UnowPriceless
hyped garbage
Teringer
An Exercise In Nonsense
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Zlatica
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
gavin6942
A couple (Brooke Adams and Jeff Hayenga) who cannot have children joins an in-vitro fertilization program. While she is with child, she finds strange occurrences happening within her body.Always nice to see James Karen ("Return of the Living Dead") in another genre film. Also, bit parts from both Lisa Kudrow (pre-"Friends") and the perpetual D-lister Kathy Griffin. Add to that Roger Corman as producer, and you have a few choice names...The concept of the villain being an evil geneticist connected to the Human Genome Project... not sure if that is brilliant, silly or inadvertent fear-mongering. Looking back twenty years, we now know the Human Genome Project was completely safe and taught us many valuable things (and I did not know it used any human subjects). Maybe in 1991 they did not understand it? The film seems to be strongly influenced by "Rosemary's Baby", as it follows a pregnant mother with who-knows-what growing inside her. Of course, this film is not about satanists... at least, not that I know of.
Michael_Elliott
The Unborn (1991) * 1/2 (out of 4) A couple (Brooke Adams, Jeff Hayenga) unable to have children of their own go to a doctor (James Karen) who is experimenting with fertilization. The experiment works and the woman finds herself pregnant but soon she begins losing her mind fearing that the baby is pretty much eating through her. THE UNBORN is a pretty bad movie from start to finish but I can admit that there are a few effective things in it as well as several good performances. I thought the actors were about the best thing going for the movie and this includes Adams who is extremely good and believable as the mother who soon realizes that all of her fears are coming true. I thought she did a very good job at showing the fear in the character. Hayenga is also good in his bit and of course Karen is always worth watching no matter what he's in. I think the biggest problem with the film is the screenplay. I think the film gets off to a very bad start because we're supposed to like this couple but I must admit that I didn't care for them a bit. This really hurt the Adams' character because I really didn't like her and I certainly never cared about her. I think the film is borrowing from ROSEMARY'S BABY but instead of Satan we've got evil DNA working. I thought there were a few effective scenes including some of the murders, which were quite dark and chilling. I'd also say that director Rodman Flender at least builds up a dark atmosphere. With that said, even at 80-minutes this thing drags pretty badly and in the end it's best to just watch the Polanski classic or even IT'S ALIVE instead. Of course, if you do decide to watch this you'll get to see both Lisa Kudrow and Kathy Griffin years before fame.
StolenAway
This film is alright if you've got some time to kill. This film did have real potential; a woman who can't have a baby goes to a doctor for in-vitro fertilization, but unfortunately the doctor is a madman who happens to be breeding a race of super-humans, and of course, it's all down hill from there.The build-up is simply amazing. Brooke Adams does an amazing job of a woman who is giving birth to something that she knows isn't normal. The way she portrays a character who is slowly going over the bend is brilliant. The film has an eerie and dark build-up to it (the cat scene in particular), it's a shame that the climax doesn't live up to the build-up.To be honest, the final scenes are just terrible. It throws it's the disturbing feel out of the window and just descends into really a really really bad b-movie. The effects are really bad - which normally isn't a problem, but these are seriously bad. This should be better for 1991.But, one thing does save the entire movie - gore! The film is extremely gory, and since the film is gore-fest from start to finish, then you can excuse the bad final scenes. Although it's a let-down, it's a fun movie to watch with friends if you have some time to kill.
macabro357
One of Roger Corman's later demented efforts, this one's an abortion clinic's nightmare. Corman probably laughed all the way to the bank when he produced this one.Brooke Adams plays an infertile woman who goes to a fertility specialist (James Karen) in order to conceive. What she doesn't know is that Karen is a DNA researcher who's been using the women who come to his clinic in order to create a new race of superbabies by altering the husband's sperm. The medication that he gives them causes some strange side effects such as hallucinations and a rash that breaks out on the side of their necks.Over the top scenes include:Adam's fetus stabbing a pen into the eye of her stupid husband. This happens right when Brooke is breast feeding her fetus. It looks like a deformed little thing from hell. He deserved it because he knew Karen's clinic wasn't straight-up legit to begin with. Adams then shoots Karen in his lab and then starts shooting all the fetuses growing in the labs glass spheres. As Karen lays there dying from the gunshot wound, a couple of the dead fetuses fall bloody, onto his face. Jesus... (laughs)It's too bad a talented actress like Brook Adams has sunk so far as to do something like this. Only a few short years before, she was starring in films with the likes of Richard Gere, Sean Connery and Christopher Walken. What a shame.Also notable for having Lisa Kudrow as Karen's receptionist. She's looks quite different from what she does, today.The whole thing's worth a look, but just one, imo. There's also a bizarre last scene involving Brooke and her fetus. You gotta see it to believe it. (laughs) 6 out of 10