The Unborn

I kind of sandwiched this film in between Christmas horrors and Nightmare on Elm Street 4 blog entries; kind of funny how these blogs sometimes turn out.

Jumby wants to be born now.

Getting the synopsis out of the way:

Casey is having weird dreams about a demonic child, a dog with a weird mask, and this is starting to find its way into her life when a mirror held by a four year old boy to his sibling, reflecting face, scratching her in the face, a catalyst in all the supernatural terror that eclipses this collegiate beauty. Her eyes take on a peculiar bluish hue/pattern (it starts with just the left eye), and it is soon learned that her mom suffered that same condition, dying in an asylum practically a creepy catatonic. The superstition of the baby shouldn’t be seeing its reflection comes to fruition when found dead, Casey further burdened with this sinister feeling that all is not right, and seeing the phantom boy outside the dream only enhances a blooming dread and anxiety. Later learned that the blue in her eye was a genetic condition, soon discovering a twin brother choked by her umbilical cord, Casey starts to realize that the boy she’s seeing in her dreams could very well be Jumby. Trying to get answers regarding her mother’s suicide and why she was interested in a Holocaust survivor, Sofi (and a boy’s image in a photograph where she was pregnant), Casey will investigate, hoping to determine if she’s going crazy like her once-normal mom or something truly evil is out to get her. Sofi was a survivor at Auschwitz, her twin brother a victim of the “blue eye/brown eye” twin experiments thanks to those evil Nazis, his death giving a host body to an evil spirit known as a dybbuk. A text in Hebrew, from Kabbalah, could hold the answer to an exorcism of Casey removing this dybbuk from her life. She will need the assistance of a Rabbi Sendak (Gary Oldman, doing the best he can to evoke sincerity, stuck in a “paycheck” film that must’ve been difficult to keep a straight face in) in translating the text and performing an exorcism. Sofi gives her a “protective medal”, called the Hand of Miriam. At least, The Unborn has Jewish mysticism and exorcism, a little bit of a change from the norm in regards to ridding one’s body of demonic possession. Sofi tells her of breaking mirrors and burying the glass remains, and how wind chimes can inform you when the dybbuk is near. With assistance from an Episcopal priest, Arthur Wyndham, certain volunteers willing to assist, and an EMT standing by just in case, Sendak will attempt to help Casey (along for moral support, her boyfriend, Mark) get rid of the dybbuk, in an exorcism ceremony located where her mom committed suicide (in actuality, the dybbuk caused her death).

Ode to Odette

 
I had already seen this and thought it was shit but had a little experiment in mind involving bad films featuring striking moments. Mostly involving the beauty and sex appeal of Yustman, for sure, but just taking a look at the film in a goal just to attain moments that leave an impression even though the script, characters, and storytelling are lacking. This is the epitome of “going through the emotions”.

Cribbed from other films, without much heart or soul, The Unborn, about a demon child wanting to be reborn through Casey, used plenty of advertising regarding Odette Yustman (Odette Annable, now) in a tiny white shirt and those tight, itsy bitsy panties to get people’s interest. Well it certainly garnered my interest, but the film wasn't exactly lighting my fire once the plot actually kicks in full gear and we get the typical exorcism with those longish special effects finales where those in attendance are destroyed by the demon boy. 

 You have quite a cast. Oldman and Idris Elba often wind up in junk like this, deserving better. Both try to add credibility to the lines and situations presented in the film. Elba, frankly, is wasted and underutilized. Oldman can show up and offer potential salvation to Yustman, convincing as he can be, but citing scripture while CGI effects hurl papers and bodies of extras in the room are possessed and broken had to have been difficult. It was almost like I could just since how bored this role was for Oldman. Yustman was hired basically for her body to be lusted. I think comparisons to Megan Fox were apt. Cam Cigandet is pretty much the male version of Yustman, eye candy buff stud for the girls.

Jane Alexander is one of those seasoned veterans hired by movies like these to lend a sense of professional courtesy to a picture that certainly needs such a pro to give certain scenes a bit more credo. She’s received the Sofi character, turning out to be Casey’s grandmother and providing the answer to what is plaguing the lead character of the film. She is the storyteller who informs us of the ghoulish history of why the dybbuk came to inhabit the lives of her kin, an intruder upon innocent lives, forever ruining their ability to function normally.

 This PG-13 flick tries to stay within the parameters of its rating, but pushes it sometimes. The creatures that pop up in Yustman’s nightmares, her scantily clad scenes, the emphasis on terror (however ineffectual..), the possessed humans through the power of the dybbuk. I do find it especially hard to feel inspired when writing about a movie like this but it did have some visual moments that struck my fancy. Yustman was quite stunning, but her performance was rather lifeless, which seems to defeat the purpose of the movie. We're supposed to care about her condition, but she does little to motivate us to emphasize. Sure the film itself presents a rather unsettling idea of what is tormenting her (although the story just little to grip or compel me in spite of moments of brilliance in image); besides the director of cinematography's best efforts to frame her intoxicatingly, little else besides her beauty is of interest to me.

The Unborn has ugly ghouls. Everyone is making ugly monsters these days, digital nightmares created with the hope of freaking you out. They're awful ugly in the The Unborn, no doubt. The filmmakers go the blue-eyed route with those possessed; the scenes involving the possessed are lit dark, too. Maybe too dark? The twist should not be too surprising. Predictable and expected actually from me, with a title so blatantly spelling it out.