Writer and director David S. Goyer --

Best known for his scriptwork on the last two Batman movies and the Blade Trilogy -- has stuffed The Unborn with one horror movie cliché after another, making it one of the most generic flicks I've seen in recent years. It also reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's definition of a blivit: two pounds of shit in a one pound bag. The clichés include a pale, revenant child (The Grudge, The Ring, A Tale of Two Sisters, or insert your favorite J-Horror film here); a dead twin (The Other); a gratuitous insect attack; long-hidden, grainy film footage; the use of mirrors as spiritual doorways (Mirrors, Prince of Darkness); obvious dream sequences, including one to open the film, naturally; head-twisting right out of The Exorcist, not once but twice; a spunky female lead who walks around in her underwear a lot (okay, I'm not really complaining about that part); cute friends who make convenient victims; long-held secrets that drive people crazy; and so forth. You could still make a good movie out of that tapestry, but it takes more than what we have here. The Unborn understands the notes, but it doesn't hear the music.

The plot goes like this: Casey Beldon (played by Odette Yustman, a Megan Fox-look-alike who can be seen in Cloverfield, another turkey), is a Chicago University student whose mother (Carla Gugino) committed suicide years earlier. Casey today is suffering from visions of a) a spooky little kid who keeps popping up out of nowhere, and b) her mother's death in a psycho ward. A trip to the doctor shows that one of Casey's eyes appears to be changing colour, and this leads to the revelation that she had a twin who died in utero, posthumously named Jumby. (Now seriously, what numbnuts would name their child Jumby? The parents probably figured that, since he was already dead, he wouldn't have to worry about being beaten to a pulp on the playground.) After a quick trip to her attic and some detective work, Casey discovers that the crazy old woman she met in a rest home is actually her grandma Sofi (Jane Alexander), a Holocaust survivor, and that our re-appearing ghost-boy is Casey's great uncle Barto. It seems that following his death at the hands of Auschwitz doctors, Barto's body was possessed by a dybbuk, a Jewish demon looking to get into our world by taking over the body of a twin -- although, as we're schooled later, apparently anyone's body will do in a pinch. Sofi defeated its first attempt in Auschwitz, but now it's using the spirit of Casey's dead twin to enter our world once again. Casey decides her only hope is a Jewish exorcism, performed by Rabbi Sendak (Gary Oldman). You can imagine how well that's going to turn out.

Despite having worked on several hit screenplays, Goyer still has a tin ear for dialogue. Witness, for instance, the line where Sofi tells her granddaughter that she'll have to slay the demon herself: "It has fallen on you to finish what began in Auschwitz." Did nobody tell Goyer just how wrong that sounded? Or is it that the current generation in Hollywood is so historically ignorant that it never occurred to anyone? At least Goyer's script is clever enough to name the rabbi after the author of Where the Wild Things Are. But it's cluttered with so much unnecessary material that one never feels a sense of the imagination at work. It's just labored and clunky, poorly paced and convoluted.

It's also heavily dependent upon the horror movie staple technique of the jump scare. Even a child can pull this off: you just wait until your friend is passing by unawares and yell "Boo!" Pretty simple, right? And it used to work pretty well, when I was eight. Good horror flicks use it a couple of times, tops; The Unborn returns to that well again and again.

The movie looks terrific, even if that same look is as much a cliché as the rest of the movie. Cinematographer Jim Hawkinson (who also shot The Hitcher in 2007) creates a solid image, but one with the computer-assisted desaturation that has become the standard go-to "look" for horror movies today. Push the button on your console marked "Horror," and your movie can also look like Underworld, Se7en, Saw, Eden Lake, Autopsy, The Ring, The Orphanage, Mirrors, The Eye, Wrong Turn, Frontier(s), High Tension, Pulse, Vacancy, The Broken, and on and on. But at least the skin tones look fine.

If I'm going to praise one thing about this movie, it's the choice to make Ms. Yustman's scantily clad derrière the focus of the final poster. That was near genius. Call it exploitation if you like (and you would be correct), but it's the movie's real star turn.

