I want to tell you something. Man-to-man. I love horror films. I adore them. Really, I do. You might think otherwise when seeing all of the horrible things I say about them. But in their prime existence, I think they're truly wonderful films. I have always been a fan of them, since my tiny wee youth, growing up by the television, amiably watching the gory deaths of teenagers. So why then, may you ask, do I complain about them?
Because they SUCK.
It’s a hard fact to accept. Almost every horror/thriller/suspense film I have seen in the past few years, with a few minor exceptions, have been all around terrible. They lack style. They lack finesse. They lack storyline. They lack dialogue. They lack character development. What they do manage to have a lot of is:
Cheap scares.
It seems these days that movies released to the cinemas are more focused on making their audience go “euh” a couple times and leap twenty feet into the air, spilling all of their popcorn onto the poor guy next to them. What they DON’T focus on is atmosphere, characters, or a feeling of discomfort. A good example of a film that provided a few of these positive elements was The Ring. There were very few “cheap scares” in the movie, and it made you feel incredibly uncomfortable with its digitized color scheme, which happened to be layered with gloomy colors of rainy green and grey, atmosphere and feeling of pure loneliness and death, and it had elements of mystery, discovery, and had a strong storyline. Of course, the film was ripped right off of a Japanese film, so it’s not like we can really take full credit for creating something genuinely scary if we didn’t even fucking think of it to begin with. The Ring also caused its audience to feel that it was the one single movie they would NEVER watch with the lights off in the middle of the night. After seeing the movie for the first time, watchers would get a “is there something behind me about to kill me” sensation that very few movies are able to achieve.
It’s been a while since I’ve said anything positive about The Ring. I’m surprised I even mentioned it, myself. I think that over time, after seeing dozens, upon dozens of horrible, shitty horror films, I’ve learned to appreciate it.
Today, I speak of one such atrocity that is an insult to the genre “horror”, “suspense” or “thriller”.
The Unborn.
I’m going to come clean—some stuff in the film was pretty fucked up, and it chilled me. But that was all there was to it. Filmmakers have to realize that making a horror film isn’t just about “how frightened can I make the audience?” You have to have a story, you know. You can’t just think of one story, and say “yeah that sounds pretty epic!” Then do a 180 and say “LET’S MAKE IT ABOUT DEMONS!!!!!!!!”
Before I begin ranting about The Unborn, let me first say, why is ALWAYS demons? No one talks about those poor souls “the ghosts” anymore. No. It’s demons. It is ALWAYS demons!!!! Let me say this: demons aren’t fucking scary. I can admit, right here and now, that ghosts are more capable of frightening me in a film than DEMONS. Do you know why? Well, whenever I picture a demon, I picture something that looks something like a goat-dragon. Somewhat comedic to be honest, not to mention that I love dragons. Another reason why demons aren’t scary is because they’re supposed to come from “Hell”, which is a purely fictional place, and when they are put in a film, it makes anyone with a brain wonder this: WHY WOULD A DEMON WASTE ITS FUCKING TIME ON EARTH TORTURING PEOPLE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS?! Some might argue, “well, deeeeeerp, that’s just what deemons doooo, derp!” Is it? You know what demons do, eh? They spend centuries trying to find a body to live in just to sit around being human? That’s what they do with their time? So Satan just runs an army of miscreants that do nothing but fuck around without doing their jobs? “Hey where the fuck is Bill?!” “Oh, he’s jumping around in human bodies again killing people.” “Um, well I kind of need him to help me organize this war against Heaven. Could you tell him to quit DICKING AROUND AND GET DOWN HERE?!?!?!”
In other words, a demon wasting their time on pathetic, random, nobody human beings is the stupidest concept when you think about it long enough.
As you probably surmised, The Unborn was about a demon. Just like Paranormal Activity, Mirrors, and Drag me to fucking Hell to name a few movies that went the “demon” route. Well at least Drag me to Hell was HONEST in its title regarding it containing a demon. Also, none of the movies I just mentioned are terrible, unlike The Unborn, which is god-awful. The film started out having a very intriguing story, I’ll admit that. James and I were both very interested to see what would happen, and we thought the story may have had some promise. But then it suddenly took a nosedive out of nowhere and rolled about in the gutter a few times before going “yeah I’m drunk, SO WHAT?!”
