The script tries hard to delve into the folklore of a dybbuk, and as it mixes this in with experiments on twins in concentration camps during WW2, the story becomes too convoluted for its own good.
Comment
02/27/09
The Unborn (2009)
12
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:103
Fresh:12
Rotten:91
Average Rating:3.2/10
Consensus: David Goyer's Unborn is a tame genre effort with cheap thrills and scares that border on silliness.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Feb 26, 2009 Wide
US Box Office: $42,638,165
Synopsis: Sometimes the soul of a dead person has been so tainted with evil that it is denied entrance to heaven. It must endlessly wander the borderlands between worlds, desperately searching for a new body... [More]
Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Good, Idris Elba
Director: David Goyer
Reviews for The Unborn
Top CriticDespite some gruesome special effects, the telling of this story is so prosaic and predictable that genuine thrills are in very short supply.
02/27/09
Top CriticSome of the ideas here may seem original, if questionable, but the treatment -- by writer-director David Goyer -- is strictly conventional, with the shock moments obviously inserted at regular intervals, usually while the heroine is in her underwear.
03/06/09
Top CriticOdette Yustman, indeed all the cast, deserve a better fate than to be sucked into this misguided attempt at horror
02/23/09
Top CriticA ham-fisted horror movie that manages to put together deadly demonic possession, Nazi concentration camps and nasty wartime genetic experiments.
02/27/09
Using the Holocaust as the basis for a horror movie is pretty distasteful, but what offended me the most about The Unborn is how sloppy it is.
01/09/09
Despite some massive flaws and a disappointing over-reliance on jump scares, The Unborn is comfortably the best entry yet from Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay’s previously remake-happy horror production outfit.
02/27/09
Top CriticIt has a few really interesting ideas in it and a few good, old-fashioned scares (and very little camera shaking).
01/16/09
Like some Stephen King rewrite of 'The Reader,' this laughable but interesting movie traces its characters' distress to the Holocaust: Never forget, because 'Jumby wants to be born!'
01/16/09
This is where many a horror movie falls and never again rises: too much exposition.
01/09/09
Generic, underdeveloped and more silly than scary.
01/08/09
...comes across like a Jewish version of The Exorcist, mixed with a touch of Rosemary's Baby by way of The Omen.
01/09/09
A scary movie so fantastically stupid and crass it made my skull contract and my sinuses harden to the consistency of pipe-cleaners.
02/27/09
Top CriticThe film's story is not so much plagued by plot holes as it is constructed out of them, not unlike an especially lacy variety of Swiss cheese.
01/16/09
If you're the kind of horror fan who gets your kicks from phantasmagorical imagery and shivers at the thought of supernatural forces beyond our realm of comprehension, you could do a lot worse than The Unborn.
01/09/09
has the psychological weight and perversity of a mildly racy episode of Touched by an Angel
01/08/09
The best that can be said for Goyer's latest is that it's competent. How competent is a matter of debate, as is the degree to which Goyer is self-aware about the film's camp value. [Blu-ray]
08/12/09
The Unborn is a story that should have remained untold and will be forgotten by the end of the weekend.
06/10/09
Even for the run-of-the-mill, first of the year horror flick, The Unborn is pretty much a miscarriage.
01/09/09
pacing that allows the audience to linger on every failing before being distracted by the subsequent one
01/11/09
Latest News for The Unborn
July 06, 2009:
RT on DVD: Knowing, Push, The Unborn Unleashed
It's a genre lover's feast this week on DVD, but don't say we didn't warn you about those pesky rotten Tomatometers. First up? Alex Proyas's latest science fiction thriller,... More...
January 19, 2009:
Though some images are on the terrifying side, this mostly outlandish tale is riddled with homicidal tots, interdenominational exorcists, and attention deficit disorder dybuks who can't make up their mystical minds which body is cool enough to inhabit. 
More...
January 09, 2009:
Though some images are on the terrifying side, this mostly outlandish tale is riddled with homicidal tots, interdenominational exorcists, and attention deficit disorder dybuks who can't make up their mystical minds which body is cool enough to inhabit.
More...
January 08, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Say "I Don't" To Bride Wars
This week at the movies, we've got a bridal battle (Bride Wars, starring Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson); a cranky car enthusiast (Gran Torino, directed by and starring Clint... More...
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