Wait for the Surprise

All signs pointed to a bad time when it came to Orphan.

The film is the billionth “demon-child” movie to get the green
light, and it actually includes Vera Farmiga as the troubled mother who
must deal with the evil kid. Farmiga was in Joshua, a 2007
demon-child film that co-starred Sam Rockwell. Déjà
vu.

The movie employs every tired horror-film cliché, many of
them within the first 15 minutes. The surprise dream sequence starts
things on an unreliable note, and then we get the old “refrigerator
door is going to close and reveal somebody behind it” trick—not
to mention the well-worn “bathroom mirror cabinet door is going to
close and reveal somebody behind you in the reflection” gag.

I was beginning to think director Jaume Collet-Serra was the very
worst type of unoriginal hack. After all, he did do the terrible
House of Wax remake.

All of the tired clichés wore down my
expectations—resulting in a major moment of surprise in the
film’s final act. It doesn’t make the film a classic by any means, but
it does turn the proceedings into a semi-respectable horror film. It’s
a big, sometimes darkly funny fake-out that works.

Much of the film’s relative success is due to young actress Isabelle
Fuhrman, who is genuinely creepy as Esther, the orphan touted in the
film’s title. When Kate and John Coleman (Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard)
show up at an orphanage, Esther immediately stands out. Her paintings
are “remarkable”; she dresses elegantly with fancy ribbons; and she
talks like an inordinately intelligent child. She seems to be the
perfect fit, and they take her home.

Almost immediately, people start dying and breaking limbs.

The movie has all the family-horror staples. The tree house where
the Colemans’ son (Jimmy Bennett) takes refuge and hides his porn is a
place where he will surely face harm. The handicapped sibling (Aryana
Engineer) is almost totally deaf and will be a major pawn in Esther’s
play. And, of course, the father doesn’t believe Esther is bad and
eventually turns against his wife.

All of this is just a setup.

I thought I was watching a useless genre retread, but instead, I was
seeing a rather nifty thriller-mystery. Sure, it’s got a slasher
element to it. Esther has much in common with Child’s Play‘s
Chucky, including a penchant for cutlery. The finale does feature one
too many fake endings, and the scary music cues are a bit much. Also, a
major plot point has Esther’s new brother and sister refusing to tell
their parents bad things, because she threatens them. Yeah, right: Kids
tell on their siblings, no matter what body parts an adopted sister is
threatening to remove.

Still, I have to forgive all of that stuff, because I was fooled,
and I really like it when a movie can trick me. It’s the sort of trick
that makes you rethink the whole film, and things start making
sense.

I’m wondering if Fuhrman’s career will be able to continue without
her presence giving moviegoers the heebie-jeebies. The kid has got the
scary goods, and Esther is a role that will stick with her for a while.
She might have to take a couple of years off and voice animated
characters, as child actors often do, until the memory of this monster
fades a bit. If she were to star alongside other kids in a live-action
film, I would always suspect her of being moments away from smashing
somebody with a hammer.

So, yes, Orphan is yet another demon-child movie, but you can
file it with the good ones like The Bad Seed, the original
The Omen and Joshua. You can also file it with the likes
of The Sixth Sense and Fight Club, because it’s got an
ending that will shock you silly.

This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2009.