The Unborn is an unfortunate and pointless exercise in horror that produces more unintended laughs than scares. The film blatantly borrows heavily from better movies while never improving on them. Despite a few jolts writer/director David S Goyer (co-screenwriter of The Dark Knight and Dark City) never manages to instill the film with any real scares. I recommend you stay home, rent The Exorcist and witness how an evil possession film should be made.

Casey (Cloverfield’s Odette Yustman) is a carefree college student whose life becomes inexplicably complicated when she realises she might be haunted by the spirit of her evil twin. After being tormented by strange demonic visions and encounters with a seemingly possessed bathroom cabinet, she begins to unravel the mysteries of her family’s past that could involve strange Nazi experiments.

The Great: To the film’s credit it does have its fair share of jump in your seat moments. While they amount to nothing else than someone sneaking up from behind and screaming “Boo!” they might provide enough entertainment for the indiscriminate viewer.

Fresh from The Dark Knight, Gary Oldman’s turn as a Rabbi intent on removing the evil spirit brings some acting talent to the film and while his character is incredibly underwritten he is still a pleasure to watch.

The Good: David S Goyer sporadically manages to create some startling Lovecraft-esque images during Casey’s terrifying encounters. These moments, albeit brief, inject the movie with a decent amount of thrills and chills that are so sorely missing from the other scenes.

The not so good: The film builds to laughably absurd moments as the plot begins to unravel. Goyer seems intent on explaining every aspect of this supernatural menace and in the process the movie just becomes preposterous.

Although Yustman is pretty as a picture and spends a large portion of her screen time in her underwear she is a horrible actress, her reaction to the events in the final act needs to be seen to be believed.

Unfortunately The Unborn is possessed with the spirit of a mediocre horror film and despite sparse moments of interest, it belongs in the weekly DVD section of your video store where it can be ignored along with so many other atrocities of the genre.

The Unborn opens in cinemas tomorrow.
You can view The Unborn trailer here on TheVine.