The Unborn is flawed on just about every count. It's premise about evil Nazi genetic demons using mirrors as gateways between worlds is not a good start and neither is its first act which jumps straight into the horror without any character build-up. (Where's the getting-to-know-the-heroin-in-the-happy-times sequence which allows us to empathise with her before she's hurled into the meat grinder?) And finally it all culminates in a coda which is so obvious you'll wish you'd lobotomised yourself beforehand so as to at least preserve some element of surprise. The result is a patently silly film which looks like it has its first reel missing.

Many plot turns are illogical or are merely devices hastily thrown together to either shove the story forward or illicit a particular response from the audience. For instance, why does the evil kid kill his infant sister (oh, that's right, because he's evil!), and why does the evil kid hide in the bathroom mirror cabinet (oh, that's right, because that's the place we'd least expect him to be) and what's with all the bugs? (Oh, that's right, bugs are creepy.) This isn't so much a movie as a story pitch. It's a film made from a premise instead of a script. It's a series of (barely) horrifying images crudely connected by lines of vapid dialogue whose primary purpose is to spoon feed us plot points so as to ensure we don't miss them. Admittedly there's some guilty enjoyment to be had by playing spot-the-cliché but this becomes quickly tiresome.

Performances are below par even for run-of-the-mill Hollywood horror. Megan Fox clone, Odette Yustman, is outperformed by her colour-changing prosthetic eyes as the heroin of the piece. (Note to casting agents everywhere - being pretty does not make one a good actor.) Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino fill out a couple of minor roles and should know better than to be involved in this.

The attachment of Michael Bay's name to this project ought to be sufficient warning, however if you're insistent on seeing the best that this film has to offer, watch the trailer; it's creepier and it's only two and half minutes long.

1 out of 10.