The Unborn are Eeevohl!

At least that's the impression one gets from pop culture.

For instance, the recent campaign for the upcoming movie entitled: The Unborn.
The posters for this movie contain phrases like "Evil will to anything to live." See how "live" and "evil" create a mirrored anagram while the protagonist sees an evil reflection of her twin in the mirror. So clever. Yawn. Oh...wait...I just looked at the rest of the poster. Now, I'm awake.

Another poster includes the catch phrase "It wants to be born -- [wait for it] -- NOW."

And, of course, the actual trailer features all kinds of images of a demonic looking little boy who never got to be born summoning all kinds of ghastly creatures to attack the heroine.

Apparently, the plot of the movie is that the protagonist is being haunted by the evil spirit of her fraternal (possibly parasitic?) twin brother who died, as the title reveals, before birth. I'm not exactly sure what theological metaphysics the movie claims to follow to establish the plausibility that an unborn baby would jealously attack its sibling in an undead fashion...I'm pretty sure it's not Catholic.

But what troubles me the most about this movie is that the image it will ingrain in the thirty or so people who actually go to see the movie. The unborn demand that you let them live, and that women are essentially held hostage and terrorized by the unborn.

Is this really the image we need cropping up in people's minds whenever we refer to "the unborn?"

Also, for the record, this is not the first horror movie with the aforementioned title. There was a 1991 film called The Unborn in which a couple undergoes in vitro fertilization only to discover that their unborn baby is actually part of some kind of maniacal experiment. The poster for that movie appears to have a creepy fetus tearing its way out of the uterus.

Given the threat from radical Islam, the rising aggression from Russia, and the depressing economic downslide, don't we have enough to be afraid of from those who are born that we have to start imagining helpless babies as evil entities?

Comments

[Lindsay]

Sounds vaguely like the "Da Vinci Code" of the pro-life movement. I doubt it could ever draw a comparable following, but I'd imagine the reception is much the same.

[Peter Terp]

I think it would only be the "Da Vinci Code" if there were an albino Jesuit impregnating women with the spawn of Satan...and the only reason that Opus Dei was pro-life was because they knew the Anti-Christ was at risk of being aborted.
That's why they are so eager to have women have ultrasounds--not so the women will fall in love with the life of their child, but so they can see if the fetus has a tail and cloven hooves.