The Unborn

Nazi demons haunt 'The Unborn'

Mark (Cam Gigandet) rescues Casey (Odette Yustman) from an exorcism in a scene from ''The Unborn.'' (Peter Iovino/Rogue Pictures)

A scary movie in every way except the ones that matter, "The Unborn" draws a dismaying line from the ghettos of the Holocaust to the Hollywood horror ghetto.

"It has fallen on you to finish what started in Auschwitz," intones Sophie, the World War II survivor Jane Alexander plays, clutching a Star of David and a soupy German accent, and speaking the sort of dialogue that sounds like an opening line from a Judeo-digital video-game - "The Legend of Zelda Rubinstein."

In a movie bloated with Jewish kitsch, Rubinstein, that diminutive medium from those "Poltergeist" movies ("Carol Ann? Carol Ann?"), is conspicuous by her absence. Zelda, Casey Beldon needs you. Sophie explains that Casey and her friends (Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet) have been ensnared by a story of Nazi genetic experimentation and supernatural bunk that involves the dead twin brother Casey knew nothing about. Until just now. Is it him she's seeing all over her Chicago suburb or a long-lost concentration camp relative?

For almost 45 minutes, Odette Yustman, the woman playing young, dull Casey, cuts a gawkable figure for the camera. She can pivot in her panties, cock her head to one side, and yank open a medicine cabinet door like no one before her. And yet she seems less than human.

"Some people are doorways," Casey observes, in the midst of a metaphysical revelation. And where Yustman's acting is concerned, some people are doors.

The movie has what it thinks is a provocative idea: a Jewish "Beloved," perhaps. But it also has a heroine who appears to be getting in touch with her Judaic self in the least flattering ways. She learns of dybbuks and becomes the object of the rare kosher exorcism. The movie's writer and director, David S. Goyer (he wrote the "Blade" movies and "Batman Begins"), has spent most of his career with his head in the science-fiction, horror-thriller, comic-book clouds. Here he combines his interests into one gruesome exercise.

What begins as a disposable teen spookfest (Girl, don't go in there) ends in a nutty, barely Semitic bloodbath (Dude, don't go there). For good measure, Gary Oldman - as Rabbi Joseph Sendak - blows a shofar, and Idris Elba casts out demons before becoming one himself.

"The Unborn" joins a growing glut of Holocaust- and Nazi-themed material -- "Valkyrie," "Defiance" - that are long on posturing, suppositions, and righteousness, yet short on moral complexity. Nazism and its crimes have lately inspired theme parks more than actual movies. Too many rides on that roller coaster and I feel sick.

Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/ae/movienation.