Movie review: The Unborn

by John P. Meyer

Here's the creepiest thing about seeing David S. Goyer's The Unborn (your results may vary):

When driving away from the theater parking lot, I happened to glance down at my trip odometer, and it said "66.6". AAAARGH!

I am not making this up, but even if it had read, say, 128.3 or 12444.5, it wouldn't have mattered: that STILL would have been the creepiest thing about seeing The Unborn.

It's a real pastiche of a horror film, with elements of The Eye, The Ring, The Exorcist and even - God help us - The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, if you take into account that whole kids-in-a-Nazi-death-camp subplot. (Yes, there actually is one.) My favorite (though not necessarily intended) reference makes obeisance to Don't Look Now, in that in one memorably gruesome scene we encounter a freaky little character wearing a hooded raincoat and wielding a butcher knife - though it's a blue one for some strange reason (the raincoat, I mean), instead of the more street-wise yellow variety.

Star Odette Yustman, it must be said, looks positively smashing in her funderwear - which we see a lot of (both her and her skivvies) in the first half-hour or so of the film. On the down side, her range of expression while portraying the genetically unfortunate Casey Beldon falls somewhere between Jessica Alba and a piece of schist. (That's right, I said schist.)

Here's the really scary part: stars like Gary Oldman, Idris Elba, Jane Alexander and Carla Gugino appear in the film without actually lending it any added gravitas or entertainment value. Why? Because the story is just so dang inane. (Sorry, writer/director Goyer.)

Speaking of actors, two of them are borrowed from the cast of Dexter. I'm referring to James Remar (Dexter's dear departed Dad) who plays Casey's preoccupied and peculiarly unhelpful father Gordon; and C.S. Lee (Dexter's painfully out-of-step work buddy Vince Masuka) as the eye doctor who Casey consults when her irises start changing into those weird glowing sorts of things seen in the orbits of all the trendiest demon-possessed young ladies these days.

Lurking on the narrative sidelines - and then, without any of those bothersome establishing incidents, in Casey's bed - is her boyfriend Mark (pretty boy Cam Gigandet, late of Twilight). Mark seems to be along on this misfiring spookhouse ride simply to serve as a sounding board for Casey's random declarations in regard to her increasingly dire circumstances. ("Woe is me," effectively.)

In a nutshell, her dire circumstances are these: she's being haunted (and on the verge of being possessed) by a particularly persistent demonic spirit who has something to do with her past. This evil spirit appears to want to drive her to self-destruction, as it's done to her mother and grandmother before her - though this would be tantamount to the Joker killing off the Batman, or Wile E. Coyote actually nabbing the Road Runner: afterward, where's the fun?

Be that as it may (and it may well be), the filming in and around Chicago during winter makes for some very scenic backdrops, and good use is made of the helicopter that was hired for the shoot: there are nice overheads of Casey jogging through the snowy, bare-tree landscape, and some graceful aerial swoops over the incredibly wealthy neighborhood where Casey and her friends and acquaintances reside.

As for the scares: they are telegraphed from far, far out in the north 40, so when the boogieman (or woman) suddenly bares his (or her) gaping cadaverous visage, only the most drowsy participants will derive much of a thrill from them. Most effectively rendered is the nightclub scene, where - amidst slo-mo swaying bodies and strobing lights - Casey finds herself inexorably drawn across the dance floor to the evil little bastard who keeps appearing in her noisome slumbers.

The inverted head gimmick is pretty effectively disturbing - the first time it's employed. By its second outing we find ourselves wondering if it's about to become a pandemic. As for the vinegaroon-cum-waterbugs which menace Casey's hallucinations: a little of that action goes a mighty long way, and their employment here stretches all the way to Schenectady.

Typical of the film's polyglot approach, the climactic exorcism scene finds not one but two religious figures (an Episcopal priest and a Jewish rabbi) carrying out the ritual in tandem, one holding forth in Hebrew and the other in English. And neither one of them commands the sort of confidence you'd want to bet your immortal soul on.

Much less eight bucks for a movie ticket.

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