REVIEW: ORPHAN! - OMG Horror - The Blog of the Living Dead: Horror Movie News, Features, Reviews, Games, Free Horror Films, Splatter, Gore, Puppies

You’d probably have to go back some 33 years to find the last truly effective demonic-child film. Sure the have been countless imitations and rehashes, some with varying degrees of success (i.e. creepiness), but it’s been awhile since the crowning example, The Omen, has even flirted with being supplanted. So when I saw the previews for Orphan, I thought, here we go – another Good Son retread only with a possibly harder R-rating and a gender reversal. Needless to say, my (good) expectations were little to none. This pre-assessment was unfair. Orphan, despite its rote and in-scene predictability, actually has a decent twist and sly revelation of such that ultimately elevates the film from mere exploitation schlock to something a bit more earnest in its grim demeanor. It’s honestly a decent and solid piece of throwback horror.

Little Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) Looks Over Her New Sister in ORPHAN!

Winter. Connecticut. The Present. We open with a ghastly fetal delivery that harks back to the halcyon days of Cronenbergian terror. It’s gore sodden, it’s disgusting, it’s a perfect way to kick things off. We meet Kate (Vera Farmiga), a recovering alcoholic and ex-Yale music professor who snaps out of a hellish nightmare. She’s not only dealing with alcoholic demons, she’s recuperating from her recent miscarriage, not to mention the accidental loss of another young child who drowned in the wake of her booze-filled neglect some years ago. Her husband John (Peter Saragaard) is a tempered architect, the rock of the family it seems. When the couple decides to add to their brood of Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) and the hearing impaired Max (Aryana Engineer) – they figure the best way to proceed is to adopt an orphan and give love to a lesser fortunate older child instead of an untainted newborn.

At the orphanage we meet Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder), and the infamous Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). Esther is a 9 year old Russian immigrant, a lonely, eccentric child. She paints with remarkable aplomb, can secretly belt out Tchaikovsky on the piano. She dresses differently, adorns ribbons around her neck and wrists at all times like an antiquated princess. Esther’s definitely an odd girl. And that’s exactly why John and Kate (nice names, ay) decide to add her to the Coleman family. As Esther arrives back in the perfect Connecticut home, things begin to grow more and more eerie. More uncertain. When Daniel pelts a bird with a paintball and it doesn’t die, Esther has zero qualms braining the thing with a giant rock, her new siblings watch in awe. Then a schoolgirl is shoved off a high playground slide, Esther there lurking with pride and a sinister glare. When Sister Abigail learns of some prior malfeasance the girl has incurred, she tries to exhort the Colemans, but a savage bout with a hammer squelches all of that. In addition, having some soft spot for Max, Esther implicated her new sister and blackmails her into being her dastardly accomplice. When Daniel discovers Esther’s behavior, she threatens to do more than shut him up.

John (Sarsgaard) and Kate (Farmiga) At The Hospital!

Kate meets Esther for the First Time!

The most interesting dynamic in all this sordidness is the way Esther continues to appear innocent to John, increasingly guilty to Kate, all the while choreographing her evil in a way that implicates her new mom. As the unstable ex-booze hound and emotional wreck, Kate becomes the culprit in the eyes of her shrink and eventually to her own husband. It’s cunning and clever on Esther’s part – a trait that, along with many, actually adheres and makes sense in the context of the final twist that has everybody, critics alike, talking their mouths off (hopefully nor ruining it however). Yes the twist is shocking, feasible, and like the best of revelations, has many scenes hinting right at it. I can honestly say that even knowing the film had a twist beforehand, I was looking, yet could not suss the final revelation before actually occurring onscreen. Kudos goes to the writer (David Johnson) and director (Jaume Collet-Serra) for achieving such a feat (of course I may be way out of touch with such level of predictability).

The hard R approach to the film hits just the right temperament for such a story. There’s enough blood and good humored cursing going on that is no way suitable for young children. Make no mistake – it’s an adult horror film about kids, and not the other way around. Something must be said for the acting in the film as well. The child actors are remarkable, never indicating or letting on they are in a movie. That’s the highest compliment one can bestow on a youngen. Farmiga and Sarsgaard are tremendous actors, and Farmiga in particular has a soulful depth of expression in her eyes, a tinge of melancholy just under the beautiful blue orbs. She, until the last reel of the picture, emotes almost entirely internally – she wears her pain and sorrow in her eyes, and we can tell almost what she’s feeling just by gazing into them. Sarsgaard plays the film with great serenity, nothing becomes too big or too small for him to handle (until the last reel, again). When the film devolves into the perverse nature its twist calls for, Sarsgaard does a nice job of grounding the content and steering it away from complete lunacy (although the scene in question amounted in an eruption of awkward laughter in my showing). Fuhrman as Esther does incredible work here as at once a precocious, sweet little girl – as well as a demonic, cold hearted psychotic. All in all I’d say for any fan of good old fashioned horror, Orphan is definitely worth adopting!