| Review:
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For any mother who has ever fretted over whether she's
given birth to a devilish offspring, The Unborn should not
be on your to-do list any time soon. On the other hand,
the inexplicable PG-13 rating for this unruly kid occult
outing, may be just the thing to give your children all
sorts of exasperating ideas. Riddled with homicidal tots,
interdenominational exorcists and something a whole lot
more malevolent than the Nazis over at Auschwitz long ago,
The Unborn, when not accidentally funny, scrapes the bottom
of the barrel for new concepts in movie horror.***
Written and directed David Goyer (Blade: Trinity, The
Invisible, Batman Begins), The Unborn stars Odette Yustman
as Casey, a Chicago coed who suspects something is just
too weird for words when both boy and canine ghosts start
joining her while out jogging. She eventually tracks down
her hunches to an institutionalized mom who committed suicide,
a twin brother she never knew about who died in the womb,
and assorted other twins dating back to the Holocaust who
may or may not hold the key to multiple birth demonic possession.***
At wit's end, not to mention utterly frazzled, Casey
seeks help from Rabbi Sendak (Gary Oldman doing a bad imitation
of a rabbi), a Kabbala guru who happens to know a thing
or two about exorcism. After enlisting the co-exorcist aid
of a basketball coach cleric, the determined duo tie Casey
to a gurney in an abandoned building, and get down to business.
After much prolonged mayhem and spirit fleeing, it turns
out that just a good swat with a crowbar will do the trick
nicely.***
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