt, following Blade: Trinity and The Invisible. While both movies had their positive points, they are widely considered disappointments. With his latest film, Goyer continues to work within the horror genre and hopes The Unborn is more critically accepted than his prior two films.

The Unborn tells the story of a girl named Casey (Cloverfield's Odette Yustman) who begins to see strange visions, including that of her unborn twin brother. This ghostly figure appears to need Casey's death in order to open a portal, allowing him access into her world. Casey approaches her spiritual advisor (Gary Oldman) to help her uncover the evil behind her visions. Together the two attempt an exorcism to purge her of her demonic visions.

The movie's plot appears to fall into cliché after that as the synopsis talks of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany and a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything, growing stronger with each possession. The Unborn is the latest production from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company, one of their few original ideas, and gives Goyer another chance to see if his directing can reach the level of his writing.

THE DIRECTOR



"Blade: Trinity ... is a mess. It lacks the sharp narrative line and crisp comic-book clarity of the earlier films, and descends too easily into shapeless fight scenes that are chopped into so many cuts that they lack all form or rhythm." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

David S. Goyer grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he remembers being influenced by the television show Dark Shadows as a young child. He was convinced by high school teachers to enroll in the USC Film Program, where he graduated in 1988 amidst a bleak job market thanks to a recent Hollywood writer's strike. A few months after graduating, fate smiled on him when he sold his script Death Warrant, eventually a Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle. He used this as an opportunity to spend time on a real Hollywood set and learn more about filmmaking.

Goyer used the momentum of his first sell to quickly get another writing gig on Kickboxer 2: The Road Back, which was originally supposed to be another Van Damme film. Van Damme turned down the role to make Double Impact instead and Goyer changed the script to focus on the character of Van Damme's brother. Following this, Goyer continued to write regularly, churning out horror movies Dangerous Toys and The Puppet Masters, as well as a sequel to The Crow titled City of Angels.

Goyer officially arrived in 1998 when he co-wrote a movie that went on to achieve cult classic status. Goyer would be nominated for a Saturn Award and win the Bram Stoker Award for his screenplay of Dark City, sharing it with co-writer and director Alex Proyas (The Crow) and fellow screenwriter Lem Dobbs. It is a movie that was considered a critical failure when released, although it gained a very important fan in movie critic Roger Ebert.

"Dark City by Alex Proyas is a great visionary achievement," Ebert stated in his review, "a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like Metropolis and 2001: A Space Odyssey. If it is true, as the German director Werner Herzog believes, that we live in an age starved of new images, then Dark City is a film to nourish us. Not a story so much as an experience, it is a triumph of art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects--and imagination."

Dark City is a post apocalyptic story shot in the style of classical Film Noir. Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Rufus Sewell, William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly, it supposes a world controlled by a group of mysterious beings with telekinetic powers called The Strangers and a man who finds he holds the same powers as these creatures. The film is a bizarre science fiction hybrid along the lines of Blade Runner and helped both director Proyas and writer Goyer achieve a new level of respect in Hollywood.

Goyer always strived for something more and wanted to add his touch to the films he worked on. Goyer has stated in interviews that working on Proyas' original Dark City script was the most rewarding experience of his writing career. When speaking about the script on the commentary track for the director's cut of the film he mentions Proyas developed the original ideas in the script but never believed his strength lied as a writer. "I was thrilled to read (his script)," Goyer said. "You don't often get to read a script by a filmmaker ... It was clearly the work of a very gifted, visual artist."

Throughout the commentary it is clear Goyer desperately wanted to become one of "those men", a director who is able to put his words onto the screen the way he envisioned when writing. He chose to make his directorial debut a personal film called ZigZag, a low budget drama picked up thanks to his friend Wesley Snipes agreeing to appear in the movie at a discounted rate. It was this friendship with Snipes that led to Goyer's first big budget feature as well.

