THE UNBORN

THE UNBORN: Nazis have been a reliable cinematic scapegoat for all sorts of evil plots, from stealing the lost ark to bioengineering undead supersoldiers. But David Goyer’s The Unborn really lays it on thick, blaming the Third Reich for opening a supernatural hole in the universe and allowing a “dybbuck” to possesses the body of one unlucky concentration camp prisoner which then waits two generations for another chance to be reborn inside of one unlucky teenager (played by Odette Yustman, quite fetching in a pair of tighty-whities). What is a “dybbuck,” you ask? Well, had you studied up on your Jewish history you’d know it’s an Exorcist-style demon who possesses its way up the evolutionary chain from bugs to dogs to teenagers...or is that not the right order? The confusion is understandable. Even Goyer, who made a moderately entertaining supernatural flick out of The Invisible two years prior, seems confused about the nature of his threat. So he tosses in every cliché, even the deleted “spiderwalk sequence” from Friedkin’s flick, hoping that the sheer unpredictable lunacy of his story will strike a chord. And if The Unborn had any sympathetic characters he might have skated by. But the film is filled with the same sort of tedious first semester college-dropouts that plague so many PG-13 horror films today. If it weren’t for Gary Oldman’s glorified cameo as a skeptical rabbi who ends up getting medieval on the spirit’s ass by film’s end, The Unborn might have willingly jumped into a lake of holy water. Universal’s Blu-ray includes the theatrical and unrated cuts (neither crosses the 90-minute mark) is a picture-perfect presentation if you’re already a fan, but only contains 6-minutes of hi-def deleted scenes by way of extras.