The Unborn

Cast: Gary Oldman, Odette Yustman, Cam Gigandet, Jane Alexander, Meagan Good, Carla Gugino, Idris Elba, Rhys Coiro, James Remar
Language: English
Banner: Platinum Dunes, Phantom Four
Director: David S. Goyer
Producer: Jessika Borsiczky Goyer, William Beasley, Michael Bay
Camera: James Hawkinson
Story: David S. Goyer
Screenplay: David S. Goyer
Dialogue: David S. Goyer
Music: Ramin Djawadi
Distribution: Rogue Pictures
Year: 2009

This well-named, fitfully and presumably unintentionally funny mess may be the first horror flick to contain the assurance that “no actual Torah scrolls were destroyed or damaged in the making of this motion picture.” Written and directed by David S. Goyer, 'The Unborn' does inflict harm elsewhere, notably on its hapless lead, the wincingly thin Odette Yustman as a hapless college student, Casey Beldon, who when not prettily posing in her underwear is screaming and screaming and sometimes running from a veritable laundry list of horror staples: creepy little children, creepy little ghost children and lots of creepy and crawly and slimy bugs.

Even creepier is Mr. Goyer’s use of the Holocaust as an atmospheric backdrop for his generic tale, which after many detours, shrieks and mild boo moments finally snakes back — in murky flashback — to Auschwitz and Josef Mengele’s experiments on twins. As it turns out, poor Casey is a twin, a condition that, for generational reasons, has attracted a shape-shifting dybbuk, which in Jewish mythology is the demonic spirit of a dead person that takes possession of the living. This dybbuk, which at its most nifty twists its head 180 degrees Linda Blair-style, can be rooted out only with the help of a Holocaust survivor (Jane Alexander, with numbers inked on her arm) and an exorcism performed by an accommodating rabbi (Gary Oldman in a skullcap).

Best known for his screenplays, including the first 'Blade' movie (he shares a story credit on 'The Dark Knight'), Mr. Goyer isn’t without visual or thematic ideas. The use of scores of the shiny, amber-colored potato bugs, also known as Jerusalem crickets, is a nice, shivery touch here, particularly when they are scuttling toward Casey and her wide-open, yowling mouth. And the dog with the twisted head could star in its own hound-of-hell sequel.

Yet the film teeters so perilously and routinely at the edge of camp, both with some of its casting choices and some unfortunate dialogue (the repeated warning that “Jumby wants to be born now”), that it’s hard to know if Mr. Goyer wants to make us howl with fear or laughter.

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