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Having seen the trailers for 'Unborn' and admiring David S. Goyer's writing talents on films such as 'The Dark Knight' I was kind of looking forward to it. I knew it wouldn't be much more than a typical Hollywood attempt at horror but I thought I'd get at least 90 minutes of entertainment out of it. I was wrong.

The story is terribly contrived and goes through the typical horror story motions from start to finish: childhood trauma - check! Nightmares - check! It also takes so much content from other films its unbelievable. More unbelievable is the fact that it botches these 'homages' every time. The film plods on and on attempting to at least get a jump out of you (which it fails at) until finally you get to the finale. Needless to say, the finale is also terrible. More so because at least the one thing the film does manage to do is contain the odd decent special effect. However, the finale for some reason doesn't contain any of these effects and resorts to actors merely wearing contact lenses.

I'm perhaps being a bit harsh giving the film a 3/10 but given the actors involved and David S. Goyer's obvious writing talent, this film really should have delivered far more.

We get them every year now; so much so that it would probably feel a little odd, maybe even a little perplexing to the most avid of cinema goers not to be treated to the cinematic trite that is the generic Hollywood horror. And yet, despite the frequency and predictability to which such movies subscribe themselves to upon release during the lowest peaks of the year—they never seem to loose their impact. Of course, I must iterate that by using the term "impact" that I by no means indorse the idea that movies such as The Unborn manage to strike up any sort of reaction sans mind-numbingly potent boredom. No, instead the form of "impact" that The Unborn manages to achieve is one that is recycled year in, year out with such ventures in the clichéd and banal world of the modern cash-cow horror. It's the impact of "Wait, this is it? This is what I paid £8 to see? Wasn't this released in 2003?"—If your average Hollywood Horror is horror by the numbers then this is a severe case of number crunching gone mad on the part of those involved.

It's somewhat ironic then that such feature should be so confusingly named The Unborn. As if the notion of an unborn idea or concept could be so potent within the mind of film-maker big-shot David S. Goyer, the entirety of what happens to be one of his few ventures into directing makes clear why he should stick to producing and writing. From beginning to long overdue end, The Unborn is an uncouth, contorted mess of genre clichés, underdeveloped ideas, paper-thin characters and scares that manage to become even more tiresome than the regurgitated protagonists that they inflict themselves upon. From the creepy looking children pulling out the Ominous Stare of Death on empty roads to the wise, prophetic old coot who obviously took too much LSD in the sixties talking in riddles and spiritual mumbo jumbo-isms, Goyer's script here serves not as a testament to how horror should be done, but the exact antithesis. Of course, there are certain highlights to the feature which are infrequent and nevertheless rendered obsolete by the brain-dead mediocrity that surrounds them, but even the cliché of the pretty brunette panicking in her skimpy underwear doesn't offer much hope. What then, do you have? Well, nothing really.

Aside from the odd visual effect here and there that at least doesn't look terrible by contrast, and a few cameo performances that help bring the feature up a small notch; the majority of The Unborn is a dreary mix of mundane plotting and direction with lifeless portrayals by B-grade thespians who are as disconnected from the project as you could possibly be. For the most part, the story follows our protagonist as she seeks to reveal the scientific fact of why she has starting having horrific visions featuring a pale-skinned boy who keeps going on about someone wanting to be born. From here the feature tries to rationalise the irrational; throwing in some superstitious mysticism as concrete explanation and tossing it around as some sort of "aha!" logical slice of catharsis. Of course, with every horror feature, one must accept that certain leaps of faith must be made in order to indulge in the experience—yet with The Unborn, such a leap would mean to abandon faith entirely and subscribe to sheer lunacy; so how does an endless plummeting freefall sound, and would you pay for it? Again, this wouldn't be so detrimental if indeed Goyer had portrayed the events depicted here as anything but a contrived mess of over-indulgence existing only to challenge the viewer's perceptions of reality; but this isn't the case.

Instead what Goyer achieves here is a diabolical train-wreck of derivative horror movie absurdities infused with an uninspired sense of misdirection and humourless drivel. With every release of such a nature, there are of course the proponent objectors who will argue that the horror film is nothing to be taken seriously. And yet, I must ask; if I cannot be moved, scared, compelled, or even amused by a movie akin to the ninety minute catastrophe that is The Unborn, then what exactly is the point in watching at all? Indeed, if there are any advocators of Goyers' work here, I make no qualms at questioning their sanity, attention span or affliction for cinematic sadism. And yet, I honestly feel like David summed up the problem with his feature rather ironically through one of his own characters' words that I will use here to send off The Unborn back into the confines of the memory waste-basket.

"I can't say I truly believe in what's afflicting you, but I think you believe." - A review by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)

Funny thing. Just before this weekend I was thinking to myself, 'Where the hell are all the bad movies? About time you searched one out, lad.' Phew! In the nick of time "The Unborn" turned up.

Make no mistake, "The Unborn" was a real stinker. A horror in the worst sense of the word. I cannot imagine the wager that fine actors like Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino must have lost to get them to appear in this poo, but it must have been a big one.

Hurrah! There were some good things.

Some of the twisted body imagery was quite effective. (It was effective when it first appeared in "The Exorcist", twenty six years ago.) Also, Megan Fox lookalike Odette Yustman looked quite nice in her underwear.

Boo! There were many more bad things.

A predictable plot, cobbled together from a million other direct-to-video movies. No tension or scares whatsoever, with every story twist sign posted miles ahead. Awful acting, of course, with 'best friend' Meagan Good being top of the list of shame. Slow, boring, terrible.

I thought that "The Unborn" was absolutely dreadful. A rotten film.

Avoid.

The Unborn is terrible on all levels. Making use of awful horror clichés, packed with unintentionally funny moments that the director thought would be scary, and putting a dent in the careers of Gary Oldman & Idris Alba, there isn't a thing about this turd that's redeemable, for it is one of the worst examples of its kind.

The Unborn tells the story of a young woman who starts having nightmarish hallucinations about a kid with bright blue eyes, which soon escalate & continue to intensify in the subsequent days, thus compelling her to get to the root of all this. Eventually, she learns that an evil entity is trying to take possession of her body.

Written & directed by David S. Goyer, The Unborn jumps right into the middle without any proper introduction or foundation, and expects the viewers to jump aboard just like that. The characters are cardboard cutouts who have to utter garbage dialogues for 87 long minutes, and none of them are worthy of any emotional investment.

Even worse are its cheap attempts to scare, for most of those moments simply turn out to be lame, silly & predictable. Cold colour palette is finely utilised yet camera-work is sluggish, Editing isn't up to the mark either, for it is unable to provide a smooth narrative flow & also paces it unevenly. And further hurting it are its slew of bad performances.

On an overall scale, The Unborn is a poorly directed, lazily scripted & shoddily performed horror that's never for once compelling, takes uninspiring shortcuts at every available opportunity, and concludes with a wholly uninspiring finale that's devoid of any tension or terror. In a sentence, it's one of those instantly forgettable flicks that aren't worthy of your time & money. So just skip it.

This is a movie that really picks up in the second act. The first half relies a little too heavily on predictable spooks that don't make a lot of sense, and flaunting the main actress about in revealing clothing. However after a certain point you can notice the film starting to focus and becoming more creative and daring.

I'm only familiar with the Unrated DVD version, but given the choice it's often the most complete version anyhow.

In music and sound effects, you'll notice obvious influences from The Grudge, but nothing that is a plain ripoff. Fans of Silent Hill will see some influence as well which spices up the second half quite a bit. You need to stick with it, and get past the uninspired, cookie-cutter horror bits in order to see what is really being offered from this film.