Review of Orphan (2009) by Darsidius — 23 May 2012
I recently rented this movie and saw it for the first time. Orphan is a new take on an old horror genre - the evil child movie. But the twist at the end is probably what makes the movie even more disturbing when you watch the movie again.
The bits of dialogue in the film, while not particularly memorable, seem to have a more sinister take in the second viewing. The acting in the film was especially good. Isabelle Fuhrman's acting was particularly notable without saying, but it would be folly to overlook the convincing performances of the rest of the cast.
The story itself was good at it's core, but it fell flat at major points, such as pacing and introducing character development at wrong moments. The latter part of that sentence is especially important, as it seemed that the filmmakers wanted to introduce new flaws in the protagonist to excuse the actions of the antagonist late in the film.
On another note, the movie worked too hard to have a disruptive character (the Orphan) integrate into a disrupted family, almost as if she had some sort of hand in the problems that plagued the family before showing up to wreak havoc.
In a horror movie, one-dimensional characters aren't a problem, but when there's too much depth to potential victims you have trouble following. Lastly, as mentioned before, the pacing of the film poor and slow.
For some reason, "Suspense" was defined as utilizing camera shots and cheap jump shots to establish an atmosphere of "on edge" horror. While it might work for some films, I can't understand why it was used throughout this entire movie, particularly when the antagonist hasn't even shown up.
It began to get old and predictable to a point that when the real horror began, you could tell that the filmmakers weren't even that interested in it anymore. The film gets this rating for trying to be original and bringing in a strong troupe of performers who did well with what they had to work with.
But the story could have been a little less complex, maybe camped up.
This review of Orphan (2009) was written by Darsidius on 23 May 2012.
Orphan has generally received positive reviews.
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