The Unborn Review [2]

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 01.15.2009

Is the first horror movie of 2009 as bad as everyone says? Shawn doesn't think so. Click here to read why.

Written and Directed by David Goyer

Odette Yustman ... Casey Beldon
Gary Oldman ... Rabbi Sendak
Meagan Good ... Romy
Cam Gigandet ... Mark Hardigan
Jane Alexander ... Sofi Kozma
Atticus Shaffer ... Matty Newton
James Remar ... Gordon Beldon
Carla Gugino ... Janet Beldon
Idris Elba ... Arthur Wyndham



Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images, thematic material and language including some sexual references


The Unborn, David Goyer’s newest horror film, takes a very interesting stance on an actual piece of world history. It’s too bad Goyer directed it in such an inept way, it was overshadowed by his amateur filmmaking skills.

Although the film never mentions him by name, it is rooted in the history of Nazi physician Josef Mengele, a doctor who gained notoriety by performing human experiments on camp inmates. Known as the Angel of Death, he ran experimental tests on identical twins in his study of heredity at Auschwitz. His experiments included attempting to change the eye color of the children by injecting chemicals into their eyes, as well as conducting various amputations of limbs and other brutal surgeries.

It is obvious Goyer did a lot of research into the Angel of Death, because the flashbacks in the movie are eerily accurate to the actual events that took place during the Holocaust. Unfortuantely these flashbacks, all wonderfully shot in a grimy, documentary styled form are surrounded by a clichéd horror movie with a ghostly kid popping up in mirrors with the sole purpose of making teenage girls scream. I admit that worked, as there were teenage girls in the theater who screamed every time the little blue eyed ghost kid showed up.

If you notice I said blue eyed ghost kid, you probably already have figured out where he came from.

The movie starts off quickly with our lead girl Casey (Odette Yustman, last seen in Cloverfield) jogging. She sees a mitten on the ground and then notices a freaky little kid staring at her. The kid turns into some kind of demon dog and goes into the bushes. Like all stupid horror victims, she follows it into the bushes and finds the mitten. When she tries to recover it she finds a disgusting dead fetus.

This is all a dream. I have to give Goyer credit because he does not slow down and amps up the horror without letting up. This is bad for some because it leaves no time for character development, but when you are waiting for the monster/ghost/demon to show up, who needs character development? We follow Casey to her babysitting job where she talks on the phone to her best friend Romy (Meagan Good), who believes in ghosts. She tries to interpret the dream but is interrupted when Casey hears one of the kids has woken up. She finds the little boy, Matty, is standing over the crib of his sibling holding a mirror up. He then turns and smashes the mirror into Casey’s face.

This is bad luck in two ways. First, a baby is not supposed to see its reflection until it is a year old and second is the broken mirror thing. Either way, things are about to get dangerous in the life of Casey. The movie smartly works to isolate her from adult help. Her mother committed suicide years before due to depression and her father is a businessman who is always out of town. That leaves Casey with no one to help her but Romy and a boyfriend that seems too perfect in Mark (Cam Gigandet).

I am at a loss why they would cast such wonderful performers as Carla Gugino and James Remar as her parents and then give them so little to do. Gugino is relegated to flashbacks with no dialogue whatsoever. It is a great shame. The rest of the cast is very good in their roles. Yustman proves to be a solid horror girl and never appears out of place. I was very impressed with Gigandet as well, as he took a thankless role as a stereotype and delivered the role the best he could. Good rounds out the kids and all three were solid.

What kills the movie is the direction. I would assume that after working with directors such as Guillermo del Toro, Chris Nolan and Alex Proyas, he would have learned something about camera movements and pacing. However, watching this movie, I felt like I was watching The Invisible all over again. This movie is a duplicate of that earlier effort all the way until the exorcism happens. Goyer improves drastically during the climax, but before that it is just a carbon copy.

He is not only cribbing his own work, but there are so many scenes lifted from other movies, done in pale imitation, adding nothing to the technique. During the otherwise excellent climax, there is a moment when a man becomes possessed and I felt like I was watching 28 Days Later. There is a scene where Casey is floating on the ceiling and watches herself in bed copied from Nightmare on Elm Street. There is another scene that is a blatant copy Nicholas Roeg’s classic horror movie Don’t Look Now. They can call it a homage all they want but it is the most shameless rip off I have ever seen.

The entire first thirty minutes of the film seems to drag forever. There is only so many times you can get a jump scare from a screaming ghost kid before you start checking your watch. However, what makes this movie work so well comes later. In most recent horror movies, the climax is where the movie fails. You have a good setup and then are disappointed by what it leads to. This movie is the exact opposite. Once Gary Oldman’s priest is introduced, the movie reaches a new level.

I hate it when movies have a young person figure out how to beat an all powerful demon either by accident or on their own. In this movie, it smartly sends Casey to an expert to help her and what better person to play that expert than Oldman? He brings a great quality to a movie that needed a boost and once he shows up, things start to pick up. I still have a problem with some conveniences given in the script - why would the demon try to scare the priest when the results were to make him want to help Casey more? Also, when they decide to do the exorcism it would be the “next night” and the film cuts straight to that event. Why didn’t the demon try to do everything it could to stop them after they made the decision the night before? These are questions that could have been answered, but weren’t, and that hurts the film as well.

The exorcism is where I get excited about the movie. Yes, the trailer spoils much of the best parts of the haunting. The evil dog with the upside down head is so brilliantly grotesque that I couldn’t help but smile at it. The comatose man that bends out of shape and begins chasing Casey’s grandmother through the nursing home is great too. There could have been much more of these figures and the movie would have scored even higher but Goyer tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to add more atmosphere.

What I like best about the movie, outside of Oldman and the exorcism, are the ideas behind the script. There is much about Casey’s past that she doesn’t know and soon finds out from her grandmother. It all ties back into Auschwitz and the Angel of Death’s experiments. They use the horrible events of the Holocaust and add a bit of the Occult that Hitler was so interested in studying and we get the idea for this movie. I find this back story infinitely interesting and wonder what kind of movie this could have been with a director who was not afraid to actually move the camera.

The ending satisfies me as well. I am so used to the recent slate of PG-13 horror movies ending with the surviving girl racing to her loved one and finding them still alive and the two go off to live happily ever after, barring a last minute jump scare. This movie chooses to end on a very depressing, yet more satisfying note making it all the better. It also chooses not to utilize the horribly overused final jump scare and instead reveals a twist that proves all is not well at the end. I would also like to point out this final twist is actually foreshadowed in the movie in the scene where Casey is suspended on her ceiling and watches herself in the bed. Watch the end and think back to that scene and it all makes sense. It is one of the rare places where Goyer makes a solid directorial decision in this movie.

The 411: David Goyer is a great writer. He penned Batman Begins and co-wrote The Dark Knight. He also is responsible for Dark City and the Blade Trilogy. However, as a director he seems to be lost on how to use the camera to tell a story. If he relied on simply using his pen to tell stories and lets the professionals shoot the film, it might be all for the best. The Unborn is a great story with a wonderful premise and solid acting all around. It just can’t get over the hurdle of the man behind the camera.

Final Score:  5.5   [ Not So Good ]