From Orphan to Icon

Released in 2009, Jaume Collet-Serra's Orphan was a breath of fresh air in big screen horror. Torture porn's hold on the genre was slowly being replaced by mixed quality remakes and found footage, making this oddball high concept twisty thriller with A-list actors all the more strange for a theatrical hit. Best of all, it was GOOD. We mostly remember it for having one of the wackiest, most rewarding (and fine: maybe a little insensitive) twists, but even before we discover Esther's secret, Orphan is on fire.

When news rolled out that there would be a prequel with Fuhrman reprising her lead role, I was thrilled. On both a visual and storytelling level, how do you revisit this character thirteen years later (in the real world) when the point of the first film was a) she looked like a child b) she wasn't a child and c) we know where she ends up. It's a lot to juggle for an audience who knows the material, but small tidbits of behind-the-scenes intel (the heavy use of forced perspective, the casting of Julia Stiles, Fuhrman's clear glee with the character) left me with very little doubt that Orphan: First Kill would make my day.

Spoiler alert: it did. 

Quick Plot: You remember Esther, but before she made her way to the snowy suburbs of Connecticut by way of Toronto, our Estonian shortie was better known as violent mental patient Leena. All it takes is a new and naive art therapist to help Leena find her path to western freedom.

The next step is to target the right family, preferably one with a missing child, comfortable bank account, and hot patriarch. Enter the Albrights, proud descendents of Mayflower passengers with a sprawling estate and simmering WASPy tension. Dad Allen is a painter who was deeply fractured by the disappearance of Esther, while mom Tricia continued her fancy charity work and organic smoothie lifestyle while also encouraging older son Gunnar through his passionate fencing training.

Rich people, man. They're something.

Leena slips into Esther's lifestyle easily enough, quickly bonding with Allen over their shared artistic ability. But Leena (who we'll now call Esther because an icon deserves nothing less) senses something isn't quite right, especially when she clocks a private investigator grabbing some of her well-experienced fingerprints.

To say any more about Orphan: First Kill would be cruel, especially since, in an act of shockingly refreshing restraint, the marketing avoided spoiling any twists. Go into it fresh and open knowing you'll be rewarded by the best Lifetime thriller not made by Lifetime.

I mean that as the biggest compliment I have in my arsenal: Orphan: First Kill is a trashy joy (complete with a drool-worthy kitchen). It's slightly less bonkers in some aspects than its predecessor, which had my jaw dropping in the best of ways, but still manages to throw us plenty of juicy curves. Director William Brent Bell (of the underrated The Boy) has a refreshing approach to his style. So much of current horror seems to have learned the wrong lessons from Final Destination, forcing every scene of violence to unfurl slowly as if trying to land on some "Scariest Moments In Horror" listicle. Sometimes, you can just walk into a man's house and kill him as soon as his back is turned. 

If there's a flaw to First Kill (aside from its title, which we'll get back to) it's that the finale seems to be a little TOO close to its Lifetime style, cramming almost too much action into such a short amount of time without room for a proper denouement. Still, considering it honors the original's callbacks to The Good Son, my complaints are minimal.  

Everything here is working as it should. Brett Detar's score is plucky strings with a wicket attitude. Kim H. Ngo's costumes are chic when they need to be and "this girl thinks she's Shirley Temple but is actually Baby Jane" elsewhere. The makeup department and camerawork do wonders at turning 25-year-old Fuhrman into a 31-year-old-channeling-a-10-year-old. THERE'S A LOT HAPPENING FOLKS.

And all of it...well, all of it is pretty darn fun.

