Orphan (Blu-ray) (2009)

"A two-hour nervous breakdown.  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"...will keep you on tenterhooks from its nightmarish opening scene to its chilling last frame.  Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer
"...above most spooky-kid movies, with a twist that sets it apart.  Claudia Puig, USA Today

Editor's Note Horror's creepy child genre gets another entry with this chiller from Jaume Collet-Serra (HOUSE OF WAX). After the death of their unborn child, Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) go to an orphanage to consider adoption. There, they find Esther, a young girl who seems innocent, but she brings destruction to her new family.

	Vera Farmiga
	Peter Sarsgaard
	Isabelle Fuhrman
	Jimmy Bennett
	CCH Pounder
	David Leslie Johnson - Screenwriter
	Mark Stevens - Executive Producer
	Jeff Cutter - Director of Photography
	John Ottman - Composer
	Leonardo DiCaprio - Producer
	Michael Ireland - Executive Producer
	Alex Mace - Story
	Don Carmody - Executive Producer
	Joel Silver - Producer
	Jennifer Davisson Killoran - Producer
	Susan Downey - Producer
	Jaume Collet-Sera - Director

Box Office
3 stars out of 5 -- "To pull all the operatics off, producers have wisely cast solid pros Sarsgaard and Farmiga, who bring real dimension to a couple reeling from one tragedy and about to experience another....The real find is young Fuhrman..." 07/23/2009

Chicago Sun-Times
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "[A] shamelessly effective horror film based on the most diabolical of movie malefactors, a child." 07/23/2009

USA Today
"[I]t's a cut above most spooky-kid movies, with a twist that sets it apart....The plot unfolds with a palpable sense of tension." 07/24/2009

Movieline
"ORPHAN would never work as the thrillingly wicked indulgence it is without the psycho intensity of Fuhrman. She's boosted by Saarsgard and Farmiga..." 07/23/2009

Total Film
"[I]t's the uproarious twist that will land this one in the horror hall of fame/shame." 08/04/2009

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
After seeing Orphan, I now realize that Damien of The Omen was a model child. The Demon Seed was a bumper crop. Rosemary would have been happy to have this baby. Here is a shamelessly effective horror film based on the most diabolical of movie malefactors, a child...Pity. Esther is such a bright child. So well-behaved. Her paintings are so masterful. She sits down at the piano and rips off a little Tchaikovsky. So why does her adoptive mother have such a fearful attitude toward her? Could it be because after her arrival, Kate, her new mom, got drunk and almost let her son Daniel drown? Had Max, a darling daughter, but then miscarried a third child? Is an alcoholic trying go stay sober? Just doesn't like the little orphan girl's looks?...How the movie handles the other children, Daniel and Max, would probably have offended Gene Siskel, who had a thing about movies exploiting children in danger. This one sure does. What with the treehouse and the pond and the runaway SUV, it's amazing these kids are still able to function...The climax is rather startling, combining the logic of the situation with audacity in exploiting its terror. Yet you have to hand it to Orphan. You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one. Do not, under any circumstances, take children to see it. Take my word on this. - Roger Ebert

Boston Globe 8 of 10
To the Hellspawn ranks of Damien, Rosemary's baby, Rhoda "Bad Seed'' Penmark, and the Olsen twins, let us now add the title character of Orphan. Her name is Esther, which sounds about as scary as your bubbe, but as played by the very serious young actress Isabelle Fuhrman she's a prim little psycho with a taste for cutlery and an accent out of downtown Transylvania. The movie has already come under heavy fire from the national adoption community as the absolute worst PR a foster child could ever have, and correctly so: As a concept, Orphan is reprehensible. As a movie, it's entertaining trash - a good bad movie you can shriek at, laugh at, or both...Director Jaume Collet-Serra (he did the recent House of Wax remake) moves Orphan along efficiently, doling out a "boo!'' shot every few minutes with mechanical professionalism. (He also overuses the dreaded reverse-gotcha-non-boo shot, in which you're primed to jump but nothing appears.) Fuhrman is eerily deadpan as little Esther, and she gives the character a residual sadness under the craziness under the politeness, as though a lifetime of disappointment would make anyone a little homicidal...Actually, the best part of Orphan is the outstandingly lunatic plot twist that kicks in just as you're checking your watch and hoping they'll wrap things up. This development - I'd love to tell you, but you wouldn't believe me - boosts the movie into overdrive for a final 20 minutes of happy, disreputable mayhem. You come out high on the fumes of the film's preposterousness, glad to be back in the real world, and looking for a child to hug. - Ty Burr