Roger Corman was never one to let a potentially exploitative idea go un-milked. If you could slap a title on a VHS box that made Blockbuster clerks blush, he would greenlight it before the ink dried. Thus we arrive at The Unborn 2 (1994), the sequel nobody asked for, but one that sneaks up on you like an unplanned pregnancy: terrifying, messy, and weirdly captivating.
On paper, it’s your typical 90s B-movie stew: fertility experiments gone wrong, mutant children with genius-level IQs, and women running around with guns trying to decide whether to save or kill their babies. In lesser hands, this could have been a cinematic miscarriage. But then enters Michele Greene—a luminous presence with cheekbones sharp enough to pierce Kevlar—who takes what should have been a straight-to-clearance-bin horror flick and turns it into something absurdly watchable.
Michele Greene: The Real Unborn Franchise
Before we talk mutants, let’s talk Greene. Known to most for her run on L.A. Law, she walks into The Unborn 2 with the kind of intensity usually reserved for Shakespearean tragedies or high-stakes courtroom dramas. And here she is, blasting away at genetically-engineered babies.
This is why Greene is an underrated beauty. Not because she can stand under good lighting (though she does). Not because she can scream on cue (though she definitely does). But because she takes this material—half-sci-fi, half-slasher, all nonsense—and delivers it like she’s starring in Sophie’s Choice. Her Catherine Moore is equal parts action heroine, guilt-ridden avenger, and unintentional camp queen. She makes you believe in this nonsense long enough that you actually start to care if she gets eaten by a mutant toddler.
That’s talent. That’s beauty. That’s commitment to the bit.
Plot: Children of the Corn, but Fewer Cornfields and More Steroids
So what actually happens in The Unborn 2? The short version:
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Fertility experiments went bad.
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Mutant children were born.
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They’re highly intelligent, hideously disfigured, and one car seat away from world domination.
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Michele Greene’s Catherine is on a mission to terminate these spawn-of-science before they grow up and start running hedge funds.
Meanwhile, Robin Curtis (yes, Star Trek’s Saavik) plays Linda, a mother desperate to protect her mutant child. But don’t expect any Hallmark Channel sentimentality—this baby leaves behind more wreckage than a Gallagher watermelon show. Cribs collapse, bodies hit the floor, and one is left wondering if Pampers could survive the marketing lawsuit.
It’s a chase movie at its core: Greene’s avenger versus Curtis’s protective mother, with mutant-baby chaos as the blood-soaked connective tissue.
Roger Corman’s Playground
Let’s be clear: this is a Roger Corman production. Translation: the budget could barely cover a box of Pampers. Sets look like borrowed classrooms. Guns look like they came from Toys “R” Us. And yet, there’s a strange charm to the whole enterprise.
The special effects are a highlight of lowlight cinema. Mutant babies are either rubber dolls slathered in Vaseline or animatronics that look like they escaped from a Chuck E. Cheese in hell. Every time one gurgles, you half expect it to ask for tokens. It’s both hilarious and unnerving—like watching your niece’s Cabbage Patch Kid attempt homicide.
The gore is plentiful, too. For a film that runs barely 83 minutes, it finds ample time for disembowelments, screaming nurses, and the occasional exploding car. Because why not? If you’re going to make a mutant-baby movie, you might as well go full Gerber-on-steroids.
Greene vs. Curtis: The Battle of Believability
The core of the film is the showdown between Greene’s Catherine Moore and Curtis’s Linda Holt. One’s mission is to destroy the mutant menace before it spreads; the other’s mission is to protect her freak-of-nature offspring.
Robin Curtis, bless her, plays it completely straight, like she thinks this is an audition for Kramer vs. Kramer 2: Diaper of Doom. Greene, meanwhile, turns up the dial to “maximum melodrama,” wielding her shotgun like she’s been personally betrayed by Fisher-Price. The result is a weirdly compelling clash: two women, two philosophies, both trapped in a plot that should have been laughed out of the writers’ room but somehow makes for hypnotic VHS trash.
The Unintentional Themes
Like many Corman-backed projects, The Unborn 2 accidentally stumbles into themes it has no business handling. Is it about the ethics of scientific overreach? The terror of motherhood? Society’s fear of the next generation? Sure. Probably. But mostly it’s about Michele Greene looking fabulous while she blows holes in mutant strollers.
Still, there’s something oddly prescient here. A film about fertility technology gone wrong? Parents afraid of the children they’ve created? Questions about whether protecting your offspring is always the moral choice? If you squint hard enough, The Unborn 2 feels like it should be playing at Sundance. Of course, then the rubber baby puppet opens its mouth and drools green slime, and you remember it’s playing in a Motel 6 on a TV bolted to the wall.
Greene’s Glow-Up
Let’s return to Michele Greene, because the woman deserves a parade for carrying this mess. She has the kind of screen presence that turns The Unborn 2 into more than just mutant baby camp. Her Catherine is haunted, determined, and genuinely tragic. You almost forget she’s in a sequel to a film nobody saw in the first place.
Her beauty isn’t the glossy, unattainable Hollywood variety—it’s sharper, more human, and grounded. The kind that makes you lean in. The kind that makes you think, “Wow, she could be my lawyer, my neighbor, or my mutant-baby hunter.” That’s range. That’s why she’s underrated.
It’s not exaggeration to say Greene makes The Unborn 2 better than it has any right to be. Without her, it’s just another Corman quickie with slime and strollers. With her, it’s a weird little gem in the trash heap of 90s horror—a movie you can’t quite dismiss, because someone in it actually gave a damn.
Final Thoughts: The VHS Babysitter
The Unborn 2 is not good in any conventional sense. The script is absurd, the effects are laughable, and the production values are barely above community-theater Dracula. And yet…it’s fun. It’s watchable. It’s the kind of movie you’d stumble upon at 2 a.m. on cable, too tired to turn it off, hypnotized by Michele Greene glaring down mutant babies like she’s about to sue them in civil court.
It’s a movie that dares to ask: what if the greatest threat to humanity wasn’t nuclear war, or climate change, but teething? And in that ridiculousness, it finds its charm.
So yes, The Unborn 2 is technically a disaster. But it’s our disaster. A rubber-baby-screaming, shotgun-blasting, Michele-Greene-being-underrated disaster. And sometimes, that’s exactly the kind of cinematic chaos you need.
