A nicely twisted & memorable horror film.

Rating: 7/10 (20 August 2010)

Orphan starts as Kate (Vera Farmiga) & John Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard) decide to adopt a child after Kate suffers a miscarriage, Kate & John visit Saint Mariana's Home for Girls where they meet & are charmed by a seemingly angelic nine year old Russian girl named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) who they quickly decide to adopt. Taking Esther home she seems perfect & both Kate & John are overjoyed, even if their son Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) isn't. Esther seems different, she dresses strangely & whenever something bad happens she always seem to be around. A girl at school breaks her leg while playing with Esther, Esther swears & starts to cause tension in the house between Kate & John. Kate investigates Esther's past & discovers some shocking secrets that ester will literally kill to keep secret...
This American, Canadian, German & French co-production was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra & is a great twisted psycho horror thriller that I really didn't expect to be so good or so disturbed. I am sure there are many out there who will consider the idea of an orphaned child being a sick deformed killer who threatens other children & is generally very nasty to be reprehensible, well I say screw then since Orphan is a terrific piece of exploitation entertainment that had more depth than I expected too. At about two hours Orphan takes a while to get going but I never found myself getting bored & all the build-up & scene setting is essential for the insidious events that follow, I just love the idea behind Orphan & a deranged deformed killer passing herself off as a sweet little girl is just a really sick concept, it makes me feel good inside there are still filmmakers out there who are making good exploitative trash. The character's are well fleshed out, the whole family comes across well & the things Esther does & says are just great. While some may find it a little slow going at times I though all the build-up was justified & actually has a decent pay-off at the end. The films main twist could have been explained a little better with a bit more background but it still has impact & is memorable.
I brought Orphan on Blu-ray yesterday & there are some deleted scenes which add nothing & a short alternative ending in which Esther lives. There aren't that many special effects here, I think there's a bit of CGI fire which looks OK & some blood splatter but it's not the goriest film you will ever see & it relies on it's twisted concept to keep one creeped out. Shot in snow covered locations Orphan looks pretty nice, the Blue-ray suggests that the colours were muted in post but otherwise it looks nice enough. The loud noise style jump scares are here aplenty & are reasonably well pulled off.
Filmed in Ontario in Canada although set in the US the production values are nice. The acting is alright, Peter Sarsgaard looks a little bored although Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther is fantastic & strikes a great balance between sweetness & evil.
Orphan is a film that I enjoyed far more than I thought I would, the story is deeper than i thought & the film as a whole held my interest much more than I expected. A real exploitative treat with a twisted story that is it's biggest asset.