The Movie:

Director Richard Friedman's Born might seem a little familiar to seasoned horror movie fans, as it treads ground we've seen more than a few times by this point in the history of the genre. Regardless, the movie is what it is - it tells the story of a pretty young woman named Mary Elizabeth (Alison Brie), a very religious lady who has recently lost her mother. We meet up with her at the funeral where, after the last rights have been said, Mary has a supernatural experience wherein she blacks out and wakes up an indiscernible amount of time later alone in the graveyard.

A day after her strange cemetery incident, Mary finds out that she's pregnant - the catch here is that she's not ever had sex with anyone, ever, in her entire life. As her stomach grows, bad things start happening to people around her until she starts to wonder if she isn't carrying the seed of Satan himself, tucked neatly away in her cute little belly. Or, on the flipside of that wacky coin, is she carrying a reincarnation of the son of God? Nope, she was the right the first time around - this is made readily apparent when she finds some green slime oozing out of her hoo-haw. Let the gore, nudity, and nonsense begin! Oh, and throw Kane Hodder into the mix as Mary's half-demon brother and the father of her baby. He's got some serious psychological issues and through sessions with his psychiatrist (former Playmate Joan Severance), who may be far more sinister than she appears, he bookends this mess of a film in some sort of thinly veiled attempt to give it a context.

Ok, let's start with the good - Born moves along at a pretty brisk pace and features some welcome gore effects. It's also got some attractive naked women in it and some green slime. Alison Brie goes way over the top in the later parts of the film, really throwing herself into the role and making for an entertaining enough central character.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film is pretty dire. The script is a fairly blatant rehashing of Rosemary's Baby with maybe a few nods to The Exorcist and The Demon Seed thrown in for good measure and what few changes are made to the story hinder it far more than they do help it. The whole sub-plot involving Hodder's half-demon and the psychiatrist is ridiculous to the point where it becomes comedic and, as great as he is as Jason Vorhees, here his performance is more than just a bit hokey. Characters act with little regard to logic or reason, plot devices are introduced for reasons known only to the writing team (at one point a priest shows up and reveals that he was at one point an assassin - what a handy guy to know!) and the whole script just feels sloppy and patched together from left over bits of far more interesting movies.

The film does go far enough to work as low rent schlock, and it's hard to imagine that the filmmakers had any more serious intent than just that, but the near two hour running winds up trying your patience long before the end credits start to roll. Under the right circumstances and under the right kind of influence, this could provide a few cheap laughs at the expense of the cast but don't go into this expecting to be in the least bit frightened, or, honestly, genuinely impressed with any one aspect of it save for Brie's nutty turn in the lead.

The Video:

Born arrives on DVD in a 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks alright even if it is interlaced. Detail is about average for a low budget feature while color reproduction is consistently lifelike. Black levels are alright, though some mild compression artifacts pop up in a few of the darker scenes and some minor shimmering is present at various points throughout the movie. There isn't any serious print damage to report though eagle-eyed viewers will not the occasional speck now and again, though thankfully it's never distracting. All in all, the movie looks fine, the it's hardly impressive.

The Audio:

The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is perfectly sufficient. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout and while there are a couple of spots where the score gets a bit louder than it needs to, there are no problems to report with hiss or distortion and you can always understand the performers without giving yourself any ear strain. It's not a reference quality track by any stretch but it gets the job done. Optional subtitles are provided in Spanish only.

The Extras:

The only extra, aside from some unrelated trailers for other Lionsgate DVD releases, is a twenty-five minute long featurette that takes us behind the scenes of Born by way of some interviews with the cast and crew alongside some footage shot while the film was in production. The interviews are fairly superficial but some of the behind the scenes clips are alright if you're into checking out effects work. Nothing here will likely change your opinion of the film, however. Animated menus and chapter selection are also included.

Overall:

Lionsgate's presentation is probably as good as its going to get - it's watchable enough, the audio is fine and there's a lengthy featurette included for those who want it. As to the feature itself? Well, intentionally or not Born does offer some comedic value, ample gore and a bit of nudity. As far as low budget B-movies go, it's entertaining enough in a 'why did they make this' kind of way but let's be honest here, it's a pretty awful film and in no way, shape or form will it benefit you to waste your time with it.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.