You had to have your moment of clarity.....

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2011)

Kate and John Coleman are rebuilding their troubled marriage. Kate had a drinking problem, but is in therapy and is doing well. She has been sober for one year.
The couple decides to adopt a child. When they meet Esther, at the St. Marina Orphanage, they immediately fall in love with the well-educated orphan.
Their young son, Daniel, is hostile to his new sister; but their deaf-mute daughter, little Max, is enchanted with her - at first.
Eventually, Kate begins to feel that Esther is manipulative and possibly even psychologically disturbed......
With another horror movie produced by Joel Silver (Gothika, and The Reaping), I was expecting something high in gore, low on credibility, and some good actors turning in some hammy performances.
I didn't expect an intelligent, eerie thriller, which didn't go for the usual jump scare tactics that most horrors do, and it's surprisingly low on gore too.
But it's the sense of foreboding doom that the film has, you know from the minute we meet Esther, something isn't right.
From the poster, you can tell she is going to be a little madam, like a psycho Problem Child, but John Ritter isn't around to look after this kid. The poster doesn't give anything about the film away, and the final act is original and disturbing (especially if you are a parent).
All the cast are good, even if Sarsgaard looks like Kiefer Sutherland and sounds like John Malkovich, and the family are great as their lives are literally crashing around them.
The house design is beautiful and adds a sinister edge to the film, and the use of the old scare tactic camera views are clever, as they never get used, just implied.
So all in all, it's a great little movie, with everything ticking the right boxes, but the last act, like i said is pretty disturbing and a bit wrong.