The Unborn - Some Comments

Man, was I hoping for this film to be great. The box art sets the scene, a girl with a pair of tight fitting white pants, being stared at by a creepy kid imposed in such a way that he's actually in the position of you, the person holding the DVD. Weird fact - but a good one. Luckily, there's more positive stuff to say about the film than Odette Yustman's behind, though possibly not a huge amount.

Look out - spoiler alert!
Sometimes the soul of a dead person has been so tainted with evil that it is denied entrance to heaven. It must endlessly wander the borderlands between worlds, desperately searching for a new body to inhabit. And sometimes it actually succeeds.

Writer/Director David Goyer (Blade: Trinity, The Invisible, Batman Begins) gives a terrifying glimpse into the life of the undead in The Unborn, a supernatural thriller that follows a young woman pulled into a world of nightmares when a demonic spirit haunts her and threatens everyone she loves.

Casey Bell (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, Casey begins to understand why she left. Plagued by merciless dreams and a tortured ghost that haunts her waking hours, she must turn to the only spiritual advisor, Sendak (Gary Oldman), who can make it stop.

With Sendak's help, Casey uncovers the source of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany - a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything that is getting stronger with each possession. with the curse unleashed, her only chance at survival is to shut a doorway from beyond our world that has been pried open by someone who was never born.
Spoiler alert over

Now that we've got the story out of the way (this is one of the few instances where I'll actually reveal what it is as the film does it quite quickly anyway), I'll get to the positives. The acting is on the whole ok, with Yustman looking nicely shocked (if believing the whole thing quite readily).

The special effects when used where pretty good and the shocks reasonably, well, shocking. Tropes of the genre such as an 'old religious text' turning up are all welcome to the fan as they lend some grounding. As a fan of the possession sub-genre The Unborn is a decent film.

Now for the bad. Which unfortunately is rather larger list than the good. Oldman is just bizzare, I mean really bizzare in this role. Not that he's bad - just why did he do it? I can't see why they couldn't get any half-ok jobbing actor to do it. Bringing in someone with his acting credentials really left me wanting more.

Meagan Good's character was laughable - going from one moment a true believer to another of completely disbelieving the very evidence in front of her face. Some of her scenes were unintentionally shout-at-the-screen bad - though I'd suggest this was largely a scripting issue than anything else.

Finally, and this is an apt word, the final part of the film is a waste of time. The demon apparently wanted to possess the body of Odette Yustman's Casey (sounds like an interesting idea) and yet in the final 20 minutes or so seemed far more intent on simply strangling her to death. Seriously, WTF guys?

Subtlety is how this film starts off - with strange dream sequences that hold messages for the unknowing Casey. I just wish the film had been far more subtle throughout and I feel it would have been much more successful. Rarely can you, after all, provide shocks and a creeping atmosphere all at the same time.