THE UNBORN

Directed by Rodman Flender. United States. 1991.

Pregnancy creeps me out. There I said it. It may relate to my childhood fear of parasites. I remember watching my dad, an avid fisherman, slice open the belly of a fish he caught on Saturday afternoon. Inside the fish were dozens of thin, writhing worms. I heard about tapeworms and how people used to purge them, first by starving, then by resting a bowl of warm milk in front of their face. Coaxing a footlong worm to wriggle up your esophagus didn’t sound like a party I wanted to attend.

And yeah, I know there’s a world of difference between a baby and a tapeworm. People have told me that many times over the years, but that distinction only matters if you like children. I do not. I’d rather not be anywhere near them, especially when they're in the womb. It’s creepy. My friend, eight months pregnant, once lifted her shirt to show me the unborn child kicking against the inside of her gut. I almost threw up. And don’t get me started on birthing videos. Absolute nightmare fuel.

THE UNBORN shares some of my sentiments and offers up a heaping helping of its own. Pregnancy is simultaneously miraculous and terrifying, and the film isn’t shy about acknowledging it. There are conversations about what would happen if the child isn’t “right” when it's born, about how much societal pressure is put on women to buy into a kind of gender-based fatalism around the prospect of having children, and about the loss of personal autonomy that comes with sharing a body for nine months. The most terrifying moment for our protagonist doesn’t come when she finds out her womb is being used as a eugenics playground. It’s when she’s told that she waited too long to have an abortion. Too bad, mama. Carry that monster to term.

These twin feelings of wonder and revulsion are present from the very first scene. A pregnant woman’s unborn child claws through her stomach like a newly birthed Xenomorph. While I appreciate the film stating its thesis right away, I feel like this cold open ruins any sense of discovery. We know immediately what horror awaits Virginia, a children’s book author, and Brad, her doting husband. They’ve wanted a child for ages. Brad’s coworker recommends a visit to a fertility clinic run by Dr. Meyerling (played by the legendary James Karen).

After Brad is whisked away to jerk off in a cup, Virginia tells the doctor all about her malformed tubes and scarred uterus. She doesn’t buy into Meyerling’s process, but he assures her that they will have a child. That night Brad and Virginia have uncomfortable rocking chair sex and play with their adorable white-coated cat. A few days later, Virginia is expecting. Dr. Meyerling was right after all. She gives up drinking and tosses her cigarettes into the sink. She attends a birthing class run by a lesbian couple, two ultra-feminist new age chicks named Gloria and Connie. They give their attendees healing crystals and a placenta cookbook. Gloria is also expecting, another miracle performed by the great Dr. Meyerling.

But the good times never last. A coworker’s supposedly brilliant young daughter, the one conceived under Meyerling’s care, murders her brother. Virginia develops a nasty rash on the side of her neck and starts having extreme mood swings. She even violently bites Brad during sex. After Brad leaves for a work trip to New York, Virginia receives a call from another one of Meyerling’s patients. She tells Virginia she’s worried about the other women at the clinic, and warns her not to take any medication the doctor has prescribed. She says that he’s not a doctor, but a researcher. “Ever hear of the Human Genome Project?” she asks before hanging up. The next morning, the distraught woman picks up a kitchen knife and begins repeatedly plunging it into her gut.

Virginia has bad dreams, starts slipping into fugue states, and even absent-mindedly murders her adorable kitten with her bare hands. She doodles shapes on a piece of paper and watches as the child’s hand draws the same shapes from inside her womb. While giving a live televised interview about her next book, she experiences a breakdown, screaming about how the children are not alright as blood pours from her rupturing stomach. She wakes in Dr. Meyerling’s clinic and tries calling the ladies from her birthing class, only to overhear Connie being beaten to death with a hammer by an enraged Gloria. There’s only one way out, Virginia reckons. She needs an abortion.

And this is where THE UNBORN starts to go full-on Cronenberg, with grotesque imagery of fetuses hanging in fleshy artificial wombs, scientific gobbledygook about genetically engineering children capable of advancing human evolution, knitting needles being rammed into eyeballs, and a creepy animatronic mutant newborn. It’s as if director Rodman Flender’s personal goal was to outdo both ROSEMARY’S BABY and THE BROOD all in one go. There is a minor personal conspiracy behind the scenes of Virginia’s pregnancy, which fits the Polanski mold. Then there are the amazingly nasty shots of fetuses exploding like hamburger-filled blood balloons that would have undoubtedly sent Cronenberg into giggling fits.

THE UNBORN is surprisingly nasty from start to finish, really putting its lead through the wringer. It also engages in some shockingly transgressive visuals. The sight of a knife being repeatedly rammed into a pregnant woman’s stomach made me wince, and the finale, over the top as it may be, is brazen and ballsy. Virginia literally shoots fetuses in the womb. I’m shocked that made it past the MPAA. We also get to see Kathy Griffin get her head caved in with a hammer. Who doesn’t love that?

I’m not entirely sure where I would place THE UNBORN on my personal ranking of horror movies about pregnancy and childbirth, but it would be up there. It’s an effective little shocker, loaded with grody visuals and good performances. The creepy animatronic killer newborn is icing on the cake. Good stuff. It’s a perfect film for expecting couples or weirdos who like watching fetuses explode like tiny flesh grenades. Like me.