Even for the sort of low-rent horror flick that is dumped unceremoniously into theaters during the month of January, THE UNBORN is an embarrassing jumble. A little Kabbalah, a little Holocaust, a spooky kid with eyes that are a little too blue, and a whole lot of nubile female flesh in tank top and underwear converge into a film that is less terrifying than painfully derivative and even more painfully dull. That i Tmakes no sense, even within its internal boundaries, doesn’t help.
The spooky kid in question is a dybbuk and he has no trouble possessing everyone except the object of its unearthly desire, Casey (Odette Yustman), the nubile girl in the underwear. He has no trouble haunting her dreams, however. He has no trouble invading her medicine cabinet, or the little kid she babysits. That would be the one who belts her with a hand mirror, much to nobody’s dismay, not even Casey’s father, with whom she lives in upper-middle class splendor in the Chicago suburbs. Things keep getting progressively weirder for Casey. Her eye, the one that was belted with the hand mirror, starts changing from brown to blue. Her father, when not out-of-town as he usually is, owns up to her having had a twin who died in utero. This prompts the requisite visit to the basement where she sifts through the things her mother left behind before she went crazy and hanged herself. This leads to the meeting with the requisite eccentric old lady (Jane Alexander) with a secret and a fit of hysteria when confronted with an old newspaper clipping. Secrets unravel in the requisite fashion. The requisite rare manuscript holds the key to it all, and is stolen from a library that doesn’t seem to miss it after a librarian hands it to Casey and she then walks off with it. Finally, there is the requisite exorcism that tries, and fails, to rip off other cinematic exorcisms. Through it all, Yustman looks more preoccupied than terrified, and those around her, the sassy BFF (Meagan Good), the stalwart boyfriend (Cam Gigandet), and the eccentric old lady, all do things like wander down dark staircases when the lights go out and the dybbuk is demonstrably afoot. Or aflutter, whichever is more applicable.
Writer/director Davis S Goyer has the look of the thing down. Icy winter scenes with bare black trees, spooky old asylums fallen into ruins because that’s what the scene requires, but as for creating a sense of tension or even enough suspension of disbelief to carry the twaddle along in imitation of a sense of urgency, not so much. This has the tension of overcooked linguine and the urgency of last week’s baguette, with pacing that allows the audience to linger on every failing before being distracted by the subsequent one. The most that a host of special effects involving the unnatural contortions of limbs, and a swarm of large bugs can evoke is “ewwww”, and the “ewwiest” isn’t the swarm in the club bathroom that threatens to overwhelm Casey. No, it’s the one bug that falls out of an egg that Casey breaks into a frying pan while making breakfast. By the time the ending has finally limped into view, the final twist offers only the horror of a built-in sequel.
The best thing in THE UNBORN is Gary Oldman’s hair. It’s a dynamic sweep back from a forehead boasting an impressive widow’s peak. Perfectly cut and styled, it adds a note that is unfussy yet distinguished as he essays the thankless role of a rabbi confronted by Kate’s problem who for some reason doesn’t call the men with white coats and straight-jackets after their first conversation. It’s not much, but when the pickings are as slim as they are here, one clings to whatever one can.
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