Sunday 8 March 2009

Review - The Unborn

The Unborn is the first Kaballah horror film. A lot of people would have assumed that was Revolver, but they would have been wrong. Here they are: ghosts that fit into Madonna’s belief system. And what derivative, logic-less ghosts they are.

Casey (Odette Yustman) is a college girl who starts seeing creepy 7-year-old boys, dogs wearing human masks, and ominous turqoise gloves left on pavements. These unnerving visions escalate, and her eyes start turning blue. Then she finds out that she had a stillborn twin. It seems that he wants to be born again.

How and why is not made clear. Instead we have the usual shocks made up of wide-eyed children, insect lavae, and crawly, twisty, creaky old people. This is very much inspired by Japanese horror like Ju-On: The Grudge. Films like this never really make sense, but they can at least be frightening. Unfortunately, The Unborn is just silly.

Yustman successfully walks around in her underwear and is freaked out by what’s going on, the main gist of her character. She looks like a cross between Jessica Alba and Jennifer Connolly, both actresses who have appeared in similar roles. This gives the whole film a sense of deja vu. The lovely Gary Oldman and Idris Elba appear, but their formidale skills are not used in their brief time on screen.

This is a trying, silly horror, which has the bad taste to involve the Holocaust in its backstory. One to avoid.

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