The protagonist, Casey, is having some…….. weird nightmares. The movies starts right in the middle of one. She’s going through what I think is Central Park, and there’s a blue glove on the ground that she for some reason stops to look at. So, how many times have I stopped walking to LOOK at a glove? I mean, it is a nightmare, so of course it doesn’t make sense, but I can’t say I’ve ever had nightmares where I looked at gloves, unless it was a quest item. I can’t be too judgmental about people’s dreams, considering mine are some of the most deranged. Next she sees this ugly bulldog. And it’s wearing some sort of mask on its face, one which resembles a kid’s face or something. I wonder how much that dog got paid to have its face covered by such a stupid-looking mask. I’d ask for at least fifty grand. So she follows the dog into the woods and the mask is laying there on the ground face-up, and… next I… really can’t tell you what happens. Green eyes? Is that it?
Casey gets to babysit the most fucked up kid on the planet. I’d ask for at least fifty grand for this, too. She catches the boy, who is named Matty, showing his baby sibling her reflection with a small mirror. I guess maybe he wants to be a dentist when he grows up, or he’s intent on making his sibling narcissistic, which probably wouldn’t require the aid of a mirror since most kids end up that way in this country. So Matty decides the next best course of action is to attack Casey with the mirror. She even acts terrified at this. He’s about four feet tall, if not shorter, I think you could probably take him, you pussy. He mutters “Jumby wants to be born now”, which you eventually hear quite a lot in the film. Yeah, Jumby. That’s not a typo.
Casey’s eyes change colors and we’re supposed to think that’s significant (it’s not). We’re told that it has something to do with being a twin or something. Sure, whatever. It’s still stupid either way. Casey apparently had no idea that she actually WAS a twin, and that she managed to strangle her infant brother in the womb with her umbilical cord. So she was crazy before she was even born. Good going, kid.
The baby, Matty’s sibling, dies, so Casey immediately justifies the “baby looking at its reflection” superstition, which apparently goes like: A baby will die if it looks at its reflection before a year passes. So, I don’t know where this originated, but I bet there are nutcases out there who believe it. Eh, why waste money on abortions? Just have your baby look in a mirror. It’s also cleaner. I suppose it’s implied that Matty was actually trying to kill his sibling with the mirror, which makes it even more fucked up knowing he succeeded.
Casey discovers that her parents nicknamed her unborn twin “Jumby” and that’s where it comes from. Of all things you can nickname your kid… you nickname him something that rhymes with “Gumby”. Sure, okay. So Casey now assumes that her twin brother is just a TAD upset about not being able to be born, so now he’s trying to come to life. This is where the entire story COMPLETELTY changes into something COMPLETELY different. Meanwhile, Casey sees some shit in her medicine cabinet. And by “some shit” I mean some twisted, demonic, deformed screaming child. Sure, it’s enough to make you go “euh” and jump. But after it happens, you think “um, what in the fuck was THAT about?” Seriously. Before she even opens the cabinet, she keeps hearing someone knocking from behind it. So she OPENS IT. “Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Hideous deformity.” “Hideous deformity who?” “BLRHGFHT4R5IPG445!!!!!” But that’s not all that confuses me about it. Why does it even happen? It doesn’t relate to a single thing in the story. I mean, later some old hag says “get rid of all of your mirrors and shit” but it’s never explained WHY! WHAT is the deal exactly with the mirrors? Why must she get rid of them? Why? What? Huh? WHY?!?!
Another thing I’d like to mention is the supportive, yet stereotypical boyfriend character. Casey’s boyfriend, while loving and helpful, is typically a dumbass, and even talks like one. Why are all men in the horror movies like this? Well, either like that, or they are realistic, yet always wrong. As James often says, the men are wrong for the right reasons, and the women are right for the wrong reasons. I’ll get into this more later or in another post. The movie is only half-over in my description.
Casey meets her ancient Jewish grandma who tells her that what is REALLY haunting her is a Dybbuk. Not a “ghost” mind you, but an evil spirit that possesses people. In other words, it’s a fancy way of saying “demon”. Do you see what I mean about the story changing? First it seemed like it would be about the dead baby twin trying to come back to life. But no, it’s an ancient evil spirit that has apparently been torturing this family FOR ENTIRE GENERATIONS. What apparently happened was, Casey’s grandmother, Sofi, had a twin brother who died to the Nazi Auschwitz experiments, and after he died, a dybbuk entered his dead body so that it could enter the world of the living. So Sofi did the right thing and murdered her brother a second time so the spirit would leave and then the spirit, with NOTHING ELSE BETTER TO DO, decided “fuck that bitch, I’m going to haunt her and torment her and the rest of her family for generations to get revenge.”
