DIRECTOR: William Brent Bell
CAST: Isabelle Fuhrman, Julia Stiles, Rossif Sutherland, Matthew Finlan, Morgan Giraudet, Hiro Kanagawa, Jade Michael, Samantha Walkes, Kennedy Irwin
RUNNING TIME: 99 mins
CERTIFICATE: 15
BASICALLY…: After escaping from a psychiatric ward, a dangerous killer (Fuhrman) poses as the missing daughter of a wealthy family…
NOW FOR THE REVIEW…
Orphan: First Kill, the follow-up to the 2009 cult horror hit, is a movie that by all rights should be impossible to pull off in 2022. When the main concept hinges on the lead character having the eternal looks of a ten-year-old girl (except – SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST MOVIE – she isn’t, and is instead a thirty-something woman with a rare genetic condition), and with original actress Isabelle Fuhrman now in her mid-20s, it’s going to take a lot of nerve to ask the audience to not only accept her as a child once more, but for a prequel where the character is even younger than she was in the original.
The only filmmaker to step forward and accept the challenge, it seems, was director William Brent Bell – of The Boy movies and, to a more infamous degree, the widely-hated found-footage horror The Devil Inside – who does everything he can to make the impossible situation work to his film’s advantage. Using every piece of movie trickery in the book, from child body doubles to hidden platforms, Bell attempts to present Fuhrman once more as the iconic child-like figure that launched her career, all through the power of movie magic.
The question is, though, is it a convincing effect? Not really (but not for lack of trying) – for all the effort that has gone into presenting the actress as a (non) child once more, there’s just no escaping the fact that Fuhrman has visibly turned into an adult, and it is distracting in how she no longer has the youthful looks that made the character so chilling in that first Orphan movie, especially when she’s supposed to have them after the events of this movie. That being said, much like the first Orphan film, First Kill is an extremely entertaining ride that has a lot of fun with its campier elements and, while not exactly scary (but then again, neither is the first one; creepy, sure, but not scary), contains some wild moments that will tickle horror fans senseless.
Beginning at the Saarne Institute in Estonia, where dangerous and manipulative killer Leena (Fuhrman) – who, as mentioned earlier, has a condition that prevents her from physically aging beyond ten years old – is being held alongside a plethora of other crazed mental patients, Orphan: First Kill shows her violently escaping the facility, and planning to pose as the missing daughter of a wealthy American family. The family – painter Allen (Rossif Sutherland), socialite Tricia (Julia Stiles), and their preppy son Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) – welcomes “Esther” back with open arms, especially Allen who was deeply affected by his daughter’s disappearance, but as Leena/Esther attempts to cover her tracks, she ends up discovering a much more alarming presence than even she may have predicted.
The first half of the film does cover familiar ground, threatening to simply rehash the effective plot of the first movie, albeit with Esther herself as the main focus instead of the actual family. It hits most of the same beats, from the psychotic freak-outs that she enacts in a vacant bathroom, to the scene where she creepily watches her adoptive parents doing the nasty, and for a while you’re wondering if all the effort that clearly went into making Fuhrman look like a child again was worth it, for a script that at first appears to be nothing more than a pure retread. However, a sudden plot twist around the midway point shakes things up considerably, and suddenly the movie become a lot more interesting, and certainly a lot more fun to watch. Without spoilers, this is a scenario where you are almost rooting for Esther this time round, and for her to give her new adversaries everything that is coming to them, since they are so deliciously horrible that you’re just imagining all the bloody ways in which they will most likely meet their horned maker. Even though, when you break it down, their plot really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, the situation with these villains is so severe that you’re suddenly okay siding with the murderous mental patient with eternally youthful looks for the rest of this wild, unapologetically silly ride.
From a filmmaking standpoint, it’s clear that Bell has less of an identifiable style than original director Jaume Collet-Serra, as his film lacks the creepy editing and up-close cinematography that made Collet-Serra’s just as visually pleasing as it was enjoyable, with this one containing distractingly darkly-lit cinematography wherein everything looks gloomy and depressing, even when something outrageously campy is happening. The effects, beyond the practical attempts to portray the lead actress as this specific character, are also questionable, with some fire graphics later on looking particularly bad, and a number of the gorier scenes don’t pack as much punch as before since they’re less creative and not entirely chilling. However, much like the first Orphan movie, what carries it are the performances, which near-perfectly nail the campy tone that this one is clearly aiming for. While she doesn’t look anywhere near like the child she once was, Isabelle Fuhrman is still great here, with the actress having a blast exploiting her character’s youthful energy and nailing that sinister five-yard stare that makes Esther such an intimidating presence. Then, you have Julia Stiles who, again without giving away too much, has scenes in this where she’s practically auditioning for a remake of Mommie Dearest, and in doing so delivers one of her most memorable performances in a while (though one can’t help but imagine that Katherine Heigl would have been amazing casting for this role instead).
Iffy in places, but hugely entertaining in every other aspect, Orphan: First Kill is a film that turned out to be a lot better than I, or indeed anyone else, may have expected. While the first Orphan is an overall stronger movie, with more likeable characters and a much creepier tone, this one earns points for not just its pure filmmaking ambition – whether or not you buy the practical effects, they’re impressive just in how they’re worked into the movie – but for achieving the impossible and making this concept still work (to a point) thirteen years after the fact.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Orphan: First Kill is a devilishly entertaining prequel which, although not quite as effective as the original hit 2009 horror, is admirable for its ambitious (if not entirely convincing) practical effects that make actress Isabelle Fuhrman look like a child again, and some surprising new turns that amp up the camp to extremely fun levels.
