Movie Reviews
The Unborn Review
Published on
Well before the release of writer/director David Goyer‘s The Unborn, the Dark Knight-scribe talked of a possible sequel to the dybbuk scare – an opportunity, he said, to go deeper into the origins of the spirit haunting lead Odette Yustman (Cloverfield). Now that the film has come forth, any idea of continuing the story should be aborted posthaste. With its impaired speech, unusual movements and awkward sense of sexuality, The Unborn is a deformed film unbecoming of Goyer. While his directing background is limited, Goyer has some formidable writing credibility. However, none of that talent is inherited by The Unborn; and despite an intriguing premise, would have been better not to have been born at all…full story [FirstShowing]
Yustman plays Casey Beldon, a college student who suddenly begins seeing scorpions in her eggs, dogs with masks, and all sorts of other crazy things. Her doctor gives her the boring reason: genetic mosaicism, a retinal irregularity usually seen in twins. It takes her Holocaust-survivor grandmother (Jane Alexander) to root out the real, much more evil reason, and, as per usual, the Nazis are involved. The reason that creepy blue-eyed zombie child keeps following her around has something to do with experiments done on Casey’s great uncle in Auschwitz that naturally turned him into a mythical Jewish demon named Dybbuk. And it’s up to Gary Oldman, as a Rabbi, to exorcize the malicious bugger…full story [FilmCritic]
There are possessions, a monster man that looks like something from JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING, and then that same monster is soon doing an EXORCIST walk. I dug the monster itself, in fact, when David uses the creepy looking kid or the man turned beast, I had a bit of fun. But as I mentioned, I felt as if I should have a checklist that I could match the scene with whatever inspiration that came to mind. While all of the comparisons may be, for the most part coincidental, it became a huge distraction. The cut and paste editing didn’t help things much either. One character will disappear for awhile, then just show up to move the plot along. Some of the sequences would build in a very strange and far from natural way. And by the time the plot finds its way to an oddball exorcism, everything goes into overdrive. People are being possessed, doors are slamming and all hell breaks loose. But when all is revealed, I realized I had it all figured out after the first ten minutes…full story [Joblo]
Goyer makes the smart choice of taking the less is more approach to spooking his audience. Sure, there are a few editing and visual tricks he uses to signify Yustman’s world is growing distorted, but he holds off on the gore and fright tactics for as long as he can. Tension is established early on and by the time we are presented with familiar CGI monstrosities we’re already uncomfortable in our seats…full story [Latinoreview]
