Born
Starring:
Screenplay: David S. Goyer
Director(s): David S. Goyer
MPAA Rating: Unavailable
Reviewed by: CAXE - 11.13.07
After I read Born I couldn’t help but wonder if the writer of Batman Begins was “slumming it.”
Now don’t get me wrong, David S. Goyer knows his stuff, but his movies for me are either hit or miss, and it seems he only has two genres: decent super-hero and sub-par sci-fi/horror. Now he has a few things in the works that may change that, mainly the sci-fi/actioner romp Jumper, even though he only adapted it from a novel. He also has a bunch of superhero stuff ahead, The Flash and Magneto as well as the story he helped craft for The Dark Knight, but I am not counting those because he already proved he can handle the super hero film (even though the Blade trilogy did get a little tired at the end).
So here I am, having read Born and scratching my head. Why am I scratching my head? Let’s get into the plot and then you can scratch with me.
A whispering little boy tells us that “some people are doorways.”
Portland. CASEY, a freshman in college, talks to her friend ROMY on the phone about a weird dream she’s been having. It basically involves seeing a creepy little boy in old fashioned clothes dubbed BARTO wearing a red glove, a bull terrier (the Target dog minus the red spot) with a mask of the boy on its face, and a jar with an embryo inside – and it’s alive.
Romy jokingly tries to interpret what the dream means but Casey changes the subject. Romy asks how babysitting is going and Casey explains that both the BABY and MATTY, the five-year-old, are asleep. She hears a thump upstairs and goes to investigate – Matty stands over the baby’s crib waving a mirror back and forth over it. Casey goes to stop him and he says “Jumby wants to be born now” right before he smashes the mirror into her face.
Casey is okay, just a small bruise on her face and Matty is dazed and apologetic, as are his parents. Casey goes home and sees her DAD and ALLISON, her dad’s girlfriend. Casey only says that she’s tired and going to sleep.
In her bathroom, she takes her birth control pill and hears tapping from behind her medicine cabinet mirror, but shrugs it off. The next morning, Casey finds a potato bug in her breakfast.
At school, Casey has lunch with Romy and LISA, another friend. Casey tells them what happened the previous evening with Matty and Romy explains that it’s bad luck, even deadly, for newborns to see their reflection until after their first birthday, but Casey laughs it off as silly superstition.
During class, Casey has hallucinations and sees things on the board, such as “Jumby wants to be born.” After class, Romy tells Casey something is wrong with her eye. Casey goes to look – one of her eyes has started turning an unnatural blue.
The eye doctor is puzzled but says it’s probably nothing, just an effect of the impact from the mirror; but he orders a few tests just to be sure. MARK, Casey’s boyfriend, drives her home from the tests. On the way, Casey sees a dog walking with the mask from her dream.
At home, Mark and Casey talk about what happens after death. Casey says she doesn’t believe in an afterlife because she can’t feel her mother’s presence. She talks about how her mother said she had found her mother, a big discovery considering she was adopted, but Casey never found out because her mother killed herself the next day at the mental institution where she was being held. Casey says she’s still not over it.
That night Casey studies her eye – the blue spot is growing and taking over her naturally brown eyes. She hears the tapping again from behind the mirror cabinet. She opens it and Barto, the little boy from her dream, sits, contorted in the cabinet and reaching for her. Casey screams and Mark runs to her side, but finds nothing.
Later, Mark leaves and Casey takes the mirror off its hinges and sets it on the floor. As she falls asleep, she looks at a photo next to her bed: Casey when she was eight with her mother.
The next morning, Casey goes out for a jog but sees an ambulance in front of Matty’s house – the baby is dead. She looks up and sees Matty staring down at her through a window all creepy-like.
Later, the eye doctor tells Casey all the tests came back normal. The doctor then asks if Casey is a twin, to which she replies she’s an only child. The doctor explains genetic mosaicism, when an individual has two or more different genetic cell populations – essentially two types of DNA instead of just one. This happens when there are two placentas become fused and swap DNA in the womb. The doctor tells Casey this is the best explanation for what’s going on with her eye.
