DVD: Orphan

When a friend of mine suggested we rent Orphan a few days ago I was at first apprehensive about watching it. Not because I dislike horror films or anything like that, just that I’d heard so much hype about the film that I thought it couldn’t possibly be as good as my friends kept telling me. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found that I rather enjoyed Orphan finding it to be one of the creepiest films I’ve ever seen.

The story’s plot focuses on a husband and wife who adopt a young girl, Esther, into their family who is not quite as innocent as she appears. As a nun states early on, ‘trouble has a way of finding her’, and Esther’s dark side starts to come out when her adoptive mother starts to research Esther’s past and it becomes apparent she is keeping a terrible secret. As often happens in these films the mother tries to make her husband aware of how evil Esther is but he just believes she’s insane trusting Esther wholeheartedly up to the last minute.

Isabelle Fuhrman does a fantastic job playing the different sides of Esther, balancing the shy and sweetness she puts on with her evil side. Fuhrman puts on a fairly convincing Russian accent throughout the film that helps to amplify her creepiness. If there’s a reason to see this film it’s her performance which is amazing for a 11-year-old. Unfortunately the other performances in the film aren’t anything noteworthy. Vera Farmiga doesn’t bring anything new to her role and Peter Sarsgaard as her husband comes across as a bit of an arsehole and a total moron for not seeing that their is something wrong with their new child.
While the movie essentially follows the evil child formula most memorably shown in The Omen the brutality of many of these scenes allow the movie to still provide shocks. However its hard to say its especially terrifying just incredibly unnerving with scenes making your skin crawl as opposed to making you scream.

The tag-lines for the film state that ‘you’ll never guess her secret’ and my friend was saying to me throughout ‘you’ll never get it’ but I was certain I’d be able to figure it out - the secret is so bizarre I doubt anyone could see it coming. However when her surprising secret is revealed the movie essentially rushes to the climax as Esther goes from slightly psychotic to slasher movie villain attempting to slaughter the whole family. It becomes quite apparent that her secret is all the film really has going for it and a traditional slasher film conclusion is shoved on to wrap things up. While a fairly choppy film it is still worth a watch if only to be truly shocked and disturbed by Esther’s secret.