Does anyone else see problems with this? Again, why, why, why would this thing do that? I guess as a spirit, again, you have nothing better to do, but come on. For GENERATIONS?! Don’t you have to fuck with people’s Quija boards or something? Anything at all? Casey’s mother had even committed suicide because the spirit bothered her so much. Which makes me wonder something: I guess it only haunts women. Her husband didn’t seem too annoyed by this sprit, I guess it never talked to him or haunted him in particular. So Casey gets this ritual book and Sofi tells her to bash all her mirrors, because really, who cares about how you’ll look for work the next day when you have a dybbuk harassing your ass? So, naturally, Casey takes every word she says seriously and does exactly this.
Casey goes to a rabbi and asks if she can have an exorcism done. What I find bizarre is that she asks if the exorcism can be done to HER. The dybbuk isn’t possessing HER. From what they explained (more than SEVERAL times), the dybbuk can possess the person that kills the body its in. Yeah, that’s right. It can jump from body to body. So, then, wouldn’t performing an exorcism be kind of pointless? But, hey, they do it anyway. Don’t talk shit about these guys, they’re professionals, they know what they’re doing! I guess what they were trying to do was “Send it out of the world of the living” but where the fuck does it go after that? To Hell? I mean, it is a demon, right?
This is where the movie made me go “What the fuck just happened?” About ten thousand times. During the exorcism, a bunch of people die because the dybbuk suddenly has amazing superpowers and can snap people in half at will. You know, kind of like a DEMON has. So, yeah, bunch of dead retards lying around on the ground. Mark (the boyfriend) and Casey come to the conclusion that the dybbuk is “getting stronger!” Uh, stronger than what? Snapping people in half? If it got any stronger than that, WHY WOULD IT WANT TO BE ALIVE?!?!?! Think about this for two seconds: a spirit, who has the capability to snap people in half with its mind, hide behind mirrors and freak people out and make them shit their pants, can jump from body to body if anyone tries to kill you, WANTS TO BE A LIVING PERSON. Don’t living people wish they could do exactly all of these things? “Man I wish I could snap people in half with my mind!!! Oh, shit I’m dead now, and now I can. This is lamer than I thought, I want to be alive again. Oh, shit, I’m alive again and now I’m working a shitty minimum wage job, I wish I could snap my boss in half with my mind.” Really. This is just… so stupid, it hurts my head.
So I guess the dybbuk possess the priest and he chases them, or… something. Mark kills the priest, and obviously not learning anything, gets possessed himself. So Casey and the rabbi continue the ceremony and Casey willingly stabs her beloved in the neck with the amulet given to her. I’m going to assume that was part of the ritual, or at least hope it was. Casey and the rabbi send the dybbuk (demon spirit, it was, don’t fucking deny it) away… some…where. Maybe they sent it off to torture some other family for generations out of anger for having to put up with it for so long. Oh yeah, Mark dies.
Casey discovers that the reason why the dybbuk haunted her was because she was pregnant with her boyfriend’s twins.
So… conclusion… the dybbuk really, really, really, really wanted to be a twin, like bad. There was no real explanation for this, either. It was just……….. there. There you go, your movie. The dybbuk wants to be a twin. Maybe he has a fetish or something, I don’t know. All I know is, THIS MOVIE FUCKING BLEW!!!!!!
Thankfully though, I learned that most of this movie’s viewers actually agree with me. The Unborn received mostly negative reviews and… heh… there were a lot. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film got only an 11% rating, and only had 12 fresh reviews and 100 rotten.
The Unborn on Rotten Tomatoes:
On Metacritic, the Metascore was a measly 30 out of 100, with mostly negative responses.
The Unborn on Metacritic:
Ahh, there’s truly nothing more satisfying than seeing people agree with you when you say “that film was a piece of SHIT!!!”
My personal rating of this film is a -5. Because I can go down that low and you can’t on RT or MC.
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