A ham-fisted horror movie that manages to put together deadly demonic possession, Nazi concentration camps and nasty wartime genetic experiments.
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02/27/09
The Unborn (2009)
12
%
Tomatometer
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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.
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... [More]
Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Good, Idris Elba
Director: David Goyer
Reviews for The Unborn
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.
02/27/09
Top CriticA scary movie so fantastically stupid and crass it made my skull contract and my sinuses harden to the consistency of pipe-cleaners.
02/27/09
Top CriticThis orgy of crazed effects, cheap scares and jittery suspense never remotely frightens us
01/29/09
Think of every scary-kid horror you’ve seen – this was how The Unborn was made.
02/27/09
The Unborn becomes rapidly tedious even as the body count racks up.
02/27/09
Less spine-chilling and more eye-drooping.
02/27/09
Over-egged and underwhelming, the best thing that can be said it that it provokes a few shocks - but these are easy wins and play no part in the propelling the plot along.
02/27/09
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.
03/06/09
David S Goyer’s non-kosher riff on ‘The Exorcist’ is stillborn,
02/27/09
Top CriticThis foolish film hitches an easy ride from the Holocaust.
03/06/09
Brazen in its borrowings and alternating between cynicism and silliness, this is a creatively barren effort that should have been stopped at conception.
02/27/09
Top CriticThis may dabble in Jewish mysticism and the legacy of the Nazi era but scratch the surface and you discover just another standard scary movie.
03/03/09
It’s hard to imagine a more ham-fisted attempt at the genre of ‘womb horror’ than this flat-footed supernatural drama with a Jewish twist.
02/27/09
Top CriticThe screenplay by Goyer himself, who wrote Blade and co-wrote The Dark Knight, this time doesn’t limber up.
02/27/09
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.
02/27/09
Packed with very scary moments and very disturbing images, this is not for the faint-hearted - that includes me.
03/03/09
Goyer's psychic dream sequences are pretty good - what a pity he decided to ruin them with a movie.
02/26/09
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.
03/06/09
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?
02/27/09
Latest News for The Unborn
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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. 
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January 09, 2009:
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