Unborn Review
Written by: JoeTerror
This should have been aborted. It just goes to show the power of trailers and commercials as before I read all the terrible reviews I thought this really looked awesome, and I have to admit I even went out and bought the blu ray version. Long story short I kept reading review after review of how bad this was and decided to return it for something else, and boy and I glad I did!
The Unborn, comes from the same producers of hit films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginnin, which I guess really isn’t saying much. This is basically the Jewish version, and I put this lightly, very lightly, of the Excorsist. A sexy young girl, Casey (Odette Yustman), is haunted by a demonic spirit that is looking to be born unto the world and will kill anything in its path. Like the little kid says, “jumby wants to be born”.
The story in a nutshell finds Casey babysitting and when she goes to check on the baby the little brother is holding a mirror over its face then smashes Casey in the face. This leads her to an eye doctor where he asks her if she’s a twin, little does she know she is, her twin died in the womb, the mom committed suicide, throw in some Nazi experiments, an old woman with some secrets, a rabbi (Gary Oldman), an excorsism, and a bunch of creepy images and there you have it. Oh she does have the help of two friends her boyfriend, Mark Hardigan (Cam Gigandet) and her best friend, Romy Marshall (Meagan Good) but they serve little purpose or do much help either.
I don’t even know where to begin as there are just so many things wrong with this and it’s too bad because I did like some of the freaky imagery. First off, the opening of the DVD itself shows all kinds of scenes before the menu even comes up so you know what is coming or what to expect, way more so then the trailer even. So that right there was a huge letdown. James Hawkinson's cinematography which at first I thought looked really good but after a while if I saw one more slow motion shot I thought I was going to scream! The supporting cast all seem like they just stepped out of a zombie movie and look bored our of their minds. The audio was horrible, I had the volume up as I found it hard to hear the dialogue but once the predictable “jump scare” happened the volume increased two-fold. It was ridiculous and I kept having to adjust the volume. The story in general is just lame and predictable and the finale is absolutely atrocious and dull when it should’ve been really action packed. There are some great images scattered about and had they been put to better use against a more original story this really could’ve been a great scare fest, unfortunately the sum does not equal its parts. Let’s just hope Jumby doesn’t reappear!