(The disc, in both its DVD and Blu-Ray incarnations, is available with the unrated version included, which is only one lousy minute longer than the theatrical release. I don't consider this to be a bonus. The only extra the disc has is a useless collection of deleted scenes. You're better off skipping it.)

Principal Cast

After the events portrayed in The Dreaming Void, the Void has suddenly grown even faster than before. At the same time, members of the Living Dream have started a mass migration, hoping to lead them to a new home in the Void. The government of the human Commonwealth and others who see the Void as a danger are out to stop them, and prevent the Void from swallowing our universe from within.

That part of the story fits pretty comfortably into the standard part two of a trilogy scenario. Like The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void alternates between action and intrigue in our universe and the story of Edeard, also known as the Waterwalker, in the Void. It's in Edeard's story that the details of life in the Void, what it means for the humans who already live there, its relationship to our universe, and the exact nature of the threat it poses to our universe begin to emerge. If the emphasis in The Dreaming Void was how the existence of the Void was affecting life in our universe, by the end of The Temporal Void the focus has turned to the Void, where the story of Edeard's life has slowly but surely become the key to determining how the Void works, and why.

Readers and fans of Peter F. Hamilton will find everything they have come to expect from his work present in The Temporal Void. There are the high-tech civilizations, this is, after all, a space-opera, and the individuals they empower. There are insider schemes and outsiders desperately trying to figure out what's going on. There is also the author's seeming fascination with life after death, all of it wrapped up in a story that places as much emphasis on characters as it does gadgets and galaxy-threatening, life-changing events.

There are also a few weaknesses evident. As Edeard's story becomes more central to the plot, less time is spent on other characters, and there are times when it almost seems a sub-plot or two has disappeared from the story. And life in the Commonwealth, for all its high-tech marvels, often comes across as living in one big intergalactic suburb. Those faults, though, hardly get in the way of what continues to be a gripping story, with the fates of two universes at stake, and characters whose lives are completely caught up in what is the central mystery of the universe they inhabit. Peter F. Hamilton is not a writer who is out to re-invent the field or tell his story in a way that has never been done before, but he is a writer more than capable of taking the basic elements of wide-ranging, galaxy-spanning space opera, and using them to tell stories that work both as adventure tales and portrayals of an interesting and diverse set of characters. Now all that's left is to find out how the story ends.

Delia Sherman examines the role of the evil wizard, in "Wizard's Apprentice," in which a young man chooses the life of an apprentice rather than go on with an undesirable home life. What he learns may just surprise him.

Garth Nix completely reverses the line between good and evil with his retelling of Rapunzel. In "An Unwelcome Guest," it's Rapunzel who's forcing her presence upon a rather unhappy witch, and only a clever reinterpretation of the rules will get rid of this undesirable house guest.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman opts for a more straight-forward retelling of The Goose Girl, but from the viewpoint of the unfaithful maidservant. In "Rags and Riches," we're shown just how and why that maidservant chose to become a princess, and how her choices affected her. It's a subtle bending of the old story, but intriguing nonetheless, especially with its hints for a wide-open future for the protagonist.

In "Up The Down Beanstalk: A Wife Remembers," Peter S. Beagle suggests that the thing with Jack and the giant and the goose that laid the golden eggs may have been blown out of proportion and subject to misunderstanding. The end result is something far less dramatic, but far more humanizing.

Ellen Kushner's "The Shoes That Were Danced To Pieces" is an elegant, low-key retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. In the absence of a true villain for that story, it twists one small but vital aspect of the tale to take on the topic of responsibility and maturity, leading to a satisfying conclusion.

Holly Black's offering, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is a rather chilling little piece, about a young man who knows too much for his own good, and who makes a tragic choice in the interests of doing the right thing. This is one of those stories where bad things happen to good people, not the comforting sort at all.

Jane Yolen's "Troll" looks at the story about the three goats and the bridge from what else, the viewpoint of the troll. Short and sweet, it shows that sometimes, all the villain wants is a nice, tasty, cooked meal.

