Casey is haunted by disturbing nightmares in which she encounters a strange child with a cadaverous appearance and a dog wearing a human mask. When the strange child begins to appear to her even while awake and the iris of her left eye starts to take on a different color, the girl begins to dig into her past and especially into the events that led her mother to madness and suicide. In doing so, Casey discovers that she is a twin and that her brother died in the womb strangled by her umbilical cord, never seeing the light of day. But the strange presences that populate Casey's reality have roots in an even more distant past: they date back to the Holocaust.
Platinum Dunes is dominating the horror landscape in early 2009, with three titles produced by Bay & Co. released in the first two months: the mediocre thriller "The Horsemen," the thrilling "Friday the 13th," and now this forgettable ghost story "The Unborn." Making some personal observations, it seems that the much-criticized Platinum strikes the target better when it deals with stories recycled from the past, since the only two "original" films produced so far ("The Horsemen" and "The Unborn," that is) are very short of breath.
The problem at the heart of this ghost story, told without inventiveness and without flair by David S. Goyer ("Blade: Trinity"; "Invisible"), lies in the extreme sense of reheated soup that emanates from every frame. "The Unborn" is a story already told (much better) countless times, especially in the last ten years.
There is a bit of everything inside, from the Japanese-Spanish-inspired ghost film to the exorcistic vein that seems to look more at the forgotten "Lost Souls" than at the classic "Exorcist," something that was also done recently by the much more successfully insane "Mirrors of Fear." Thus, the various components sometimes blend with difficulty, other times with greater naturalness, without ever reaching memorable moments and/or true satisfaction in the viewer.
What seems to be the true intent of this film is to scare the viewer. And in this regard, Goyer seems to have studied the young scarecrow's manual by heart, so that every opportunity is the right one to place a spectral apparition or a sudden bus that exploits the always effective trick of the alternation of sound planes. For the most part, the attempts succeed, but they are more effective on a "casual" audience, because the horror habitué has also studied the aforementioned manual and can therefore easily predict in advance every "boooo" artfully scattered throughout the film.
"The Unborn" has two interesting ideas: the never-born twin who wants to reincarnate and the turn into Jewish folklore. Both ideas had material to be the sole theme of the entire film, but Goyer, also the screenwriter, decides to cook a rich dish of ingredients with the result of not giving prominence to any flavor and thus everything is approached with superficiality so that the story of the twin appears almost useless for the sake of the plot and the myth of the dibbuk is uniformed to any story of evil ghosts. Even the idea of rooting the nightmare in the history of the Holocaust against the Jews was undoubtedly a stimulating and, in its own way, original thought, but unfortunately even this is dismissed with a brief flashback and a small revealing explanation. It convinces little and even seems intrusive to the logic of the narration the final exorcistic turn, visually uninteresting and even carrier of unintentional irony.
Of course, not all evil comes to harm and so the positive aspects are also found in "The Unborn." As previously mentioned, some "scare" scenes are effective, albeit predictable, and the use of special effects is rather intelligent, aimed at arousing horror rather than amazement. Among the many, the scene that will surely remain impressed in the viewer's mind is the one in the nursing home for the elderly and which sees a paraplegic possessed and dislocated, very reminiscent of the spider-Regan of exorcistic memory.
The photography, as usual for the Platinum Dunes productions, is one of the film's strengths, the work of James Hawkinson who fills the film with livid and autumnal colors, managing to wrap everything with a decadent and oppressive tone.
In the cast stands out a beautiful Odette Yustman ("Cloverfield"), of whom we will surely hear more in the future, surrounded by Megan Good ("The Uninvited"; "Saw V") and Cam Gigandet ("Never Back Down"; "Twilight"), one of the most inexpressive actors among the young people launched in Hollywood. In the role of Rabbi Sendak appears a Gary Oldman ("Bram Stoker's Dracula"; "The Dark Knight") under tone, while in the roles of the protagonist's parents appear James Remar ("The Warriors") and Carla Gugino ("Sin City").
"The Unborn" is a routine little film, perhaps produced late for the times or perhaps early for a new wave of ghost movies, this is still not clear. Some easy scares, a bit of boredom and a lot of déjà-vu.
Ideal for couples on a Saturday night in withdrawal from "The Ring."
Comments
Comments (0)
Comments