Chris and I saw Unborn today. Here's a synopsis without any major spoilers (you can probably guess as much from the trailers): College girl who's an alleged "hottie" runs around in her panties for an hour and a half while being haunted by a spirit that is trying to take over her body. The girl's name is Casey, by the way.
Of course, this movie had the stereotypical scary movie creepy, pale child. It seems like every scary movie nowadays needs one. Think of The Ring, The Grudge, The Orphanage, etc. Anyway, the creepy little neighbor boy in this movie kept saying "Jumby wants to be born." As you've probably guessed from the previews, Jumby is Casey's dead twin brother who died in the womb. Only, here's the thing that doesn't make sense. Or I should say, it's one of the things that doesn't make sense: The spirit haunting her is NOT the spirit of her dead brother, Jumby. It's a completely separate ancient evil spirit that has been haunting her family since WWII. So actually, Jumby never really makes an appearance in this movie. The trailer was so misleading.
The other thing that was annoying about this movie is Casey. She's a complete airhead. In my humble opinion, empty-headed characters in horror movies should be the first to die. That's why I liked Friday the 13th. Anyhoo, the evil spirit haunts Casey for days and attacks her when she is alone. And yet...she continues to sleep in her big, empty house by herself. She continues to take long walks in the countryside by herself. She rides empty trains in the middle of the night by herself. What's wrong with this girl? Oh, wait! I know! She's a complete idiot, but we're supposed to care about her because she's good looking and loose (morally, I mean). Gotcha.
I don't want you to think that I'm a complete hater. There are some redeeming things about Unborn. The first is that it's pretty funny in some parts. Unintentionally funny. But funny, nonetheless. Throughout the whole movie, Chris and I would giggle amongst ourselves and speculate out loud where we thought Jumby would appear next. For example, "I bet Jumby's in the closet!" "Jumby's in the toilet!" "No...Jumby's in the folder!". Luckily the huge theater was pretty much empty, so we didn't annoy too many people.
The other thing I liked about Unborn is Gary Oldman. Then again, I like Gary Oldman in a lot of movies. Dracula, the Harry Potters, the Batmans...In Unborn, he plays a rabbi who tries to perform an exorcism at the request of Casey. Just hearing him read aloud in Hebrew was pretty cool and he was the only character in the whole movie that I actually liked.
All in all, I wouldn't recommend spending $10 to go out and see this movie if you're looking for the next American classic horror film. However if you have nothing else to do and just want to go out to see a random movie, Unborn's not that bad. Go see it with friends or something. That way you can laugh about it together. Who knows, you might even get a blog post out of it.
The other thing that was annoying about this movie is Casey. She's a complete airhead. In my humble opinion, empty-headed characters in horror movies should be the first to die. That's why I liked Friday the 13th. Anyhoo, the evil spirit haunts Casey for days and attacks her when she is alone. And yet...she continues to sleep in her big, empty house by herself. She continues to take long walks in the countryside by herself. She rides empty trains in the middle of the night by herself. What's wrong with this girl? Oh, wait! I know! She's a complete idiot, but we're supposed to care about her because she's good looking and loose (morally, I mean). Gotcha.
I don't want you to think that I'm a complete hater. There are some redeeming things about Unborn. The first is that it's pretty funny in some parts. Unintentionally funny. But funny, nonetheless. Throughout the whole movie, Chris and I would giggle amongst ourselves and speculate out loud where we thought Jumby would appear next. For example, "I bet Jumby's in the closet!" "Jumby's in the toilet!" "No...Jumby's in the folder!". Luckily the huge theater was pretty much empty, so we didn't annoy too many people.
The other thing I liked about Unborn is Gary Oldman. Then again, I like Gary Oldman in a lot of movies. Dracula, the Harry Potters, the Batmans...In Unborn, he plays a rabbi who tries to perform an exorcism at the request of Casey. Just hearing him read aloud in Hebrew was pretty cool and he was the only character in the whole movie that I actually liked.
All in all, I wouldn't recommend spending $10 to go out and see this movie if you're looking for the next American classic horror film. However if you have nothing else to do and just want to go out to see a random movie, Unborn's not that bad. Go see it with friends or something. That way you can laugh about it together. Who knows, you might even get a blog post out of it.