The Unborn (1991)

Crappy film

An Exercise In Nonsense

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

A somewhat lame attempt to jump on the "evil baby" bandwagon, a sub-genre which includes such diverse titles ranging from the absolute classic (ROSEMARY'S BABY), to the fairly hopeless (I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN), to the inevitable obscure, foreign-made rip-offs (BABY BLOOD and DAMNED IN VENICE). THE UNBORN is a horror film containing lots of slow-burning dread and fear and a few moments of graphic horror to make up for the slow pacing and routine plot that the rest of the production offers. Characters are poorly-defined and set up to fall and the climax is let down by some really cheesy special effects of a killer baby which looks like nothing more than a rubbery doll. The script is over-wordy and the film let down by the central casting of Brooke Adams (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) who overplays it by overacting during the sequence in which she throws a tantrum and wrecks her house and proves to be unlikeable at other times, meaning that you never really care for her character. Brad Blaisdell, who plays her husband, is wooden and dull throughout, so his eventual death is not so much shocking as a much-needed case of "just desserts".The only actor of note in the proceedings is RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD's James Karen, but even he is wasted in the small role of the sinister scientist who causes all the aggro in the first place. His slimy death, in which his dying body is pelted by all manner of strange and unnatural slime and goo, is pretty amusing though. Trivia fans can spot a pre-FRIENDS Lisa Kudrow appearing in a one-scene cameo as a secretary. Gore fans will be disappointed that the blood is in short supply; aside from a nasty moment in which a lesbian massacres her lover there's only a knitting-needle-in-the-eye sequence to get excited about. THE UNBORN does deserve kudos for being brave enough to include one sick scene in which a woman stabs herself in her own pregnant stomach repeatedly but otherwise is a bit of a missed opportunity, following a well-worn and predictable route to a rather lame and tired conclusion. It's difficult to get worked up about any of the characters or their activities in this movie and as a whole it leaves a distasteful taste in the mouth come the downbeat, oh-so-surprising twist conclusion. None of the science-fiction elements are adequately explored or the reasons or results for their appearance explained, leaving them looking like nothing more than tacked-on shots to give the plot some kind of solid ground.

This film is alright if you've got some time to kill. This film did have real potential; a woman who can't have a baby goes to a doctor for in-vitro fertilization, but unfortunately the doctor is a madman who happens to be breeding a race of super-humans, and of course, it's all down hill from there.The build-up is simply amazing. Brooke Adams does an amazing job of a woman who is giving birth to something that she knows isn't normal. The way she portrays a character who is slowly going over the bend is brilliant. The film has an eerie and dark build-up to it (the cat scene in particular), it's a shame that the climax doesn't live up to the build-up.To be honest, the final scenes are just terrible. It throws it's the disturbing feel out of the window and just descends into really a really really bad b-movie. The effects are really bad - which normally isn't a problem, but these are seriously bad. This should be better for 1991.But, one thing does save the entire movie - gore! The film is extremely gory, and since the film is gore-fest from start to finish, then you can excuse the bad final scenes. Although it's a let-down, it's a fun movie to watch with friends if you have some time to kill.

The Unborn is a pretty good low-budget horror movie exploiting the fears associated with pregnancy. It's very well acted by the always-good Brooke Adams and b-movie stalwart James Karen, although the supporting cast is pretty average for a b-grader. The music, by Gary Numan of all people, is good too. Henry Dominic's script is quite intelligent for this sort of thing, although there is a hint of misogyny about it. Rodman Fender's direction is merely adequate, and there are some unnecessary cheap scares. If you're a fan of Adams, whose movie career is nowhere near as illustrious as it should be, check it out; she's great, as always.

This is a disturbing horror film - not for all tastes and definitely not for the faint of heart! It is about a doctor who is creating superhuman foetuses without the mothers' knowledge. Unfortunately, there are extreme side-effects. "The Unborn" is much more poignantly frightening than "Rosemary's Baby" primarily because of the brilliant, sharply spooky musical score by the "Godfather of Electronica" - Gary Numan - and the very graphic, shocking, and adrenaline-releasing final moments of the film; however, poor production standards and not the greatest acting (has somewhat of a B-Movie flavour) prevent the film from becoming one of the better films of its kind (like the aforementioned). DO NOT WATCH THIS ALONE IN THE DARK! (6 out of 10)