An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
No spoilers! If you would like spoilers – check out the Spoiler post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at the 2009’s The Unborn
A woman (Odette Annable) plagued by strange nightmares discovers she’s been targeted by a vengeful supernatural entity tied to her family’s history.
Is The Unborn (2009) Scary?
There are a handful of jumpscares in The Unborn and one that got me really good but the problem the movie has overall when it comes to its scares is that it’s predictable. The Unborn might be scarier to those who haven’t seen a lot of horror movies but if you have, then you won’t be scared at all. Overall you won’t leave The Unborn scared of anything unless you have creepy children as neighbors.
Review:
The Unborn is okay. The acting and dialogue are a bit rough in the first half of the film but get better as we get deeper into the story. Overall the story is interesting and it helps that it tries to do things that you won’t see in other horror movies of the time. Some of the ideas presented in the movie regarding how to handle evil are also interesting but they don’t amount to much. Essentially the movie is way better in the second half than in the first half.
On several negative notes, the supporting characters in the first half all feel unnecessary and only show up when the story needs someone around. They don’t feel like real people or people that truly care about the main character until the script says they do.
The biggest negative The Unborn has is that it breaks its own logic and there’s no justification for it. The movie establishes that an evil entity needs the main character so it can accomplish its goals but, then the evil entity is shown doing things that were only supposed to be possible if it won. So why does it need the main character?
The movie also relies on a lot of horror tropes to the point that it feels like the writer just wanted to check off a list of tropes. This isn’t entirely a negative or a positive because it would really depends on how many horror movies you’ve watched.
Overall I can only recommend The Unborn if you have nothing else to watch and you want to watch something with an interesting story or if you haven’t seen a lot of horror movies. It is a bit predictable and contains a lot of tropes so if you’ve seen a lot of horror movies you might get bored. If you haven’t seen a lot of horror movies you appreciate this movie… if you don’t overthink its logic.
Cast IMDB