After writing the first two Blade movies, Goyer would finally enter the director's chair for Blade: Trinity. Goyer took a controversial angle to the franchise by almost pushing the character of Blade himself to the side and focusing on new characters known as The Night Stalkers, played by Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel. It is said Wesley Snipes threatened to kill Goyer for ruining his franchise. Goyer argues that the controversy between him and Snipes was simply due to the star's method acting. "One of the reasons I think people like the Blade movies is that he's kind of a jerk," Goyer stated in an interview about Snipes, "he's a person who is not trying to save the world, he's trying to kill vampires and saving the world incidentally. One time I got a letter from him once on set signed Blade, but it works, all the stuff between Hannibal King and Blade was going on between Ryan and Wesley."

While neither Blade: Trinity or his next feature The Invisible were very successful, Goyer remains a go-to man in Hollywood for his writing and his most recent work is considered by many to be the greatest superhero movie of all time. Following his script for Batman Begins, he shares screenwriting duties for the sequel The Dark Knight with Jonathan Nolan. Nolan gives Goyer a lot of credit for the work on the film. "David and Chris (Nolan) went off and butted heads for awhile and came up with this story," Nolan said, "a really great story, and then [Chris Nolan] had to go off and direct. You know, he's a busy guy so we're very lucky to get him to get in there. And then they handed it over to me and let me take a crack at the first draft. Chris is always going to take the last pass on his scripts going in. He's a writer as well as a director, kind of 50/50. So, you know, he's going to get in there and take that last crack at it. So our job is done well in advance of the film. For us, it's kind of been this fascinating experience of getting the work done and then waiting a couple of years to see what comes out the other end. It was enormously satisfying this time."

PLATINUM DUNES



"It's hard to find great stories. We read every horror script that's out there, and it's just hard to find something that we respond to." - Platinum Dunes producer Brad Fuller in an interview with Dread Central

Thanks to his great success as a writer, Goyer continues to get opportunities to try to fulfill his dream as a director. For The Unborn, it is through the Michael Bay production company Platinum Dunes. This is one of the first original premises for the company which is best known for remaking classical horror movies. Their first two films were The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror remakes. Following a slightly original sequel to Texas Chainsaw, they went on to remake The Hitcher and have Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street on the horizon.

Another supposed remake was cancelled to the delight of horror fans who hate the constant slew of remakes. Rosemary's Baby was to be one of the next films on Platinum Dunes slate but was cancelled due to the company being unable to bring anything new to the table. "Rosemary's Baby was announced and it's like a little bit like we're talking about with Freddy," said producer Brad Fuller. "We went down that road and we even talked to the best writers in town and it feels like it might not be do-able. We couldn't come up with something where it felt like it was relevant and we could add something to it other than what it was so we're now not going to be doing that film."

That attitude might come as a surprise to those who think Platinum Dunes will remake anything regardless of quality. Luckily, the original Rosemary's Baby remains a fantastic film resonating as well today as it did when it was first released over forty years ago. Directed by Roman Polanski, the film follows Rosemary (Mia Farrow), who has been impregnated by the devil following her husband's deal with a coven of witches.

Director Polanski is a lightening rod of controversy. He survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, although he did lose his mother to a Nazi gas chamber. In 1969 his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, and several friends were murdered by the Manson family in his home. All sympathy for the man was erased when he was arrested in 1978 and pled guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor." He immediately fled the country and remains a fugitive from justice, living in France and Poland where he is safe from extradition.

Following a successful career in Europe directing such films as the horrific Repulsion and the nihilistic Cul-de-Sac, he began work on Rosemary's Baby, his first Hollywood film. In an interview thirty years after the release of the film Polanski stated he was trying to create "an original concept to present in a very realistic and believable way something that is virtually supernatural."

What results is one of the creepiest horror movies of all time. It is hard to imagine that it could have been so much different if the original man interested in directing the picture had been allowed to. William Castle, best known for B-Level horror films such as 13 Ghosts and House on Haunted Hill, bought the rights to the book and took the deal to Robert Evans, who was the Worldwide Head of Production at Paramount Pictures at the time. Evans agreed to buy the film but said Castle would never be allowed to direct it.

"Bill Castle was a wonderful man," said production designer Richard Sylbert. "His problem was he made the cheapest horror movies you could make." They allowed Castle to produce the picture and they chose Roman Polanski to direct the film based on his work on his previous film The Fearless Vampire Killers. They brought him in knowing he was interested in making a skiing film but when he showed up they asked him to read the galleys for Rosemary's Baby as well. After reading the galley, Polanski immediately agreed to shoot this movie instead of the ski picture.