Casey goes to see her father and at work and asks about the twin thing. He reluctantly explains that yes, she was a twin, but her brother died when the placentas fused and the cord became wrapped around his neck. Casey feels guilt that she killed her brother but her father tells her it wasn’t her fault. Casey asks if that was what made her mother commit suicide to which her father replies that it was part of it, but she was clinically depressed, so it was a million things at once that made her do it.
Casey asks if they came up with names for her and her unborn brother. Her father tells her they came up with nicknames – hers was Pongo – and her brother’s was Jumby.
That’s the basic set up.
Casey does research into her past and finds an article on a Holocaust survivor, SOFI, in the attic. In the photo for the article, the woman is pictured, but something is in a reflection within the photo – the boy from her dream. She goes to see Sofi at a retirement home and asks about the boy in the picture – she freaks out and tells Casey to leave.
Casey’s hallucinations get worse and her eyes keep turning the unnatural blue.
Sofi contacts her again and tells her to come see her. On the second visit, Sofi reveals everything – the boy in the picture, her connection to Casey’s mother, the importance of twins, why everything is happening to her (part of the answer – Jewish evil spirits) – and that her life and the lives of her friends and family are in grave danger.
Now, the plotting, dialogue, and basic characters aren’t bad for a film in this genre, especially compared to the crop (or should I say crap) of horror movies that have littered cinema as of late. The seeds that set up the mystery aspects of the story are set up well, but the overall story, the concept, the execution – it’s just… mediocre and hackneyed. We have seen this all before; there’s nothing here that’s new or unique or especially captivating, nothing here that challenges the genre or turns it on its side. If you had taken Goyer’s name off of it and handed it to me, I’d probably peg it to the guy who did The Grudge 2 or some other PG-13 horror film.
The one thing I will give credit to Goyer for being original is the idea of mixing mainstream horror conventions with the twist of Jewish mysticism - I have never heard of a mainstream film involving possessed children, twins, and Jewish evil spirits.
But that’s where my praise ends because all originality goes out the window when we have the typical jump moments shoehorned in between plot development and a rising body count. This honestly felt like a cookie cutter film, as if Goyer went through the checklist of substandard horror movie clichés and checked off the whole goddamn thing. Creepy child says something ominous – check. Nature motif that represents evil keeps reappearing – check. Finding a friend in the dark only to find out he/she is now evil/possessed – check. Eerie **** that has no apparent motivation or explanation other than the fact that it’s eerie –triple check.
Now I don’t hate horror movies; in fact, some are quite good – but it all comes down to the writing for me. I like there to be a reason something happens. Making weird **** happen just because it’s weird doesn’t cut it – The Exorcist, The Ring, even The Skeleton Key, all those worked. But The Grudge and all the other horror films that inspired it and it inspired – why? Why does the ghost make that sound? Why the black hair? The fingers on the back of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s head? And what’s up with the white little boy? Yes, it’s the world of the supernatural, but just because it’s supernatural doesn’t give a movie permission to do random crap.
So back to Born – once again we are tossed scary stuff like hands coming out of mouths and twisted, possessed corpses turning their heads upside down for no apparent reason. Oh, and evil babies, which freak me out. And there’s a point where everything just sort of goes into nonsense territory. I know that it’s hard to make a film where people react realistically to going into other dimension or warding off a demon spirit thing, but come on.
I just can’t help but wonder why Goyer didn’t try something more inventive or unique; he’s certainly capable enough to pull off something new or unusual in this genre. I really wish Goyer had been resourceful with this because instead of writing something good or great, I feel that he has wasted his time on a script that feels tired and silly and that will inevitably lead to a film of the same nature. At the very least, let’s hope all that creative energy that wasn’t used on Born has instead been channeled to Magneto and The Flash.
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