High Points

There's something truly wonderful about a film franchise (in the making) that embraces and celebrates women. Vera Farmiga is no easy act to follow, but Julia Stiles is perfectly cast and plays her WASPy foil grandly. And to no one's surprise, Isabelle Fuhrman crawls back into Esther's frills and ribbons with a shockingly robust performance that rightfully gives us a villain, victim, and camp queen

Low Points

When we first meet Leena, we're told she JUST RECENTLY murdered someone, and there's little doubt that it wasn't her debut. So why, goodness gracious WHY is this film subtitled First Kill? Had it been Esther's First Kill, I'd be all for it (since technically, this is Leena's rebirth as Esther) but nope. I doubt it's the fault of the (very good) screenplay, but considering writer David Coggeshall's name is on another one of the worst titled horror sequels of this century, he's an easy scapegoat. That movie? The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia

Lessons Learned

Marriage means occasionally dealing with rich pricks to show your love for your wife

If you want to stay on Julia Stiles' good side, remember this: all macaws are parrots, but not all f*cking parrots are macaws

Kale smoothies are gross, but dead mouse kale smoothies are even worse

Rent/Bury/Buy

I can't imagine that by the time this post goes live, you haven't already heard enough glowing things about Orphan: First Kill to have made you watch it, but seriously: watch it. Streaming on Paramount Plus, it's the rare horror sequel/prequel that fully understands the possibilities of the genre's camp nature and balances that with layered characters who have plenty of places to go. It's a joy. 

The Last Thing Mary Snoozed

 

Nothing pleases me more than when the trends I've longed for finally seem to catch on. For YEARS now, I've been begging the gods for more historical horror, something that was a true rarity for quite a while. Sure, we had sprinkles and sprinkles of some low budget attempts (and some were actually good) but I'm a greedy, greedy woman.

Robert Eggers' The VVitch answered my call, and has since helped usher in a small, quiet trend. Shudder's latest original seemed to fit that bill. But is it any good?

Quick Plot: It's 1843 on eastern Long Island, and teenage Mary is not living her best life. With blood dripping from her blindfolded eyes, she's forced to recount her past to the strict Calvinist town constable. 

Her story is not particularly cheery: after falling in love with Eleanor, the maid (Esther herself, Isabelle Furhman), Mary was put through a variety of cleansing rituals at the behest of her eerie grandmother. The rest of her extended family joined in her reprogramming, some with more enthusiasm than others. 

Things take an even darker turn after Granny's sudden death. The quiet funeral is interrupted by Rory Culkin as a mysterious agent of evil...or something.

I like to think of myself as an intelligent film fan who enjoys a thoughtful genre tale, but I have to say it: I am, it would seem, not smart enough to follow the plot steps of The Last Thing Mary Saw.

This is the debut of writer/director Edoardo Vitaletti, and as first films go, it's technically quite impressive. Period stories on limited budgets are never easy, but Vitaletti crafts an incredibly authentic landscape for his cast to moodily shuffle through. 

Of course, "moody shuffling" isn't always a positive way to define your movie. For an 85 minute runtime, The Last Thing Mary Saw feels awfully laborious. A forbidden queer love story should be compelling, but the film's tone is as Puritan as its characters. It doesn't help that Mary and Eleanor are both extremely bland in their romance and even dumber in their inability to cover it up. There comes a point where, because the film hasn't really decided its stakes, it becomes kind of impossible to understand just how aware of their danger these girls are. 

From both a plot and character place, this movie is muddy. It plays with big ideas about God and Christianity without coming to any clear conclusions (or really asking challenging questions). But worst of all, it's, I hate to say it, mostly very dull. 

High Points

EVENTUALLY, The Last Thing Mary Saw managed to surprise me with a fairly shocking act of violence that unfolded in a sufficiently disturbing way

Low Points

Having said that, two seconds before said shocking event, I wrote in my notes, "I want to like this movie so much but it's so boring and nothing is happening"

Lessons Learned (the 1800s Edition)

19th century firearms took a few minutes to reload, but moving slightly out of the way of said firearms apparently took even longer

If you can't manage to hide your illegal romance, at least learn how to make a decent pair of kneepads

Locks on doors were luxuries even the most upstanding families couldn't afford

Rent/Bury/Buy

I wish I could tell you to dim the lights and queue up The Last Thing Mary Saw on Shudder with a buttery bowl of popcorn in your lap. I'm not NOT telling you to make the popcorn, but sadly, I think there are better films that pair with it. A valiant effort. 

If a Cell Phone Rings In the Middle of the 2010s, Does Anyone Care?

