The Unborn
- Year:2009
- Rating:M
- Director:David S Goyer
- Cast:Jane Alexander, Cam Gigandet, Meagen Good, Gary Oldman, Odette Yustman
- Release Date:February 26, 2009
- Distributor:Universal
- Running time:87 minutes
- Film Worth:$6.00
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
“…never quite lives up to that frightening expectation.”
The Unborn is hardly original. Director David S. Goyer (writer of the Blade trilogy and co-writer of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins) lends his talents here to produce a messy, twisting piece of demonic-possession-cinema where the basic plot has been borrowed quite liberally from far superior films like The Exorcist and The Exorcism Of Emily Rose.
The Unborn centres on Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman), who learns that she had a twin brother who died in their mothers' womb. Casey then becomes tormented by a dybbuk...a what? According to Jewish folklore, a dybbuk is a malicious being or spirit emanating from the soul of a dead person. Casey believes that this malevolent spirit haunting her is the soul of her dead twin, who wants to be "born" so that it can enter into the land of the living.
For a routine horror film, this all sounds extremely bizarre and quite simply, it is. As writer, Goyer has thrown everything from Auschwitz concentration camps, human experiments and the Jewish Kabbalah in, mixed it on high and come out with a film that never lives up to its frightening premise. The script tries hard to delve into the folklore of a dybbuk, and as it mixes this in with experiments on twins in concentration camps during WW2, the story becomes too convoluted for its own good.
