Movie Review: The Unborn

The Unborn (2009) 

Directed by David S. Goyer 

Written by David S. Goyer 

Starring Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Goode, Cam Gigandet, Idris Elba

Release Date January 9th, 2009 

Published January 10th, 2009

The Unborn is one of the more challenging moviegoing experiences I have had in my less than a decade as a film critic. It's not the films content that was challenging, the content is far too goofball to be challenging. No, the challenge was trying to keep a straight face as the desperate, sad cast made their paces through this slog of utterly ludicrous horror cliches.

Odette Yustman, one of the last people killed in J.J Abrams 2008 hit Cloverfield, stars in The Unborn as Casey, a pretty but bland teenager haunted by visions of a ghostly child. One night, as she is babysitting for a neighbor, the little boy she is watching bashes her over the head with a small mirror and tells her that Jumby (Yes, that isn't a typo, JUMBY) wants to be born now.

Jumby was the nickname that mom and dad gave to the twin who died in the womb next to Casey when she was born. Casey was unaware that she was supposed to be a twin and while that could be intriguing or dramatic, I was left wondering what Casey's embarrassing nickname was? Bumby? Tumby? That question is more interesting than any question posed in The Unborn. 

Casey comes to find that her grandmother also had a twin brother who died at Auschwitz, oh yes they drag the holocaust into this goofy plot. According to family lore, that twin died and was replaced by an evil spirit, a Dybbuk, a Jewish legend about an evil spirit. Granny killed her brother after his possession and the spirit has haunted her ever since.

Now the evil spirit wants Casey and she pins her hopes on an exorcism to save her. Gary Oldman plays a skeptical Rabbi who takes up the exorcism after he is visited by Spuds McKenzie, the former beer spokesman, only his head is upside down and he's lost that ridiculous Hawaiian shirt. You have to see it for yourself perhaps, but I assure it's as funny as my description of it. 

The Rabbi calls on a priest friend played by Idris Elba for help and several cannon fodder volunteers who will helpfully die on command once the spirit is unleashed. We know these characters are DOA at the exorcism because they don't even get names, they may as well have victim 1, victim 2 and so on, written on name tags.

Cam Gigandet, an actor who betrays fratboy douchebaggery with his every douchebag mannerism in both Never Back Down and Twilight brings that malevolent maleness to the good guy role of Casey's boyfriend who may as well also just line up as potential victim number 4. I'm being harsh about Gigandet, I can assume he is a nice person. His performances however, lead me to my insulting conclusions about his characters, if not the man playing them. 

The Unborn was written and directed by David S. Goyer who wrote the script for the first 2 awesome Blade movies and then directed the abysmal 3rd one. He co-wroter script of The Dark Knight. Can you see the pattern? Maybe Mr. Goyer should stick with the pen and leave the directing to someone else? Then again, even the writing stinks in The Unborn. 

The evil spirit inhabits a neighbor child, a friend, an upside down headed dog, the priest, and several others in the film but for some reason beyond explanation, the evil spirit cannot get his hands on Casey. This is purely due to Goyer's inability to come up with a logical reasoning behind any of the decisions he makes in this movie. Leaving the audience asking too many questions is a surprisingly typical writing failure from a usually more talented writer. 

Unwelcome logical question number 1: If the evil spirit can inhabit anyone it wants, why does he need Casey? Number 2: If he gets her, what does he do then? I realize these questions are entirely unwelcome, especially in a movie where the director is more interested in his choice of creepy looking bug -potato bug instead of the traditional cockroach, for those of you scoring your horror cliches at home- than in actually crafting an engaging horror thriller.

Watching The Unborn, it was a chore to keep from bursting out into gales of laughter at the ill logic of the terrifically awful staging and most unfortunately at the performance of Ms. Yustman who amounts to little more than a pout and a hair style. Yustman is not a bad actress, she's just unfortunately stuck in this silly, poorly thought out plot that undermines anything good she might bring to this movie. 

