Orphan

When I first saw the trailer for Orphan I was very excited to see it. Then I found out what the ending to the movie was and decided that I could wait to see it because all of the surprise had been taken out. But then I decided to go ahead and watch it and was actually very surprised out how good it really was.

Orphan tells the story of a young couple who are trying to adopt a child after losing their third child. The couple goes to a girls home where the meet the charming and brilliant Esther. They eventually decide to adopt the young girl and they do all that they can to make her feel like she is part of the family. Initially she gets along with all of them, but as time passes it becomes apparent that Esther doesn't want to become part of their family because, by the time she's threw with them, they won't have a family at all.

The plot of Orphan is actually very smart. I found out the "twist" ending before hand and thought that it was pretty stupid. However, after seeing the movie, I found that my initial thoughts were wrong. The ending proved to be very smart and worked well the entire film. Even though I knew it was coming, the way the character in the film reacted to the shocking twist still surprised me and I'm positive if I hadn't known the surprise ending that I would have been absolutely floored by the ending. The film is very emotional, but I wouldn't necessarily call it scary. The aspect of the plot dealing with the death of the couples child was sad enough that it almost made me cry and many of the parts with Esther are very frightening. Every time Esther came on camera the scene automatically became suspenseful. The writers made her character absolutely terrifying. Her actions are horrifying, especially for a child, and it will make your skin crawl to see just how evil this young girl can be.

The acting in this movie was very good. All of the actors did and incredible job, but I must say that there were two actresses who were absolutely brilliant: Isabelle Fuhrman and Aryana Engineer. At twelve years old, Fuhrman out-acted every other person in this film. The young actress played the terrifying Esther perfectly. Being a die-hard horror fan, I've always wanted a truly terrifying female killer, and I found that killer in Esther. Fuhrman used her facial expressions to make Esther appear charming and sweet in one scene and then absolutely evil and insane in another. And her ability to fake a Russian accent for the entire film was absolutely incredible. The accent seemed realistic and made the film even scarier. Eight year old Engineer was also an amazing actress. Engineer plays the hearing-impaired daughter of the couple who is tricked into helping Esther kill. Engineer is hearing impaired in real life so this role was perfect for her. Even at eight she was completely believable and played her part incredibly. Her portrayal of fear towards Esther was beautiful as was her portrayal of love toward Vera Farmiga who played her mother. All of the actors in the film did an exceptional job, but these two young girls were just incredible.

Orphan is a film that sounds stupid when you first hear about it, but it turned out to be an incredible film. It wasn't necessarily scary, but the idea of allowing a child into your home and then that child trying to hurt you and your family is terrifying. Orphan is one of the best American horror films that has come out this year and I would recommend it to anyone who loves horror films.

-H