The Unborn (2009) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A woman believes she is being haunted by the ghost of her unborn twin.

Review: DAT ASS! Oh dear lordy, you know it's a desperate marketing ploy when, not only do they feature that ass-shot more than once in the actual film, it's also on the movie poster and featured in the trailer. In case you couldn't tell, there's actually a ghost kid on that poster too. It's as if the producers were like, "Dude, we have to make a movie about that tease's ass from "Cloverfield!" Oh, who am I kidding...that's the perfect inspiration for film making! Fucking unborn. Ughhhh...this movie was sooo stupid. My god. The damn ghost wasn't even unborn!

The story is your typical collage of cliches mixed with a shitload of predictability. So yeah, you have the "Cloverfield" tease herself, Odette Yustman, as the main girl, Casey, who is seeing visions of a creepy little boy wherever she goes along with various hallucinations. She learns that she had a twin brother that died in the womb apparently being strangled by her umbilical cord. But rest assured, this is simply a stupid fake-out to get the plot rolling. Casey's mom committed suicide when Casey was a kid and conveniently left behind clues on the off chance she would come to discover them years down the road. Thanks mom. Through nothing short of contrivances, Casey discovers her long lost grandma that was like "fuck having a family" and has been chilling out at the best old folk's home I've ever seen. It would seem the ghost is not actually the unborn brother, but was Casey's uncle, the grandma's brother, who was killed as a part of an experiment with the Nazis. Yeah, I wish I were making that up. And get this--they were trying to do an experiment to give everyone blue eyes as the thing that killed him. Shaking my head on that one. Anyway, the death somehow allowed a dybbuk to take hold of the boy's body. A dybbuk is an evil human spirit from Jewish mythology that tries to possess people; keep in mind this is different from a demon or non-human entity. Magically, the grandma got rid of the dybbuk back then, but it haunted the family through the generations and is after Casey now. Blah, blah, blah, people die, shenanigans, and Casey convinces a rabbi to do an exorcism on her. With the help of pointless fodder, they do perform the exorcism and seemingly get rid of the spirit, but Casey's boyfriend dies (boo hoo) in the process. The movie ends beyond predictably as we discover the reason the dybbuk chose now to appear is because Casey is pregnant...and with twins to boot. Oh really? I NEVER would have seen that coming! I would have actually been surprised if they didn't end it that way.

Now I want to run down all the stupid things. First off, like I said, the fucking ghost wasn't even unborn! In fact, who the fuck was the ghost?! He keeps taking the form of the uncle but why? And what exactly about these idiotic Nazi experiments allowed the ghost to possess the dead body? If he can possess dead bodies, isn't it feasible the ghost had opportunities to come back a lot more often than once every 20-30 years? Worse, the movie keeps referring to the dybbuk as "Jumby." Jumby was the nickname for Casey's unborn brother so why the hell would the dybbuk refer to itself as that while taking the form of the uncle? Who the hell nicknames their kid before they're born anyway rather than thinking up the actual names? Yeah, let me get on that shit. Hey Rika, I want our future twin girls to be nicknamed Kayako and Natre...hope you don't mind, dear! It's like they forgot halfway into the movie that the ghost wasn't supposed to be Casey's brother! Actually, is the dybbuk even a ghost? They talk like it's a demon from a different dimension...which would make this creature not even a dybbuk. Oh for fuck's sake. If the dybbuk can easily possess, hell, pretty much anyone, why is he fucking around with Casey at all? I mean, what the hell?! Plus, he has all these awesome powers and seems like he can do whatever he wants--what exactly is the rush to be a regular human? That's great grandma was able to beat the ghost back in the day when she was a little girl...care to tell us how you pulled that one off? Wouldn't that have made for a better movie--a little girl fighting her possessed dead brother while trapped in a concentration camp? The scares are moronic too and consist of nothing but sudden growls at the screen and horrible CGI of upside down heads. The movie also teased me at one point with the death of a super annoying brat but then makes him survive through magic. That's unforgivable. There are a lot of likable actors in this film like Gary Oldman, Idris Elba, two people from "Dexter," the original Silk Spectre (mega milf Carla Gugino), etc. and they're all wasted to my greatest dismay; characters merely come and go on a whim with little effort put into making them integral to the plot. What, did they just call in every favor they had for this shit? And perhaps the most egregious offense of them all, Casey's boyfriend is played by Cam Gigandet. Arrrgh. You remember him from my review of "The Roommate," right? That douche who can't stop smirking in every goddamn scene with the absolute most punchable face in the world! At least he dies though (now I get to smirk, bitch). He was so pointless too and didn't do jackshit as if we're supposed to be all caught up in their romance. That's funny.

Honestly, if you take away the ass-shots, what is really left? I guaran-damn-tee you the majority of people who ended up watching this shit did so because of that enticement. While it is a sweet ass, it's not even close to being worth it to put up with this movie. Too many cliches, lameness galore, an incoherent plot, and leaves you with the sobering realization that you're time could be put to better use. Other than decent cinematography, I can't really think of anything else good to say. Despite that, this isn't the worst movie out there. I would say this simply falls under the shitty rental category with perhaps that inkling of potential that a few people might enjoy it.

Notable Moment: When they honestly try and make a scare out of a glory hole scene. Really? A fucking GLORY HOLE?! Okay, let me collect myself for a second...are you fucking shitting me here?! I have no words for this...

Final Rating: 4.5/10