Creepy thriller that misses almost as frequently as it hits

Rating: 6/10 (3 August 2011)

Orphan takes a well-worn horror premise – wealthy young family's new child turns out evil – and attempts to breathe new life into it by taking it in a novel direction. It works, for the most part, and the result is quite creepy and effective. It's full of hits and misses, but thankfully there's a few more of the hits, and it moves along at a good pace. The child actors for the most part are superb, and Vera Farmiga gives an assured performance as the paranoid mum who's alone in knowing something's not right (think Rosemary with a Macbook). Peter Saarsgard is less memorable as her naive – no, stupid – hubby, an unsympathetic hypocrite who goes out of his way to see the good in everyone except his wife. Oddly, the film attempts to present him as someone to root for, which is one area in which it fails. Another bizarre aspect is the way the director tries to build tension. Lots of genre-standard close-ups here, and claustrophobic over-the-shoulder shots. Yet even when nothing is happening, there's constant attempts to make us jump. Designed perhaps to create a constant feeling of unease, but the effect is closer to the boy who cried wolf; after enough false alarms, we simply stop caring. That said, there's enough nifty camera-work in the genuinely tense moments to pull it back. One memorable scene takes a frantic stalk-and-slash approach inside a kids' play area to great effect. There's also a very good backstory involving the characters which is skilfully uncovered as the plot progresses, with no need for overt explanations or obvious devices. Such a film lives or dies on its ending, though, and this one's sure to divide viewers – but it deserves credit for trying something new in a genre that's in danger of becoming stale. 3/5