The Unborn

So, this was my first movie that came out in 2009 that I’ve had the chance to see, I don’t really know what I think about it being The Unborn though. I’ve got to admit before I start my review though; I had to have sort of high expectations for it, mainly because of it being written by David. S Goyer, who wrote Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and because Gary Oldman was one of the stars, and he’s my second favorite actor of all-time. Personally, I’m not really sure about Goyer’s directing, I mean I love his writing, but I think that he should just stick to writing and not directing. I do have to say though, Goyer’s writing for this was the best thing about The Unborn, and so I guess I’m pretty happy about that. There really wasn’t much else that I was really happy with like I was happy with the writing.

One of the things that I was most excited for about this was that I thought the creatures looked really cool from the trailer, so that’s something that I had hoped would help make this movie ‘cool’. Sadly I was very wrong; it has to have some of the worst special effects that I’ve ever seen, hands down. With one scene this dog’s head is supposed to be turned upside down, it really looks like the head was put on there using photoshop. I do got to admit though, when the old man’s head was supposed to be turned upside down, it looked miles better than the dog’s scene. I’d actually call the dog head scene one of the worst special effects scenes that I’ve ever seen, maybe the worst. Besides those two scenes though, there really wasn’t much special effects, besides the bugs, which I didn’t have a problem with really. So the effects didn’t effect my ratings too much, they definitely effected them some though.

Personally, one of the main things that saved this movie for me, besides the writing, was Gary Oldman. I wouldn’t call this one of his best performances or anything, but he was still as great as usual, it didn’t really save this movie as much as I had hoped for him to save the movie. One thing that really upset me about his role in this is that he barely had any screen time; I mean he wasn’t even introduced until about half way in the movie, he needed more screen time. Another thing that really helped save this movie for me was Odette Yustman, I think she’s a very underrated actress, she can actually act good, and she’s showed me this with The Unborn and Cloverfield. She’s also really hot, so seeing her in this really helped. Besides those two though, most of the other actors are very mediocre, some of them are just really bad. I was sort of upset to see Megan Good get one of the main roles of the movie, which was just bad casting decisions because she just can’t act good. Her acting is really the only acting in the movie that I hated, but like I said before, everyone else was just mediocre.

This makes up for that atrocity of a horror movie that can out this same weekend last year, One Missed Call, though. I was glad to see that it didn’t turn out as bad as that; I really would’ve been upset if it did. I really loved the ending to it, well not the very last minute ending, but the whole ending scene was great. Right from when the exorcism began, up until the very end of the scene was just amazing IMO. The very last second of it with Gray Oldman, Odette Yustman, and her boyfriend was my favorite thing in the whole movie. I still did like the last minute of it though, it gave a good explanation of why this was all happening. And you know, despite the crappy effects it had and the mediocre acting it had, I still really enjoyed it. I mean it’s not one that I’d go pay to see again in theaters, but I can definitely see me buying the DVD whenever it comes out. And I’d recommend it to anyone interested in it, it may be better if you just wait for the DVD release though if you don’t have much interest in it. It’s definitely one of the better PG-13 horror movies that we’ve had so far though.

6.5/10