Disturbing and impressively acted.

Rating: 7/10 (30 May 2013)

This review contain 1 minor spoiler to this film, it has nothing to do with the ending though, it's just something that happens.
In Orphan, a 30 something couple lose their baby through a miscarriage. They both are in grief, so they decide to adopt a child from an Orphanage. The come across a rather charming Russian girl named Esther. The couple are very drawn towards this girl, everything about her seems perfect, they decide to adopt her. The mother slowly starts to realize that she isn't as perfect as she thought, but no one else realizes. And now we have Orphan.
As you can tell, the films not exactly the most original piece the horror genre has ever seen, but it is however very well written, which is certainly refreshing considering recent horror films of the past few years. The good writing comes with the character of Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), she is very menacing and some of the things she does are really shocking, you really feel that she is evil. The character of Kate is also well written, I always felt very sympathetic towards her throughout the events of the film. Things like this are what make Orphan stick out amongst the crowd of horror films, you're usually not sympathetic towards the main character, or intimidated by the villain, but Orphan hit's the nail on the head in this aspect.
Orphan also sticks out very much in another aspect, the acting. It's refreshing enough to see an average performance in a horror film, so you could imagine how happy I was with the way above average performances in Orphan. Isabelle Fuhrman is just terrifying as Esther. Her real stick out scene is when she purposely breaks her hand, it was completely believable. In my opinion her performance as Esther completely overshadows Linda Blair as Regan in The Exorcist. She was only about 11 or 12 when the film was being shot and she completely pulls off this grim, complex and harrowing character. Vera Farmiga, who I always liked as an actress, also completely pulls off her character.
The film is also nicely directed which was sort of surprising I suppose. The cinematography was very nice looking too, this in turn gives the film a very stylish look, which kind of suited the tone. The script is solid mostly, but does have some bad moments at times.
I don't really have any big problems with Orphan other than it's sometimes over the top moments. I highly recommend it too any horror fan looking for a good creepy movie.