Soo-jin (Eun-ju Lee- Tae Guk Gi, Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors) is a tv journalist who gets involved in a strange rash of deaths after she begins to follow around Detective Choi, a member of the internet crimes task force. It seems a random group of women have been dying suddenly, their uteruses swelling up and crushing their internal organs. It appears like they suddenly became violently pregnant.

Yep, folks. Death via ghost baby.

The Case of the Prenatal Poltergeist.

This film is so infuriatingly predicable and formulaic, I found myself yawning a good ten minutes in. The film manages to cannibalizes ideas from any number of Asian horror flicks: the women all visited a spooky website like in Kairo, they died within a specific time frame (15 days) like in The Ring, there is a haunted apartment like *insert any number of titles here*, and one throwaway scare scene even has Soo-jin staring at a spot of water damage on the ceiling, just like in Dark Water.

Of course, just after Soo-jin becomes pregnant, she views the website and then checks into the haunted apartment to try and be closer to the strange spooky business. In hopes of saving Soo-jin and others from the curse, she and Detective Chio race against time to uncover the puzzle of the website. Mainly Soo-jin does all the investigating. The detective's skills are so useless, he doesn't seem know jack about the woman who lived in the apartment. What, do people in Korea not sign apartment leases or pick up mail? That is just one of the films many illogical stumbling points.

I don't mind formula in my genre films, however when they are done with so little imagination and lack of effort, I just cannot forgive the stupidity.

Does it make sense that an internet detective is investigating the deaths when they look more like something for the CDC? Does it make any sense that Soo-jin would capture some ghostly footage because she left her camera running... and placed it on the floor... while she was on the toilet? Seriously, what the hell? Does she not know how to press Pause or Stop? It also doesn't help the suspense much when 1) the detective, almost from the start, naturally assumes that it is supernatural or 2) the film blatantly states that Soo-jin's lover recognizes a Night Gallery-ish painting from the woman who started the in uteran curse. Gee do ya' think he might've been the dude who got her preggars and then killed the woman, thus instigating this whole ghost baby curse business?

The worst failing of the film, is that it actually shows some slight promise in its premise. Soo-Jin is a single woman, having an affair with a tv host at teh network where she works. Her unplanned pregnancy puts her at odds with her lover and the tv execs, who pretty much fire her and insist that she get rid of the baby because it would look bad for the tv host to have an affair with a co-worker. This film could have been the feminist Baby Boom, the Vera Drake, or Papa Don't Preach of horror films. Instead it opted for a sloppy nonsense story concocted from a number of similar supernatural themed Asain horror films.

The DVD: Tartan

Picture: Well, the packaging states Anamorphic Widescreen, but the disc is definitely, without question, Non-Anamorphic. Odd that Tartan dropped the ball because they are usually pretty good in this area. At least one would expect them to get the packaging right.

Anyway, the image is a bit compressed. The general details are lacking because of this. Sharpness, Color, and Contrast levels are all decent but sub par for high end systems. Unfortunately this darkly photographed film is really hampered by artefacts, which includes everything from macro blocking to edge enhancement.

Sound: DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0, Korean language with optional English or Spanish subtitles. Decent sound presentation. Atmosphere is well-mixed and gets pretty good surround treatment. The musical score is so forgettable they could recycle it for any number of lackluster horror films and viewers probably wouldn't notice.

Extras: Slipcase— Original Theatrical Trailer (plus more Tartan trailers)— Photo Gallery— "On the Set" Featurette (59:20). Those familiar with modern Korean/Japanese films will recognize this feature. More or less it is just b-camera footage of the film being shot, various scenes, with little/no narration or interviews. — Interviews with the Actor (2:02) and Actress (2:20). At two minutes only, they don't really say much other than some generic praise for making the film.

Conclusion: For me, this was a literal yawner. There just isn't anything remotely interesting or original about this film. A shame, because the story held some slight promise and, on a purely technical level, the film has a nice budget and clean production. Combine a mediocre flick with a weak image presentation (well, one not up to Tartan's usual standard), and this one is a rental for the curious, but I'd advise most viewers not to bother. Here's my bad critical blurb of the month: Unborn But Not Forgotten is best left unwatched and forgotten.