Mobile phones were still a fairly new phenomenon in 2006 when Stephen King published Cell, en epic novel about a phone call that turned users into hive minded zombies. The material was ripe for a film adaption. Hollywood being what it is, it just took so long that by the time it happened, actual filmgoers ended up looking at the trailer and wondering, "Who still answers their cell phone?"

Quick Plot: After a good dozen different production company logos, we meet Clay Riddell (King regular John Cusack), a graphic novelist waiting to board a flight to return to his estranged wife and young son in New Hampshire. When his battery dies, he hops on one of those old-fashioned machines that require cash currency to make a call right as everyone with an active cell phone receives a fast zombifying signal. 

Clay survives the chaos and quickly teams up with Tom (Samual L. Jackson) and a character named DJ Liquid who thankfully dies immediately. The pair are soon joined by teenager Alice (Orphan's own Isabelle Fuhrman). Because this is a story written by a man in the late aughts, Clay insists on braving his way through hordes of cannibals to find his young son, presumed alive even though Clay was on the phone with him during the signal.

Look, I'm not saying a parent shouldn't/wouldn't risk everything to save his or her child, even if every logical bit of sense pointed to said kid being dead or worse. It's just that so many stories, particularly in horror, use the "dad risks it all for son" in such a way that it's forced me to roll my eyes. 

Anyway, the trio travel through New England, evading the creatures, picking up a few stragglers, losing a few more along the way, and having The Stand-like dreams with a shared villain on their tails. 

As you might have guessed, there's not that much new. Not too surprisingly, the script (written by King and Adam Alleca) stays fairly close to the novel save for a rather random, not very well explained or satisfying finale. Director Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) has a far better cast than this type of movie would usually warrant, but the actors are all essentially stuck playing the kind of Stephen King types that have been reused and recycled so much that they barely register. 

That's not to say Cell is as big a failure as its "sat on the shelf for two years before getting dumped on streaming platforms" reputation might suggest. Williams does manage to capture that effective 28 Days -- or more fittingly, 28 Weeks-- Later tension level when it comes to some of his chase scenes. When you watch a movie like this during the COVID-19 crisis, there's certainly some unnerving effects in seeing a world made empty and gray. While movies like The Girl With All the Gifts have since done a better job of playing with the hive mind aspect of this kind of monster, Cell makes some mildly interesting plays at the idea. 

Overall, what more can you say for a film that embodies the review of "okay?"

High Points

We've seen plenty of variations of the "sudden mass hysteric zombie outbreak" on film, and while Cell's isn't necessary the best, it's an extremely well-done scene and strong opening for an otherwise fairly middle-of-the-road-filled-with-cellphone-zombies film

Low Points

Hell hath no fury quite like cheaply rendered CGI fire

Lessons Learned

Before blasting it across a large field filled with extremely flammable beings, take a minute to consider the basic rules of gasoline 

The human brain is just one big ol' hard drive

Pacifists are extremely quick to learn good aim

Ferland's Revenge?

So I have a complicated, rather useless theory Jodelle Ferland spent most of her teenage years cursing the name Isabelle Furhman. Both made their horror mark by playing evil brunette child types, but Furhman got the far better movie while Ferland's Case 39 had a delayed release with no real fanfare or success, while her smaller part in the better received Cabin In the Woods also sat on a shelf for two years. Furhman got a juicy role in The Hunger Games while Ferland ended up in a Twilight sequel. So while I don't play fantasy sports and I usually ignore celebrity feuds, there's a petty, specific part of me itching to know whether Furhman's participation in the, you guessed it, two-years delayed, released to little fanfare Cell was part of some pact Ferland made with the devil.

Look, it's been a really weird time. Allow me my diversions where I can get them. 

Rent/Bury/Buy

Eh, Cell probably isn't as bad as you've heard, but that's not necessarily a positive recommend. If you're a zombie or Stephen King completist, this is somewhere in the middle range of what you've come to expect. It's streaming on Hulu. 

The Good Daughter

I love the taste of liquid butter when accompanied with a fresh theatrical horror release and for that reason and several others, I heart Jaume Collet-Serra’s Orphan.


