'The Unborn' review

Odette Yustman (Credit: Peter Iovino/Rogue)

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Pretty coed Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman, blank) worries for the safety of herself, her boyfriend (Cam Gigandet, blanker) and her best friend (Meagan Good, sassy) after a series of nightmares and strange encounters convince her she’s possessed by…something. Could it be her twin brother who died before he was born? After further investigation, she turns to a rabbi (Gary Oldman, too good for this) for a nice old fashioned exorcism.

The buzz: Writer-director David S. Goyer was a writer on “Batman Begins” and received story credit on “The Dark Knight,” but his last movie as a director was the lackluster supernatural mystery “The Invisible,” so what should audiences expect from his latest effort? At least it’s an original screenplay, and not a sequel or remake like most horror films.

The verdict: Filmmakers always say they want to make a horror movie on the level of “The Exorcist” or “Rosemary’s Baby” and the inevitable result is something like this…generic, underdeveloped and more silly than scary. “The Unborn’s” poster prominently features Yustman in her underwear, and while Goyer initially seems content to exploit the lithe body of his lead, the film’s bargain basement thrills just get cheaper from there. PG-13-friendly loud noises and demonic children appearing out of nowhere substitute for anything innovative or interesting. By the time veteran actress Jane Alexander starts ranting in a thick Hungarian accent about Nazis and ghostly horrors that “started in Auschwitz” you’ll be too busy cracking up to get creeped out.

Did you know? For one sequence of the film, Yustman had to be covered in hundreds of potato bugs—so don’t just assume actors don’t earn their paychecks.

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