Image from the horror film, The Unborn _460
THE UNBORN (15, 87 mins)
Stars: Odette Yustman, Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet, Gary Oldman, Idris Elba, Jane Alexander, James Remar, Atticus Shaffer
Directed by David S Goyer
WRITTEN and directed by David S Goyer, The Unborn is a preposterous supernatural yarn that keeps a straight face while the rest of us are sniggering.
Gleefully appropriating elements from The Exorcist, including a possessed soul whose head swivels through 180 degrees, then scuttles up the stairs on all fours, Goyer’s film is generic horror hokum that awkwardly uses the Holocaust as a backdrop to an outlandish tale of secret experiments and evil spirits.
Leading lady Odette Yustman spends longer than is strictly necessary in just her underwear, wailing like a banshee as her cursed heroine is stalked by swarms of Jerusalem crickets and a demon child who keeps chanting: "Jumby wants to be born now."
The plot unfolds in fits and spurts, only making the whole enterprise more laughable as characters spill key information about dead twins and a mythological, shape-shifting force called a dybbuk, as if they were discussing the weather.
Thankfully, memories of this claptrap will soon wash away.