Polanski made a great decision to not worry about throwing some kind of twist into the film for effect. This is a movie that instead relies on a sense of doomed certainty. Roger Ebert put it best in his review. "When the conclusion comes, it works not because it is a surprise but because it is horrifyingly inevitable. Rosemary makes her dreadful discovery, and we are wrenched because we knew what was going to happen --and couldn't help her."

Polanski went on to make other great films in his career including Chinatown, Tess and The Pianist but Rosemary's Baby proves to be the greatest masterpiece in his solid body of work. "Call it a horror picture, call it not a horror picture," Evans said. "Call it a scary picture. There are no special effects. There are no screaming things like that happening with walls falling down or crocodiles coming out of the walls or anything like that. It's all in the way he shot it and it works on every level. It scares the hell out of you."

EXORCISMS



"The film is about the mystery of faith ... and it's based on a true story. It's about the fact that both good and evil exist out in the world and it's a constant struggle in all of us, for our better angels to thrive over our demons." - William Friedkin in an interview with UGO.com about the Exorcist

Rosemary's Baby is scary based solely on the craft and skill of the director involved, but it is based on a fiction novel by author Ira Levin. To borrow the tag line of another movie, all you need to do is keep repeating to yourself, "It's only a movie, it's only a movie, it's only a movie..."

Five years later a horror movie was released based on actual recorded events. Adapted from the novel by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist is based on a supposedly real-life occurance that took place in the Washington, D.C. area in 1949. Attention was brought to the case when the Washington Post ran an article about the 13-year old boy involved in the supposed exorcism. A novel called Possessed: The True Story of The Exorcism was released in 1993 based on two sources: a 26-page diary that was allegedly kept by Father Raymond Bishop and interviews with former Jesuit scholastic Father Walter H. Halloran, one of the few eye-witnesses willing to discuss his experiences. All accounts point to a number of people who stand by the fact that the events in question really happened.

"Like so many Catholics, I've had so many little battles of wavering faith over the course of my life," said William Peter Blatty, who also served as the film's producer. "And I was going through one at that time. And when I heard about this case and read the details, that seemed so compelling. I thought, my God, if someone were to investigate this and authenticate it, what a tremendous boost to faith it would be. I thought, someday I would like to see that happen. You know, I would like to do it.

When watching The Exorcist there are moments you question the authenticity of the material. A different exorcism case was presented in a much more realistic manner on film thirty years later. In 1976, Anneliese Michel was believed by an exorcist in the area to be possessed by demons. A bishop issued permission to perform the rite of exorcism according to the Roman ritual of 1614. Half a year later, 23 year old Michel was dead. This case has been re-created in two films, the excellent German film Requiem and the underwhelming American film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

What made The Exorcist a better film than The Exorcism of Emily Rose is the ridiculous aspects of the possession. Compared to The Exorcist, the later film is boring despite being a more realistic depiction of the actual events. The strange irony in that statement is that Requiem is completely tame compared to its American counterpart yet remains the better film based on it depicting the case in a much more realistic and subtle way. In Requiem you never see the evil so you are forced to determine for yourself if the girl is possessed or sick. While Requiem is drenched in subtlety and The Exorcist is completely over the top, both trump The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which makes the poor choice of resting safely in the boring middle ground.

It was The Exorcist that brought the idea of exorcisms into the public conscious. Christians always understood the nature of demonic possessions and exorcisms and many Catholics view this movie with fear as they remember the teachings at a young age about the devil and hell. A look at the Bible itself displays a number of stories about the casting out of demons in the Gospels. It can almost be argued that Jesus is the ultimate exorcist.

Look at just about any movie in the history of cinema about Jesus and you will see any number of various forms of demon possession. Among the movies that specifically call it exorcisms such as Requiem, Emily Rose, Possessed and this weekend's The Unborn, there is still one movie that stands tall above the rest.

The Power of Christ compels you!



Watch the following trailer for The Unborn and then click on the posters below it to learn more about the DVDs of the movies discussed in this column.