The Unborn is a 2009 American supernatural horror film written and directed by David S. Goyer, starring Odette Annable, Idris Elba, James Remar, Meagan Good, Carla Gugino, and Gary Oldman. It was produced by Platinum Dunes, the production company belonging to Michael Bay.
The film follows the story of Casey Beldon who is tormented by a sinister entity (a dybbuk), which seeks to use her death as a gateway to physical existence.
Not to be confused with a 1991 American movie of the same name.
This film provides examples of:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Happens to the old man in the hospital after he gets possessed.
- Bittersweet Ending: Bordering on Downer Ending. Casey and Sendak manage to (temporarily) defeat the dybbuk, but everyone Casey loves (with the exception of her father, who was absent throughout most of the film) is dead, and she is revealed to be pregnant - with twins, something the dybbuk will undoubtedly take advantage of.
- Body Horror: How the dybbuk tends to affect the humans it possesses.
- Death of a Child: Both the Newton baby and with Sofi's brother.
- Doom Magnet: Casey. The Newton baby, Romy, the exorcism volunteers, and Mark all die because they are close to her and her family.
- Duality Motif: One of Casey's eyes starts changing color to match that of her unborn twin brother around the time his soul—which is attached to hers—starts killing people.
- Enfant Terrible: Matty and Sofi's twin. It's subverted with the latter, as Sofi's brother was merely possessed by the dybbuk. Matty's case is ambiguous, though it is likely the dybbuk has a hand in it.
- Evil Twin: Kind of. Sofi's twin wasn't evil. He was just possessed by an evil force when he died. Neither was Casey's unborn twin.
- Fanservice: Look at the frickin' poster! Odette Yustman's ass is all over it!
- Fetus Terrible: The dybbuk terrorizes Casey because she is a chimera
, meaning her genes are diluted by that of her deceased twin brother, who is possessed by the spirit. - Hereditary Curse: The dybbuk first manifested in Casey's maternal family in Auschwitz back in the 1940s and has never stopped hunting them since.
- Interfaith Smoothie: Casey's exorcism includes a rabbi and an Episcopal priest.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Sofi Kozma is Casey's maternal grandmother. Casey didn't know that Sofi is Jewish, much less that she is a Holocaust survivor.
- Made of Plasticine: During a particularly horrific vision/Nightmare Sequence, Casey has an out-of-body experience where she sees her own body lying asleep on the bed... while the dybbuk pushes his hand through her stomach.
- Missing Mom: Casey's mother died by suicide years ago. It is later revealed that this was because she was driven to insanity by the dybbuk's terrors.
- Religious Horror: Type 3. The ghost is a dybbuk, malevolent ghosts in Jewish mythology.
- Scary Black Man: The priest, once he becomes possessed.
- Someone to Remember Him By: In a darker example than most, Casey ends the movie pregnant with her dead boyfriend's children. The problem is that they are twins.
- Supernatural-Proof Father: Mark is a Supernatural-Proof Boyfriend, at least initially.
- Token Black Friend: Romy, who is primarily defined as Casey's supporting, superstitious best friend.
