A clever, twisted, campy and fun Horror film!

Rating: Null/10 (3 November 2009)

Orphan could have played it one of two ways. Either a subtle, psychological suspense thriller or a campy, funny and very entertaining horror-revenge film. While it has elements of both, it mostly chooses the latter, and for that I am glad. While I do like some slow, creepy films, I always feel that when it comes to horror plots like these, we need to have fun. The screenplay does have it's amount of clichés, but it plays them out in such enjoyable and devilish ways that I did not mind. The film does have it's touching moments, and when it does, it is very effective, mostly because of Vera Farmiga. She gives a great performance here, adding a lot of heart and depth into this film, and adding a tone of seriousness. Isabelle Fuhrman is also very impressive, and her performance is wickedly enjoyable. Both of these actresses deserve some award buzz at least. Peter Sarsgaard is good, but his character really annoyed me to no end. I went off the rails when he did not believe Kate, but of course, it was all done for the purpose of the story. The film contains some decent amount of humor, which I loved. Some genuinely funny scenes in this film. The director Jaume Collet-Serra really knew how to play with this film, and how to give audiences what they wanted. The twist was WICKED! Of course, I knew it beforehand, since this twist is bound to be let out, but very clever twist. Orphan is a very entertaining, very fun thriller/horror that is more action and less suspense.