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.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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