ORPHAN: FIRST KILL
2009's “Orphan” was quite the effective and surprising little horror film. Directed with style and energy by Jaume Collet-Serra, it told the story of a nine year old orphan girl, Esther, who is adopted by the Coleman family. While initially, Esther gets along with both her new parents and siblings, it isn't long before the family starts to suspect that all is not right with the young girl. She is often manipulative, at times bordering on cruel, and when the Coleman's look into Esther's past, it appears she may not be whom she says she is. As great and effective as “Orphan” is, let's face it, the reason the film is so well remembered is because of its fantastic twist ending, which I am about to spoil. The whole film builds to this reveal, which is that Esther is not actually a nine year old girl at all, rather she is a fully aged adult suffering from a medical condition that forever stops her ageing. Not only that, Esther is a dangerous and violent criminal attempting to outrun her past.
When the prequel to “Orphan” was announced over a decade later, I certainly felt they had miss their chance for it to be a success, because not only had too much time had passed between both films, but also the actress who played Esther, Isabelle Fuhrman, was now in her twenties. I also couldn't wrap my head around watching an “Orphan” film with it not having the twist to fall back on like the original film did. We now know Esther is not a child, so the element of surprise is gone. The whole project screamed “bad idea”, and when Fuhrman was announced as returning in the role of Esther, using trick photography and forced perspective to hide the fact that Fuhrman herself was very much an adult now, I was convinced that the whole thing was bound to be a disaster. Shooting took place late in 2020, and then it seemed like nothing was heard about the film for ages; another sign that all was not great with the project. Then suddenly it was announced that “Orphan: First Kill” would premiere on Paramount's streaming service (along with a small simultaneous theatre engagement). Again, everything was pointing to “Orphan: First Kill” being dead on arrival, and yet when I finally sat down to watch the film, expecting to very much hate it and roll my eyes at it the whole time, the complete opposite happened; I thoroughly enjoyed the film and thought it was also a very worthwhile prequel.
One of the reasons I think “Orphan: First Kill” is so successful is that it leans very heavily towards camp, knowing the ridiculousness of the film and totally embracing it and having fun with it all. It understands the whole meta-quality to the film too, (that just like Esther herself, Isabelle Fuhrman is an adult pretending to be a nine year old girl) and plays with the concept right through the film. Now to get the elephant out of the room, I have to say that I do not think Fuhrman convinced me once that she was successful at portraying a nine year old girl, but god damn, I love that she gives her all in attempting it. She obviously is very proud of her performance from the original “Orphan” and has a love for the character of Esther, because as unconvincing as she is at being a child now in her twenties, she still gives a good and committed performance.
I mentioned above how I did not see the point of a prequel to “Orphan” now that everyone knows the twist, but director William Brent Bell and his writers get around this by including a completely different but excellent twist in “Orphan: First Kill” that I did not see coming but absolutely loved. I appreciated that this twist is not hinted at in the marketing of the film because it came as a fantastic surprise. I mean, it is ridiculous as all heck but man, the cast just go for it and commit, which makes it work, and even gives the film a creepy and demented quality that I was not expecting. Fear not, I will not be revealing the twist of “Orphan: First Kill” here because everyone needs to experience it for themselves.
While I would definitely still say that “Orphan” is the better of the two films, against the odds “Orphan: First Kill” ends up being a prequel done right, and is so much better than it ever had the right to be. I had an absolute blast with “Orphan: First Kill”, surprisingly so, and I loved just how campy and silly it all is. In spite of all this, or because of it, the film is so much fun and is my guilty pleasure of 2022.
No comments:
Post a Comment