Nancy Farmer juxtaposes history, literature, and fairy tales with her story of "Castle Othello," which merges Bluebeard and Othello and adding an interesting twist to their combined history. The result is both wry and respectful, making for an intriguing story all around.

In all of the fairy tale world, few villains have ever been as universally abused and cheated as poor Rumplestiltskin, who made a fair deal by his own standards and was then undone by his client's case of buyer's remorse. Well, in Michael Cadnum's "'Skin," we're treated to a far different interpretation of said tale, where the baby-desiring nature of the titular spinner-of-gold are explored and put into a new light. Is he a villain for having certain culinary desires, or just a gourmand? And is the miller's daughter so sympathetic after all? It's an interestingly warped retelling, all in all.

Catherynne M. Valente revisits the witch of Hansel and Gretel, telling her unusual story and unique origins in "A Delicate Architecture." It's a beautiful, haunting, strange piece that explores what sort of woman would live in a gingerbread house in the woods. With a little bit of The Gingerbread Man tossed in for good measure (or so it seems) it's thoughtful and poetic, told with Valente's usual attention to detail and imagery.

In "Molly," by Midori Snyder, a different story of clever humans versus giants is uprooted and retold. And once again, the so-called villains are the sympathetic parties, minding their own business until a mean-spirited 'hero' comes along to torment them. Poignant and provocative, it summons up the image of unjustly-persecuted minorities just as much as it does fairy tale monsters.

Kelly Link looks at the nature of being a villain, focused through the lens of step-sibling rivalry in "The Cinderella Game." This is another one of those stories where things are more than a little disturbing, and you're not sure who to root for... if anyone. Frankly, this is the perfect setup for one of those horror stories featuring naughty, evil children who come to bad ends.

Neil Gaiman's poem, "Observing the Formalities," takes a new look at Sleeping Beauty from the viewpoint of the "bad" fairy. Joseph Stanton's poem "Puss in Boots, The Sequel" adds a new spin to that particular tale, and "Faery Tales" by Wendy Froud is a poetic speculation on what happens to some of those who live happily ever after.

Not one of these stories is anything less than excellent. They certainly fulfill the mandate of retelling and reexamining fairy tales from the perspective of the traditional villain. Evil witches, trolls, bad fairies, giants and more get their day in the sun, and as you can see, it's not even as simple as every story making them come out as the true heroes. There's a subtle complexity, a questioning of traditional fairy tale morals, a subversion of the familiar, and taken as a whole, it gets the point across without overdoing it. So in that regard, Troll's-Eye View is a splendid anthology. My only gripe is that the stories are too short. Many of them end just as they get good, or leave the reader wanting more about those characters or set in that world. There's so much room for expansion and further exploration that it's a disappointment to have the story over with so quickly. And when my only complaint is that I didn't get enough, that's definitely a plus in my book. Of course, this anthology is aimed at somewhat younger readers, the 9-and-up crowd, so there's only so far you can go and keep it audience-friendly. Ultimately, Windling and Datlow do what they've always done: deliver a top-notch collection filled with excellent authors and perfectly-chosen stories. As always, a superb read.

Science fiction often expresses the potential of technology to destroy humankind through Armaggedon-like events, wars between worlds, Earth-imperiling encounters or disasters (i.e., The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), When Worlds Collide (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953), the two Hollywood blockbusters Deep Impact (1998) and Armageddon (1998), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), etc.). In many science-fiction tales, aliens, creatures, or beings (sometimes from our deep subconscious, sometimes in space or in other dimensions) are unearthed and take the mythical fight to new metaphoric dimensions or planes, depicting an eternal struggle or battle (good vs. evil) that is played out by recognizable archetypes and warriors (i.e., Forbidden Planet (1956) with references to the 'id monster' from Shakespeare's The Tempest, the space opera Star Wars (1977) with knights and a princess with her galaxy's kingdom to save, The Fifth Element (1997), and the metaphysical Solaris (1972 and 2002)). Beginning in the 80s, science fiction began to be feverishly populated by noirish, cyberpunk films, with characters including cyber-warriors, hackers, virtual reality dreamers and druggies, and underworld low-lifers in nightmarish, un-real worlds (i.e., Blade Runner (1982), Strange Days (1995), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), and The Matrix (1999)).

