Sunday, January 13, 2019

Movie review - "The Unborn" (1991) **1/2

Roger Corman gets his hands on a decent script and miracles ensue - well maybe not "miracle" but this is a massive step up from the bulk of New Horizon/Concorde films... at least, until the last half hour when things go wonky.

Up until then this was a pretty smart, creepy horror film - in my eyes anyway, the film has received some hysterically bad reviews. I wonder why? Because it involved pregnancy? The piece is flawed to be sure - some wonky handling - but it is not a terrible film. It has imagination and its the spots in some key scenes. The writers are good and have done research, the lead is played by Brooke Adams, which automatically elevates things, there's lots of creepy moments with babies crawling around in stomachs.

It does go off the boil in the last act, when things should accelerate, and get more condensed, it seems to "spread out" - too many time jumps, it becomes too confusing. I wasn't sure of the role of the husband or his relationship with his wife. And there wasn't nearly enough of the mad doctor or his motivation. In my opinion anyhow - I accept these are the decisions the filmmaker made. But it meant that it wasn't finished off with a flourish.

Still above average for New Horizon at the time and not coincindentally one of the few post 83 Cormans where the alumni went on to achieve major things - the DOP went to work for Chris Nolan for instance, and Kathy Griffin (as a lesbian parent) and Lisa Kudrow have small roles.

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