3 out of 5

Director: Rodman Flender

Sure, it borrows elements from a lot of pregnancy-horror flicks, but The Unborn is still a surprising lil’ affair, for how much it’s willing to throw into the mix and how far it’s eventually willing to go. The plot is of its time – science is the enemy – and you can sketch out the overall progress of events without seeing the film – happy couple, pregnant couple, things are weird cause I’m pregnant couple, crazy-wife couple, angry-husband-cause-wife-is-crazy couple, I-was-right couple, and then end with a creepy mom shot. But this is true of almost every genre film, especially horror. Brooke Adams and Jeff Hayenga and even the bit players do a good job of putting in some actual acting time and not just hamming it up, and director Rodman Flender, while not above the generic opening segment and some poor editing choices that reek of B-movie, throws some good surrealism and some truly unique (for the genre) brew of concepts into the mix. Also pleasantly surprising is the gore. I could see this as getting an R just due to a midway through scene of some pregnany-belly stabbing, but Flender shrugs his shoulders and decides to earn that rating with some blood and creepy kid prosthetics later on. By no means is this a great film, it’s definitely a B, but it’s a more solid B than I’ve seen in a while.