The
Unborn (1991)
Rated R
Starring: Brooke Adams, Jeff Hayenga, and
James Karen
Rating:

out
of

|
Virginia and Brad Marshall have always wanted to have a child together.
After years of being told that Virginia will never be a mother, the couple
gets a recommendation from a friend of Brad's about Dr. Meyerling (James
Karen), who's doing amazing things with invitro fertilization. Upon checking Dr. Meyerling out, the couple is told that, in fact, Virginia
will be able to have a baby. After a quick surgery, Virginia is pregnant
and all seems well. That is, until a fellow patient of Dr. Meyerling contacts
Virginia and lets her know that she's been doing some research on the
good doctor and found that he is part of the human genome project and
is evidently not a medical doctor, but simply a DNA researcher. Suspecting
that their babies might be part of an experiment and not entirely normal,
the two women set up a lunch date. Virginia arrives at the woman's place
of employment the next day only to find that she hasn't made it into work
that day. In fact, she's in a coma.
Virginia begins to freak out and, when her baby begins to communicate
with her from inside the womb, she attempts to convince those she loves
that the baby she always wanted might not even be human and needs to be
destroyed.
The
Unborn strives to be an intelligent horror movie and almost succeeds
before being let down by some pretty lame special effects and some strange
plot hiccups near the end. Brooke Adams, who had previously been in such
movies as The Dead Zone and the 1978 remake of Invasion of
the Body Snatchers,
is probably the only good thing the movie has going for it.
The
Unborn is actually more
interesting as a source of trivia questions than it is as a horror film.
The strange, but effective, soundtrack was
scored by Gary Numan, who's probably best known for his 80s hit, "Cars".
It also features two interesting appearances by actresses who would go
on to slightly higher-profile projects. Lisa Kudrow, of TVs Friends,
appears as a nurse in Dr. Meyerling's lab and comedienne Kathy Griffin
has her
first movie role as Connie, a lesbian birthing coach.
Although not completely horrible, The
Unborn isn't really worth watching
unless you want to see Lisa Kudrow as a brunette or see Kathy Griffin
before she had copious amounts of plastic surgery. If you're looking for
a killer baby movie, rent It's Alive! instead.
Trivia: The
soundtrack to The Unborn was never released, but it is available on
Gary Numan's instrumental CD, Human, which Numan released in 1995. (Source: The
Internet Movie Database) |