Be Careful Who You Take In

Rating: 9/10 (28 June 2012)

It's easy to write off horror films. In fact, it often seems like many of the professionals who script, direct, and produce horror films have already done so. Many potentially good scary movies have been ruined by the very conventions of the genre: cheesy monsters, stereotypical characters, derivative plots, New Age mythology masquerading as religion, and monstrous levels of gore do not a quality production make. I think the filmmakers behind most bad horror films—which would be most recent ones—know perfectly well that what they're making is schlock, but as long as there's a paying audience, why should they change the formula?
Fortunately, the filmmakers behind Orphan actually cared enough about their movie to invest some time and effort in it before turning it loose on the cinema public, and the payoff is one of the best thrillers of the past ten to fifteen years. Director Jaume Collett-Serra has taken a familiar genre plot—the wicked child who turns its home into a purgatory—and reworked it into a multi-faceted nightmare that consistently surpasses every expectation.
Screenwriter David Johnson deserves much of the credit for creating a clever, spellbinding script that features strong, believable characters that are far more than victims just waiting for the axe to fall. The main protagonist, Kate Coleman, is a recovering alcoholic haunted by the stillbirth of her last child, Jessica. Kate, played with conviction by the excellent Vera Farmiga, is an extremely likable heroine that we desperately want to see achieve victory over her many inner demons. She loves her husband, John (Peter Sarsgaard), but there are problems in their relationship that are hard to overcome, and if it is clear that the two care deeply about one another it is just as plain that both have wounded one another many times before and that the scars from those wounds are always itching just beneath the surface. It is one of the most honest and believable portrayals of marriage any movie has given us in the last couple of years.
But whatever their problems, both Kate and John have a lot of love to go around—not only for one another, but for their two surviving children: Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) and little Max (Aryana Engineer). But the death of their previous child has left a void in their hearts, one they hope to fill via adoption.
Enter little Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a charming (if somewhat precocious) nine-year-old who establishes an instant connection with Kate and John. Esther bonds quickly with the couple, and soon all the paperwork is signed and the young orphan goes home to a new life with the Coleman's. Max finally has the big sister she's been praying for Anyone who has seen the trailer or heard Orphan's tagline already knows "There's something wrong with Esther", but even so the magnitude of the horror ahead is shocking. It would be a crime to say anything more about the plot, but suffice it to say that Orphan is a consistently surprising, genuinely scary movie that puts most of its recent genre competition to shame. Thanks to careful story construction, realistic characters that are easy to identify with, and fine performances from every major cast member, Orphan proves that it is after all possible to still make a good horror movie.