Borrowing and Hybrid Genre Blending in Sci-Fi Films:

The genre is predominantly a version of fantasy films ( Star Wars (1977)), but can easily overlap with horror films, particularly when technology or alien life forms become malevolent (Alien (1979)) in a confined spaceship (much like a haunted-house story). Quite a few science-fiction films took an Earth-bound tale and transported it to outer space: High Noon (1952) became Outland (1980), The Magnificent Seven (1960) was spoofed in Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), Enemy Mine (1985) was essentially a remake of Hell in the Pacific (1968) with Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, and the chariot race of Ben-Hur (1959) was duplicated in the pod-race of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).

Further, there are many examples of blurred or hybrid science fiction films that shared characteristics with lots of other genres including:

• westerns (Outland (1980))
• romances (Somewhere in Time (1980))
• adventure films (The Thing From Another World (1951))
• action films (Terminator 2 - Judgment Day (1991))
• comedies (Sleeper (1973))
• serials ( Star Wars (1977))
• cop-buddy films (Alien Nation (1988))

The Earliest Science Fiction Films:

Many early films in this genre featured similar fanciful special effects and thrilled early audiences. The pioneering science fiction film, a 14-minute ground-breaking masterpiece with 30 separate tableaus (scenes), Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), was made by imaginative, turn-of-the-century French filmmaker/magician Georges Melies, approximating the contents of the novels by Jules Verne (From the Earth to the Moon) and H.G. Wells (First Men in the Moon). With innovative, illusionary cinematic techniques (trick photography with superimposed images, dissolves and cuts), he depicted many memorable, whimsical old-fashioned images:

• a modern-looking, projectile-style rocket ship blasting off into space from a rocket-launching cannon (gunpowder powered?)
• a crash landing into the eye of the winking 'man in the moon'
• the appearance of fantastic moon inhabitants (Selenites, acrobats from the Folies Bergere) on the lunar surface
• a scene in the court of the moon king
• a last minute escape back to Earth

Otto Rippert's melodramatic and expressionistic Homunculus (1916, Ger.) - mostly a lost silent film - was a serial (or mini-series) composed of six one-hour episodic parts. It told about the life of an artificial man (Danish actor Olaf Fonss) that was created by an archetypal mad scientist (Friedrich Kuhne). The monstrous, vengeful creature, after realizing it was soul-less and lacked human emotion, became a tyrannical dictator but was eventually destroyed by a divine bolt of lightning. Its importance as an early science-fiction film was that it served as a precursor and inspiration to Universal's Frankenstein (1931) film and many other plots of sci-fi films (with mad scientists, superhuman androids, Gothic elements, and the evil effects of technology).

The first science fiction feature films appeared in the 1920s after the Great War, showing increasing doubts about the destructive effects of technology gone mad. The first feature-length dinosaur-oriented science-fiction film to be released was The Lost World (1925). It was also the first feature length film made in the US with the pioneering first major use (primitive) of stop-motion animation with models for its special effects. It helped to establish its genre - 'live' and life-like giant monsters-dinosaurs, later replicated in Gojira (1954, Jp.), Jurassic Park (1993) and Godzilla (1998).

One of the greatest and most innovative films ever made was a silent film set in the year 2000, German director Fritz Lang's classic, expressionistic, techno-fantasy masterpiece Metropolis (1927) - sometimes considered the Blade Runner of its time. It featured an evil scientist/magician named Rotwang, a socially-controlled futuristic city, a beautiful but sinister female robot named Maria (probably the first robot in a feature film, and later providing the inspiration for George Lucas' C3-PO in Star Wars), a stratified society, and an oppressed enslaved race of underground industrial workers. Even today, the film is acclaimed for its original, futuristic sets, mechanized society themes and a gigantic subterranean flood - it appeared to accurately project the nature of society in the year 2000. [It was re-released in 1984 with a stirring, hard-rock score featuring Giorgio Moroder's music and songs by Pat Benatar and Queen.]