You’ve seen the posters. Maybe read some wildly mixed reviews, which range from a glowing 3.5 Ebert enhanced stars to The New York Times’ raging dismissal. Now just see the movie


...after reading this:


Quick Plot: Well-off Connecticut couple Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) are trying to recover from a few more-than-unpleasant recent events: the stillborn birth of their third child, the near drowning of young daughter Max, and the unsteady acknowledgment of Kate’s alcoholism (“I didn’t go to AA. I just stopped drinking.”). Naturally, they’re in the perfect position to adopt a child.

The lucky orphaness is none other than Esther, a well-spoken and well-dressed (for the Victorian era) Russian lass who survived a mysterious house fire that not suspiciously took the rest of her family. A talented little artist, Esther charms her new dad with paintings that would totally kick the skinny hipster ass of Ethan Hawke’s tortured Great Expectations hack while quickly bonding with Max by learning the complete sign language dictionary in the time it takes eat a fun-sized Milky Way.


Life would be fine and fairy tale happy if, you know, this wasn’t a horror film. Thankfully, Orphan has plenty of tension to build thanks a good deal in part to Farmiga’s Kate. You might recognize her as the token what-do-I-do-with-her female in Scorcesse’s overrated The Departed (a good film, but more a cheap attempt to apologize for snubbing Goodfellas than a Best Picture and Director earner). Here, Farmiga creates a completely believable and complicated woman. Sarsgaard is somewhat burdened with the doofier role, but in their shared scenes, these two create a realistic married couple who love one another, but must at times deal with personal distrust and the fact that they both simply love their children more.

It’s not that Orphan is revolutionary in its approach to the bad seed formula. If anything, there are certain set pieces that just scream to be used in the final act and leave you little surprised at their execution. At the same time, Orphan is richer than Esther’s velvety choker when it comes to tossing in some shockingly bizarre oh-no-they-didn’t moments. Most importantly, the entire cast equips itself with full dedication in bringing to life a nice enough family and the incredibly evil presence about to invade it.

I wasn’t entirely sold on the film’s resolution, but for two hours, I was amused, a little disturbed, a moment or two frightened, and entirely entertained.


High Points
Young Aryanna Engineer is both angelic and sympathetically real as Max, the sweet but far too trusting little sister-to-be

Orphan’s opening sequence is unsettling in more ways than one; yes, there’s the whole scary childbirthing blood, but it’s the Freudian role play that makes it work on a deeper level. I’ve never given birth, but I imagine that during such an experience, I too would cast the father of my outcoming fetus in a rather villainous role


Farmiga gives Kate her all throughout the film, but my personal favorite moment of her performance comes the morning after Esther causes a slight coitus interruptus. The hopeful look on Farmiga’s face after her clearly rehearsed explanation of what sex means to adults is pitch perfect

Low Points
There’s a whole lot of predictability throughout Orphan, which definitely whittles down its scare factor by a bit


I get that the film is trying to hold onto bloodthirsty viewers during its non-violent middle chunk, but quick cut jump scares involving bathroom mirrors feel far too forced


Lessons Learned
Fantastical treehouses that could only exist in cinema and television (just how did Bart or Homer build such a sturdy little cabin anyway?) are as flammable as they are impressive

Snorphan jokes are funny, but a tad tasteless when said on the way to adopting a child


Setting a film in winter will automatically earn it bonus points because peacoats, precariously iced over ponds, and clumsy gloves are naturally good scare factors

Connecticut cops are not prompt


See/Skip/Sneak Into
Skip two days of iced cappuccinos and see this movie. Not only does it deliver $10 worth of entertainment ($12.50 if you reside in that darned NYC) but enough fans paying for original horror sends a positive message to creativity-challenged studios about what we really want.


My motives for seeing Orphan were in no small part due to one Mr. Matt-suzaka, whose thoroughly splendiforous new blog featured a truly inspiring horror call to arms, which is not to go unread or unheeded. His post actually forced my Merrill sneakers to hit the subway and see what indeed was wrong with Esther, and for that I’m quite thankful.