If it's crap... We'll tell you
Jason and Cyrus Find "Orphan" Falls a Little Short
CYRUS: I'm done. No more evil kids. Or evil kid-like things. I need a break. I'm positively inundated with miniature threats. It's as if it was a new Japanese economic invasion but upon our horror films instead of our electronic devices. I skipped "Orphan" in theaters for this very (perhaps malformed) reasoning, despite having two actors I really like in it (Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga). I'd heard director Jaume Collet-Serra had even done a surprisingly passable job on the "House of Wax" prequel and yet even all that wasn't enough to peak my interest. Now, a free copy I can watch at home...okay, here's your review.
JASON: It's 'The Good Son'. It's 'The Bad Seed'. You've certainly seen this before. After a jarring, blood-dripping opening, we learn that Kate and John have had a troubled past as a couple, and as parents, in particular. Kate recently lost a few battles with the bottle (if there is such a scenario) and John put his penis in places it didn't belong. There was a miscarriage along the way and a near death experience for their daughter, Max, that resulted in her almost complete loss of hearing. So things aren't off to the best start to begin with. After much soul searching, they decide to adopt a third child. While window shopping at the orphanage, they're enchanted by the charms of the eccentric Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). They love her. They take her in. She becomes part of the family. But guess what! She's fucking evil. Surprise!
CYRUS: Shoulda sensed something was wrong when she was polite to a fault and wore precious little girl clothes and hair ringlets from the turn of the century. If it looks too good to be true, it is. Except where I'm concerned (ladies, take note: it's true). It doesn't take long for little Esther to start frightening Kate and John's other two kids in secret, at one point even taking a box cutter between the young boy's legs saying, "If I find out you're lying I'll cut your hairless little dick off before you even figure out what it's for". We've got a grade-a bitch here (some things, even crazed serial killers understand you just don't do). Of course, none of this is actually frightening to the audience, it's merely a waiting game for things to spiral out of control to where even both parents understand that Esther is a predictable twist waiting to happen. And wait you do.
JASON: No, for something listed on the menu under 'horror', there are very few frights to be found. In fact, this veers off dangerously into drama-land, where people cry over deathbeds and marriages are torn asunder by alcoholism. That kind of drama. Fortunately, there was a murderous little bitch around to keep things light and all of the hand-wringing family strife added some dimension to the characters. They were real people, not your wet, half-formed clones stumbling out of the vat of genetic goop, as you see in most horror flicks. They weren't just victims. They were people whose lives and decisions had brought them to this point. And I liked the twist! It added a deviant turn to what otherwise would have been mildly prosaic. I would have preferred not to even tell folks there was a twist, but since such a thing is de rigueur these days, I suppose it's not much of a spoiler.
CYRUS: That's true, you go into this knowing it's inevitable which makes me wonder if we would have been harder on some of our favorite twist films of yesteryear if the tradition had been so firmly in place then. You're also right about both the parents as characters being fully formed and the twist, which many hated but I thought, once revealed, was the only point in which the film began to be a bit like the horror movie it was supposed to be. I was surprised how many were vocal opponents of it, as it saved an otherwise tedious bit of we've-seen-all-this-before from becoming a total snore. It's enough for me to give "Orphan" at the very least a RENTAL.
JASON: Yes, this definitely strays into Lifetime Original Movie territory at points. Fortunately, the increasingly level of nastiness in our villain keeps it from becoming too trite. At risk of revealing too much, the ending may very well make you feel all 'skeevy'. As for the extras, there's precious little to speak of. Not that I expected copious amounts of 'behind the scenes' extras. There's a featurette that acknowledges the orphans place in the evil kid sub genre and gives a fun, cursory review of the other films. Along with a few deleted scenes, there's an alternate ending that is certainly inferior to the one they included. A bare bones release, to be sure, but there's not much reason to have tomes of background info for a flick like this. RENTAL, indeed.
Overall, I think fans of thrillers with a touch of horror will dig this one. You won't rave about it, but for a film that was undersold upon its theatrical release, you'll find a nice surprise here.
Click Here to Buy Orphan [Blu-ray]
Comment
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Comment by SpikeGhost on November 10, 2009 at 9:33pm - i HATED that movie (except the opening scene and the part where Esther get slapped in the face by the mom, those parts were fucking precious :D ) but yeah for the rest that was painful... but then again i went in expecting something dark and smart and well that was not the case :O and also the dialogues are painful at some parts.
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Comment by Alex Thompson on November 10, 2009 at 12:47am - I was kinda bored for the first half of the movie, but the second half was okay. I'll end up buying this as I'm a huge supporter of the "killer kids" horror genre (kids scare me).
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Comment by Santos on November 9, 2009 at 8:33pm -
"John put his penis in places it didn't belong."
LOL. Brilliant, Jason. Brilliant.
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Comment by Evolution X Rider on November 9, 2009 at 5:36pm - I know what's wrong with little Esther, that little heffa needs a serious ass whoopin'!
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Comment by undead_oompa_loompa on November 9, 2009 at 4:52pm - I loved the opening scene, and I liked pretty much all of the acting (esp. the girl who played Esther), but I thought the twist was a bit predictible (they drop a million hints) and the ending was way too over-the-top and didn't fit with the tone of the rest of the movie. I actually think I would've liked Orphan a lot more if it had been about 30-40 min shorter.
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Comment by Luke on November 9, 2009 at 1:05pm - I thought it was pretty crap.
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Comment by Nick on November 9, 2009 at 12:12pm -
I was really not looking foreward to watching this. I thought "Oh boy, another PG-13 horror flick. This time for the icing on the failcake we've got yet another attempt to scare us with the whole Children=creepy equation. PASS."
Luckily, I was pleasantly suprised when my ex strapped me down and made me watch this. Much better than expected. I'd even say it's a low matinee. Def worth a watch for fans of this genre.
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Comment by Fungusmonkey on November 9, 2009 at 10:50am -
One of the things that bothered me about this movie (and most of the movies in this niche genre) is that it's always some semi-broken family that decides to adopt the kid. The parents always have issues, the kids always have some kind of disability or emotional problem, and in general they're always hanging on by a thread until the "creepy kid"/"hot neighbor girl"/"over-friendly orphan" demolishes everything in a bloody rampage and they all come out lovey-dovey and a renewed vigor of family togetherness (bleeerrrgh).
You'd think that people who could barely handle their own affairs would resist the urge to further complicate their lives, but noooooooo - let's adopt a kid! Let's mentor the local sociopath! Let's invite your hot friend to live with us! Let's go get a dog that has mutant zombie rabies and is possessed by the spirits of an entire Indian tribe who were killed by a group of Satan-worshipping Klu Klux Klan members who dabbled in voodoo and cross-dressing! Why not? C'mooon, what could possibly happen? *facepalm*
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Comment by Mike on November 9, 2009 at 10:31am - hey face is too symmetrical on the dvd cover. it's freaking me out.
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Comment by Gabriel on November 8, 2009 at 9:42pm - A Matinee in my opinion. I was surprised I actually liked it a little bit. I came into it with low expectations, but Esther's sadistic mayhem really got me into it. The twist at the end was a little more funny than frightening, but it was still a little disturbing when you look back at it. It was a solid thriller and Esther will really make you uncomfortable. It was a fun flick.
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