The Unborn

Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Good
Directed by: David S. Goyer (“Blade: Trinity”)
Written by: David S. Goyer (“The Dark Knight”)

When another horror movie shamefully follows the blueprint of pathetic horror movies of the past and continues the tradition of dismal American horror nonsense to hit a specific and brainless demographic, it almost becomes too exasperating to reel off another negative review.

It’s especially hard since we are in January, the month where studios are releasing both their lagging Oscar hopefuls and those movies they hope will get lost somewhere during all the awards-season chaos. “The Unborn” falls in the latter category, of course.

A hellacious hybrid of two of the worst films of last year, “Mirrors” and “The Haunting of Molly Hartley,” “The Unborn” regurgitates everything that is wrong with the horror genre today and plasters it across the screen for a short and fright-less 87 minutes.

Odette Yustman plays Casey Beldon, a young girl plagued by nightmares who is fighting off a demon trying to possess her. The demon turns out to be her twin brother, who was never born but has now found a way into the world through her body. Casey learns of her past with the help of Sofi Kozma (Jane Alexander), a Holocaust survivor who may have known her deceased mother (Carla Gugino), and a rabbi (Gary Oldman), written in as the token spiritual guide.

Director/screenwriter David S. Goyer has tried and failed before in this genre with “Blade: Trinity” and “The Invisible.” Third time is not a charm in this tasteless offering riddled with boring CGI effects images. Goyer wants to tell you a ghost story, but there’s simply no substance to mend an effective plot together much less captivate an audience with a terrifying narrative. Instead, he relies on basic set pieces and quick editing like so many others have done in the past. Just like in class, it’s the bare minimum where you might not have to take the course over again, but everyone else who managed a decent grade is snickering at how lazy you’ve been all semester.