First Born Year: 2007 Director: Isaac Webb Written by: Isaac Webb Threat: Psychopath Weapon of Choice: Insanity Based upon: nothing Color/B&W/3D: Color Language: English Country of Origin: U.S.A. IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
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Rish's Reviews
I'm going to have to spoil this movie, so here's a little warning up front. The film isn't any good, though, so I hope you don't mind me giving things away. I wouldn't want you to watch it anyhow.
So the somewhat obsessive-compulsive Elizabeth Shue discovers she's pregnant the same night she finds an abandoned doll on the subway and takes it home. As the pregnancy develops, she and her English husband move out to the country and Shue starts to go a little mad cooped up in the huge empty house all the time. Then the baby comes. And Shue goes absolutely crazy cooped up with the baby in the big empty house all the time. But there seems to be a sinister force and/or forces at work here, trying to harm her and harm the baby, so we continue to watch. Then Shue gets even crazier and switches the doll she found for her actual child. And the movie ends.
I guess if I had liked the film I would have described it better, but that is exactly what happens, and though I rented the movie super cheap, I still wasted my money.
I had a big crush on Elizabeth Shue when I saw her in Karate Kid and Adventures in Babysitting and Cocktail (though I may never have actually seen Cocktail). Then she appeared in the Back to the Future sequels and the crush went away. But it's interesting: in this movie, she goes from looking quite good to looking real rough. I checked her bio and it looks like she was forty-three when she made this, so okay, I can't hold it against her if she looks a little tired. And her performance isn't bad.
The packaging, marketing, and DVD menu for this film make it look a lot like a certain Roman Polanski-directed baby movie from . . . wow, it can't really be forty years ago, can it? With dark shapes and shadowy fonts and glowing eyes and the F turned into an upside-down cross, there's a good chance devilry's afoot, either inside the crib or beside it. But that's misleading, as misleading as calling this a horror movie. I don't know what it is (a Psychological Suspense Red Herringly Occult Thriller, perhaps?), but somewhere in America right now, a guy is in a Ballbuster Video saying, "Look, honey, they remade The Devil's Child with that lady from Leavin' Las Vegas." And that was exactly what they were hoping.
It's why I got it too. Oh, and it has a really nice title, First Born, which sells a good movie, but has little to do with the film I just sat through. Having written my share of mediocre stories, I am almost always willing to give a movie the benefit of the doubt. As this one plodded along, I kept thinking of how Richard Donner described shooting The Omen as nothing supernatural, where everything that happens is all stuff you could chalk up to coincidence. First Born doesn't add up to a heck of a lot, in the end. You realise that all the stuff that seemed like it was leading to someplace scary never really did, and that everything else was either a misunderstanding, a contradiction, or may never have happened at all.
It's like a horror movie made for the Lifetime Network*, only the husband doesn't turn out to be shagging his secretary and plotting with the sheriff to have his wife committed so he can take her money and/or children.
I think I mentioned in a review recently (though I can't remember which one it was) that just once, instead of the police, husband, neighbours, and and milkman not believing someone who repeatedly tells them that something scary/weird/dangerous/supernatural/illegal/evil/habit-forming/wrong is going on, I'd like people to believe them and be willing to do something about it, only to find out the person IS indeed crazy.
Now I know that mine was a pretty bad idea.
The film is long, dull, and rather empty. The moral of the film is a good one, though: if your wife or girlfriend has long hair, then cuts all of it off . . . it's reasonable to assume she's as crazy as a rat in a tin shithouse. Thanks for reading.
Best Scare: I don't much care for babies. But even I tense up a little when they are in danger.
I'd Recommend It To: Can't imagine who. Nope.
*"Lifetime: Television for Women . . . and Gay Men."
Posted: May 14, 2007

Total Skulls: 13

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?