The Unborn is a movie that the folks at the sadly defunct Mystery Science Theater would have loved. It has that perfunctory B-list star, the slumming Gary Oldman, and the overall air of attempted atmosphere and self seriousness that Crow T. Robot and company so successfully took the air out of. The Unborn will make you long for The Crawling Eye or This Island Earth with its awfulness. By the way, I'm told that members of MST3K have new incarnations of the MST brand online. Maybe someone can sneak them a copy of The Unborn. One can only wish.

Movie Review: Cloverfield

Cloverfield (2008) 

Directed by Matt Reeves

Written by Drew Goddard 

Starring T.J Miller, Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan, Odette Yustman

Release Date January 18th, 2008

Published January 18th, 2008

The monster movie has grand history. Not just the great Godzilla but the subtext that accompanied the great lizard. Frankenstein's monster was both a force of horror and a force of subtext, addressing repression, discrimination and the dangers of mob mentality. The modern monster movie has had less and less on the subtextual front with movies like The Mist reveling in the technology necessary in creating giant monsters rather than crafting a message to work in behind the monster.

Now comes Cloverfield from producer J.J Abrams and director Matt Reeves. Much like The Mist, Cloverfield is mostly about technology and movie magic and not so much about stimulating the brain or making audiences think.

There is however, some visual allusion to deeper meaning. Because Cloverfield is about a monster destroying New York, crushing skyscrapers and such, the spector of 9/11 lingers in the margins. Director Matt Reeves makes a very conscious decision to use imagery of that day in his monster movie and these moments are highly discomfiting. For all the great subtextual moments in the history of the monster movie, some movies aren't worthy of such serious underpinnings or deeper meanings. Cloverfield with it's cardboard characters and giant monster motif simply is too superfluous to refer to our nations greatest tragedy without seeming to demean it.

Rob (Michael Stalh David) is leaving New York for Japan. His closest friends are throwing him a huge going away party. While Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) runs around causing trouble for his long suffering girlfriend Lilly (Jessica Lucas), Rob's best friend Hud (T.J Miller) has been left with the task of filming the whole event for posterity. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the guest of honor, his friends have invited his ex Beth (Odette Yustman) to the party. Actually, Rob and Beth are supposed to be just friends but we know that they have slept together and that Rob screwed things up really bad, so bad that Beth arrives at the party with a date.

All of this personal angst is rendered meaningless when an explosion rocks the apartment building and suddenly the head of the statue of liberty is flung down the street. Soon a mass evacuation is underway and our new friends are frantically running the streets with Hud filming the whole time as is typical of our youtube culture.

I must say that though I find Cloverfield to be shallow, it is quite thrilling at times. Crossing The Blair Witch Project's shaky cam with a big budget CGI monster, Cloverfield creates a viscderally exciting atmosphere where this giant moster attack feels real. Director Matt Reeves made some interesting choices in allowing actor T.J Miller who plays Hud, to actually shoot some of the film with his little handheld camera. Most of the action is captured with a steadicam and skilled operators but all of the action feels authentic in it's slightly goofy, monster movie way.

I'm still hung up on the shallow allusions to 9/11. While I appreciate the history of moster movies and great subtext and metaphor but something about Cloverfield feels unworthy of the tragedy it samples more than metaphorically reflects. Cloverfield plays like 9/11 movie mashed up with a monster movie and the two elements coalesce like Weird Al Yankovich mashed with Radiohead.

That said, I cannot deny that Cloverfield is exciting and compelling. I was caught up in the films run and hide and run some more plot and at a mere 80 minutes, Cloverfield does not overstaty it's welcome. Puddle deep with uncomfortable allusions, Cloverfield is little more than a modern monster movie with new age movie magic employed to good effect. I recommend it for anyone with a strong stomach, all that shaky cam can tend to make some a little queasy.