Another Lang film, his last silent film, was one of the first space travel films, The Woman in the Moon (1929) (aka By Rocket to the Moon). It was about a blastoff to the moon where explorers discovered a mountainous landscape littered with raw diamonds and chunks of gold. [The film introduced NASA's backward count to a launch - 5-4-3-2-1 to future real-life space shots, and the effects of centrifugal force to future space travel films.]

Alexander Korda's epic view of the future Things to Come (1936) was directed by visual imagist William Cameron Menzies and starred Raymond Massey (as pacifist pilot John Cabal). The imaginative English film was based on an adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1933 The Shape of Things to Come and set during the years from 1940 to 2036 in 'Everytown.' It included a lengthy global world war (WW II!), a prophetic Brave New World-view, a despotic tyrant named Rudolph (Ralph Richardson), the dawn of the space age, and the attempt of social-engineering scientists to save the world with technology. An attempt to prevent scientific progress - and the launch of the first Moon rocket - was vainly led by sculptor Theotocopulos (Cedric Hardwicke). David Butler's Just Imagine (1930), a futuristic sci-fi musical about a man who awakened in a strange new world - New York City in the 1980s, provided prophetic inventions including automatic doors, test tube babies, and videophones.

Early Science-Fiction - Horror Film Blends: The 30s

The most memorable blending of science fiction and horror was in Universal Studios' mad scientist-doctor/monster masterpiece from director James Whale, Frankenstein (1931), an adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel. Her original 1818 book was subtitled Frankenstein - The Modern Prometheus, and she used this allusion to signify that her main character Dr. Victor Frankenstein demonstrated 'hubris' against god/nature in his experimental desire to create life from dead body parts, and afterwards abandoned his monstrous ugly creature. Like the Titan god, who stole fire from the gods to benefit mankind, he did not realize the ramifications of his actions. (Although there were civilizing results of having fire, it also brought the ability to work with metals, which could be shaped into weapons, that could then be used in warfare.) Many other derivative works, including numerous sci-fi films, have featured mad scientists, and artificially-created monsters that run amok killing people.

This was soon followed by Whale's superior sequel Bride of Frankenstein (1935), one of the best examples of the horror-SF crossover, and one of the first films with a mad scientist's creation of miniaturized human beings. The famed director also made the film version of an H. G. Wells novel The Invisible Man (1933) with Claude Rains (in his film debut in the starring title role) - it was the classic tale of a scientist with a formula for invisibility accompanied by spectacular special effects and photographic tricks.

Mad Scientists in Early Horror/Sci-Fi Films:

In the 1930s and early 40s, American sound films with hybrid science fiction/horror themes included an oddball collection of mad scientist films, with memorable characters who created mutated or shrunken creatures:

• The Vampire Bat (1932) - a low-budget Majestic Pictures film in which Lionel Atwill starred as mad doctor Otto Von Niemann, responsible for creating bloodsucking nocturnal bats in a small German town; with a cast including dark-haired, 'scream-queen' Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, and Dwight Frye (the crazy Renfield character in Dracula)
• Doctor X (1932), a First National (later Warner Bros.) film, in pioneering two-strip Technicolor by director Michael Curtiz, about another mysterious mad scientist named Doctor X-avier (Lionel Atwill) and his daughter (Fay Wray)
• The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), another First National film in two-strip Technicolor, about an insane, wax-dummy maker-sculptor, again pairing Atwill and Wray, and featuring Glenda Farrell as a fast-talking, wisecracking reporter; famous for the shocking 'face-mask crumbling' scene; [re-made in 1953 as House of Wax with Vincent Price]
• The Black Cat (1934) - the first and best of all the Karloff-Lugosi pairings at Universal, featuring Boris Karloff (as a crazed devil worshipper) and Bela Lugosi (as a vengeful architect)
• The Invisible Ray (1936) - although he usually played a grotesque monster, Karloff starred as experimental physicist Dr. Janos Rukh in this film; after traveling to Africa with his colleague Dr. Benet (Bela Lugosi) and becoming infected by radiation (Radium X) in a meteor of the nebula Andromeda, Karloff was transformed into a murdering, radiation-poisoned megalomaniac as he hunted down his enemies and projected death rays at them from his eyes (glaring from under a soft felt hat)
• Tod Browning's off-beat The Devil Doll (1936) - with Devil's Island escapee and scientist Paul Lavond (Lionel Barrymore), disguised as a macabre elderly woman ("Madame Mandelip"), vengefully terrorizing his enemies by creating shrunken "devil dolls" to seek out his revenge; with landmark special effects, and Maureen O'Sullivan in a supporting role as Lavond's daughter
• Ernest Schoedsack's and Paramount's Dr. Cyclops (1940) - the first Technicolor horror/sci-fi film since The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), with Albert Dekker as sadistic, bald, bespectacled mad scientist Dr. Thorkel shrinking his victims in a remote Peruvian jungle setting; the film received an Academy Award nomination for its Visual Effects
• The Monster and the Girl (1941) - another Paramount "B" horror/sci-fi film from director Stuart Heisler, about eccentric mad scientist Dr. Parry (George Zucco) who transplanted the brain of a wrongly-accused and executed murderer into a murderous gorilla, who then went on a rampage to seek revenge
• director George Sherman's The Lady and the Monster (1944) - the first film version of the classic tale Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak [remade in 1954], in which the throbbing, telepathic brain of a dead and unscrupulous industrialist/maniac named James Donovan was kept alive by enthusiastic mad scientist/Prof. Franz Mueller (Erich von Stroheim)

Escapist Serials of the 30s: Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers

In the 1930s, the most popular films were the low-budget, less-serious, space exploration tales portrayed in the popular, cliff-hanger Saturday matinee serials with the first two science-fiction heroes - Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Space-explorer hero Flash Gordon was a fanciful adventure character derived from the Alex Raymond comic strip first published in 1934 (from King Features). The serials 'invented' many familiar technological marvels: anti-gravity belts, laser/ray guns, and spaceships. Universal's serialized sci-fi adventures included:

• Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (1936), the original and the best of its type, with 13 chapters; later condensed into a 97-minute feature film titled Flash Gordon: Rocketship
• Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938) - 15 episodes
• Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940), 12 episodes, with Carol Hughes as Dale Arden

Popular elements in the swashbuckling films were the perfectly-cast, epic hero athlete/actor Larry "Buster" Crabbe, the lovely heroine and Flash's blonde sweetheart Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), Dr. Hans Zarkov (Frank Shannon), and the malevolent, tyrant Emperor Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton) on far-off planet Mongo. The Flash Gordon films were remade in 1980 (with Sam J. Jones as the title character and Max von Sydow as Ming, with music by Queen), and in 1997 as the animated Flash Gordon: Marooned on Mongo. [There was also a pornographic knock-off film titled Flesh Gordon (1972) that featured a dildo-shaped spaceship.]

Wavy-haired, muscular Buster Crabbe also starred in the 12-part serial Buck Rogers Conquers the Universe (1939) shot between Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938) and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). It was derived from the novelette story "Armageddon-2419 A.D." written by Phil Nolan (published in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories), and from the comic strip Buck Rogers in the 25th Century by Dick Calkins. In this sci-fi serial, Buck Rogers pursued the vile Killer Kane (Anthony Warde), but the series proved to be not as popular as the Flash Gordon serials.

Another serial was Republic's 15-part serial The Purple Monster Strikes (1945), aka D-Day on Mars, with one of the first instances of alien invasion. And in Columbia's 15-episode serial Bruce Gentry - Daredevil of the Skies (1949), the hero (Tom Neal) fought off the genre's first flying saucers.