The Unborn (2009)

The Unborn (2009)
Written and Directed by David S. Goyer in association with Michael Bay.
Horror, Suspense

So, it’s been a while since I last saw a horror film slash thriller preview that actually caught my attention. Let’s face it, horror is a genre that has become less and less attractive in the past years. With notable exceptions such as the trailers to The Amityville Horror or The Exorcism of Emily Rose, many horror trailer producers have caught on the Saw train: explicitly gory and overindulging on sharp noises and rough editing. Enough to give anyone suffering from hypersensitivity to light an embolic aneurysm. 

Then comes along Mr. Goyer who provides us with a trailer to his upcoming film The Unborn. Without adding much to the genre on the merits of originality (the story swirls on a young, attractive babysitter who after a rough night begins to be haunted by an unborn ghost, thus sending her off into a dark journey of self-discovery to save her own life and uncover some dark family secrets) it does give out a good glimpse of a well-made and not-so-common these days horror film.

The trailer starts of with an episode that reminds us of a mix between Sixth Sense and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, moving on to the discovery part of the trailer, the setting for the inevitable confrontation between the star and the evil ghost. After jumping into a dark family secret which might hold the key to her ghoul issue, the trailer does exhibit a rather unique moment of genius. We see a jump from the all-too-often used sharp, nervous sounds into a completely mute scene where the actress has a vision of herself and her ghost, with a creative camera panning out we crescendo with a high-pitched scream, and then, all hell breaks loose. 

A well played trailer, we then are bombarded by visions of dark creatures emerging from the walls, somber characters with knives and raincoats (I Know What You Did Last Summer anyone?), creepy, morphing people climbing up the stairs and a brief glance at an exorcism gone bad. 

The climax on this trailer comes, as many others, with a rapid succession of frames. Scary frames in this case. However, do note that they don’t give out much to the “scary parts” of the movie as the scenes used in the trailer’s climax are mainly from 2 or 3 main scenes in the actual film. Perhaps this is all the scary there is to it, or maybe they didn’t wanna burn to much fuse for the preview. 

The ending to this promising trailer, alas, came down in flames after the cut scene (where the cast and crew are featured). Without giving into much criticism, let’s just say that the old head-falling-of-a-body scene makes for the final signature of this trailer.

Not a bad trailer, simply falling short of something that could have been much more promising. We’ll have to wait for the actual movie to find out.

In the meantime, enjoy:

Advertisement