Copies the 1993 Film the Good Son...

Rating: 7/10 (13 August 2014)

Kate is a mother of two who just had a miscarriage and has recovered from a severe drinking problem. Her husband John joins her in adopting Esther, a girl from Russia who was orphaned after narrowly escaping a mysterious fire. At first Esther seems well-manners, mature beyond her years and great with her new siblings, Max and Daniel. Max (Maxine, Maxie maybe?) is an almost deaf little girl and her older brother Daniel is an average preteen boy. He is at first jealous of Esther, but soon learns, as well as Max, that there is something seriously wrong with her.
Orphan rips off several plot aspects from the 1993 slasher/horror 'the Good Son'. In the Good Son the sociopath child Henry shoots and kills a dog with a potato gun. In Orphan Esther kills a pigeon that Daniel has shot with a paint-ball. The winter scenery and tree house is the same, the psychologist is the same looking, the family is the same looking, etc, etc. Watch the Good Son, you'll see what I mean.
Esther is not really a 9-year-old Russian orphan. She is an escaped mental patient from Estonia, as well as an adult. She is a dwarf and will never appear any older than a child, so she is angry at herself and others, mainly because no men ever want to be with her due to her appearance. She attempts to dress up as a stripper and seduce John while Kate is in the hospital, but John realizes something is very wrong with her and just breaks down and starts crying. Esther is also very disturbing at times. She catches Kate and John violently making love (in the kitchen no less, gross), and when questioned about it says a curse word casually. She threatens to castrate Daniel (in far more sinister and offensive use of language). She beats in a nun's head with a hammer and carries around a wrinkled old bible full of photos of men she's killed between the pages.
Orphan was a half-decent movie but was also highly typical, using the same mental patient slasher cliché and copying ideas out of previous killer children films like the Good Son (1993), the Paperboy (1995), Mikey (1992) and Bloody Birthday (1981). I thought the kitchen sex scene in the movie was disgusting and irrelevant to the plot, and the obscene language was a little much. The acting was great but the plot was very unrealistic.
Orphan isn't the best movie in the world. However, it can be a way to pass the time, or if you're a hardcore slasher fan something to add to your viewing collection.