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Movies / On DVD / The Unborn
The Unborn

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The Unborn (2009)

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Reviews Counted:103

Fresh:12

Rotten:91

Average Rating:3.2/10

Consensus: David Goyer's Unborn is a tame genre effort with cheap thrills and scares that border on silliness.

Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images, thematic material and language including some sexual references.

Runtime: 88 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Theatrical Release:27-02-2009

Synopsis: Sometimes the soul of a dead person has been so tainted with evil that it is denied entrance to heaven. It must endlessly wander the borderlands between worlds, desperately searching for a new body... Sometimes the soul of a dead person has been so tainted with evil that it is denied entrance to heaven. It must endlessly wander the borderlands between worlds, desperately searching for a new body to inhabit.

And sometimes it actually succeeds.

Writer/director David Goyer (Blade: Trinity, The Invisible, Batman Begins) gives a terrifying glimpse into the life of the undead in The Unborn, a supernatural thriller that follows a young woman pulled into a world of nightmares when a demonic spirit haunts her and threatens everyone she loves.

Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, Casey begins to understand why she left. Plagued by merciless dreams and a tortured ghost that haunts her waking hours, she must turn to the only spiritual advisor, Sendak (Gary Oldman), who can make it stop.

With Sendak's help, Casey uncovers the source of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany--a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything that is getting stronger with each possession. With the curse unleashed, her only chance at survival is to shut a doorway from beyond our world that has been pried open by someone who was never born. --© Rogue Pictures [More]

Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Good, Idris Elba

Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Good, Idris Elba, Cam Gigandet, James Remar, Jane Alexander

Director: David Goyer

Director: David Goyer
Screenwriter: David Goyer
Producer: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller
Composer: Ramin Djawadi
Studio: Rogue Arts

[See More Credits]

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    I Need an Exorcism
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    Escaping the Exorcism Room
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    Jumby Wants to be Born
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  • Possessed
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    Exorcism Authorization
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1 - 4 of 6

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Reviews for The Unborn

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1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
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Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
02/27/09
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Packed with very scary moments and very disturbing images, this is not for the faint-hearted - that includes me.

Full Review Source: Sunday Mail [UK] | comment Comment
03/03/09
Mickey McMonagle
Mickey McMonagle
Sunday Mail [UK]

Despite some massive flaws and a disappointing over-reliance on jump scares, The Unborn is comfortably the best entry yet from Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay’s previously remake-happy horror production outfit.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
02/27/09
Tom Ambrose
Tom Ambrose
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

This supernatural horror is nonsense on toast.

Full Review Source: Sun Online | comment Comment
02/27/09
Sun Online
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The Unborn isn't the worst horror film you'll see in 2009, but the prospect of a sequel (which the film teases at the finale), is probably the biggest fright in the 88 minutes.

Full Review Source: Digital Spy | comment Comment
03/06/09
Alex Fletcher
Alex Fletcher
Digital Spy

This may dabble in Jewish mysticism and the legacy of the Nazi era but scratch the surface and you discover just another standard scary movie.

Full Review Source: Daily Express | comment Comment
03/03/09
Allan Hunter
Allan Hunter
Daily Express

The Unborn is packed full of grisly images and effects, but its apparent attempts to be some kind of Jewish take on The Exorcist fail miserably.

Full Review Source: Filmstar Magazine | comment Comment
08/17/09
Anne Wollenberg
Anne Wollenberg
Filmstar Magazine

The demonic possession plot thereafter breaks down in a tasteless swamp of Nazi experiments on twins, dogs with inverted heads and an exorcism led by rabbi Gary Oldman. Oy vey! The kosher paranormal: a trend in the offing?

Full Review Source: Independent | comment Comment
02/27/09
Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Independent

Unborn should have been strangled at birth.

Full Review Source: Daily Mail [UK] | comment Comment
02/27/09
Christopher Tookey
Christopher Tookey
Daily Mail [UK]

Less spine-chilling and more eye-drooping.

Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | comment Comment
02/27/09
David Edwards
David Edwards
Daily Mirror [UK]

The screenplay by Goyer himself, who wrote Blade and co-wrote The Dark Knight, this time doesn’t limber up.

Full Review Source: This is London | comment Comment
02/27/09
Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm
This is London

Cue a creepy toddler, various demonically possessed adults and a Jewish exorcism conducted by Gary Oldman. He’s a vastly better actor than the film deserves, but he can’t make the script seem even slightly better than it is.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
03/06/09
Edward Porter
Edward Porter
Sunday Times (UK)

Unsatisfying, hokey and never that scary (unless you’re the type who jumps at every loud noise or sudden appearance in this sort of movie), The Unborn outstays even its brief lifespan.

Full Review Source: SFX Magazine | comment 1 Comment
03/03/09
James White
James White
SFX Magazine

Think of every scary-kid horror you’ve seen – this was how The Unborn was made.

Full Review Source: thelondonpaper | comment Comment
02/27/09
Jonathan Crocker
Jonathan Crocker
thelondonpaper

The Unborn becomes rapidly tedious even as the body count racks up.

Full Review Source: Little White Lies | comment Comment
02/27/09
Jonathan Crocker
Jonathan Crocker
Little White Lies

Hampered by the 15 rating, director David S Goyer is reduced to yawn-worthy jump-scares and recycled Exorcist gags to do his dirty work.

Full Review Source: Total Film | comment Comment
02/27/09
Ken McIntyre
Ken McIntyre
Total Film

A ham-fisted horror movie that manages to put together deadly demonic possession, Nazi concentration camps and nasty wartime genetic experiments.

Full Review Source: Sunday Mirror [UK] | comment Comment
02/27/09
Mark Adams
Mark Adams
Sunday Mirror [UK]

Brazen in its borrowings and alternating between cynicism and silliness, this is a creatively barren effort that should have been stopped at conception.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
02/27/09
Matt Glasby
Matt Glasby
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Well made, but ultimately underwhelming horror that never really comes to life, despite some creepy visuals and a handful of cheap shocks.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
02/26/09
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

David S Goyer’s non-kosher riff on ‘The Exorcist’ is stillborn,

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/27/09
Nigel Floyd
Nigel Floyd
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
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Latest News for The Unborn

July 06, 2009: RT on DVD: Knowing, Push, The Unborn Unleashed
It's a genre lover's feast this week on DVD, but don't say we didn't warn you about those pesky rotten Tomatometers. First up? Alex Proyas's latest science fiction thriller,... More...

January 19, 2009: Though some images are on the terrifying side, this mostly outlandish tale is riddled with homicidal tots, interdenominational exorcists, and attention deficit disorder dybuks who can't make up their mystical minds which body is cool enough to inhabit. Opens in new window
More...

January 09, 2009: Though some images are on the terrifying side, this mostly outlandish tale is riddled with homicidal tots, interdenominational exorcists, and attention deficit disorder dybuks who can't make up their mystical minds which body is cool enough to inhabit. Opens in new window
More...

January 08, 2009: Critics Consensus: Say "I Don't" To Bride Wars
This week at the movies, we've got a bridal battle (Bride Wars, starring Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson); a cranky car enthusiast (Gran Torino, directed by and starring Clint... More...

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