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(More customer reviews)One thing you can say about Roger Corman: he's consistent. "Consistent" meaning his films always turn a profit (supposedly). "Consistent" also means that a viewer sitting down to a watch a Corman flick will consistently find the film in question larded with enough cheese to clog an elephant's arteries. You will see cheesy acting, cheesy special effects, and cheesy plots. Depending on the type of genre, you'll also find plenty of gory mayhem, beautiful babes, and nudity from the aforementioned beautiful babes. That's Roger Corman in a nutshell. Oh wait, I almost forgot; he's also the biggest ripoff artist in Hollywood history. Any film that has hit the big time in the last forty years invariably sees Roger Corman making a similar flick in an effort to cash in on the more successful offering. For example, when "Jaws" hit the jackpot back in the 1970s, Corman followed up with several pictures capitalizing on monsters run amok. When the car movie craze swept America in the late 1970s, Roger quickly jumped aboard by releasing films focusing on cars. "Star Wars" saw our man releasing several science fiction films strongly resembling, well, "Star Wars". That's Corman for you. Love him or leave him.
"The Unborn II," an inferior sequel to the intriguing 1991 film "The Unborn," begins with a slam-dunk scene one won't see in many American films. A woman, Linda Holt (Robin Curtis), approaches a playground overflowing with happy tykes. She coolly surveys the scene, walks up to one of the youngsters, and proceeds to pump him full of bullets. The movie could have ended right there and I probably would have given it five stars. You just don't see scenes like this in horror movies these days. It's too politically incorrect. Let's move on. Main character Catherine Moore (Michele Greene) moves into a nice neighborhood with her baby boy Joey. The film immediately treats us to scenes of domestic tranquility punctuated with encounters between Catherine and her nosy neighbors Artie and Marge Philips (Darryl Henriques and Carol Ita White). These two give a whole new meaning to the word "intrusive" as they pepper our protagonist with all sorts of annoying questions. They also want to see the baby, predictably enough, but Catherine won't reveal her offspring. Why? If you've seen the first film, you already know the answer to that question. Quit bothering me and just read the darn review! Sheesh!
Anyway, a few other characters arrive on the scene. We see another one of Catherine's neighbors, the overly friendly John Edson (Scott Valentine desperately looking for a career after "Family Ties"), and the two strike up one of those friendships we the viewer recognize as having the potential for romantic interaction. The movie also introduces us to the blazingly hot Sally Anne (Brittney Powell), daughter of the aforementioned Philips and the future babysitter of the enigmatic Joey. What else? Oh, remember that dame wreaking bloody havoc at the playground in the opening scenes of the movie? We learn she's out tracking down the monstrous babies from the first film. Her mission apparently involves engaging in open gun battles with the cops in the middle of hospital maternity wards. Fun. Her goals also involve tracking down one Joey Moore. In the meantime, Catherine has other problems. Like explaining to Sally Anne why she keeps Joey locked up in his bedroom. She also must hide what happens to a couple of meddling social workers when the two nosy nellies run straight into the jaws of an angry Joey. And Joey? By the time we see him, fully revealed to the camera, we're laughing too hard to take any of this seriously.
Does a movie like "The Unborn" really need a sequel? Already a belated ripoff of Larry Cohen's "It's Alive" series, Corman obviously saw dollar signs in resurrecting the baby run amok genre. The first installment worked well. Brooke Adams did a good job, and we also got to see Kathy Griffin's character murdered with a hammer. Sadly, "The Unborn II" doesn't achieve these Olympian heights. For one thing, the film just looks cheap. It has that sparse look one sees in most of Corman's 1990s and early 2000s efforts, a look that's one step above camcorder filmmaking but far short of the rich tapestry of colors and textures filmmakers achieve with properly developed celluloid. The performances and dialogue also leave a lot to be desired. In other words, both elements tank badly. They really need to quit writing scripts on toilet paper over there at Corman headquarters. Lastly, the special effects look appallingly awful. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when the film unveiled Joey for the first time. The kid has a noggin that looks like a globe covered with flesh colored newspaper. It's that bad, folks. Just appalling. He looks like something I would've created in grade school--while tripping acid.
Supplements. You're kidding, right? Expect a full frame picture transfer, a trailer for this film, and a few previews for other House of Corman extravaganzas. Expect much less in the audio and picture quality department. Like I said earlier, the movie looks cheap. So why should you watch "The Unborn II"? Well, if you saw the first one and really liked it, you should definitely check out this inferior sequel just to see how far an idea can fall in the hands of Roger Corman. You can also watch the film with a few friends and do your own MST3K treatment. That's always fun, and quite easy to do with this movie. Finally, you should watch this flick just to see the opening scenes on the playground. It's nasty stuff executed in a way that will make you flinch. Too bad the film couldn't live up to the high expectations it set for itself at the beginning. I'll give "The Unborn II" three stars because of that scene, Sally Anne, and the hilarious hijinks that kept me laughing throughout.
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Unborn 2 (1994)
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