Orphan

It’s extremely rare that a scary movie is actually terrifying in any way. I don’t get startled no matter how ominous the music gets or how many things pop out at me. And it’s rare that a scary movie has enough atmosphere to be actually frightening. But if you’re lucky scary movies will still retain some entertainment value that may make it fun, even if it doesn’t actually scare you. Such is the case for the new movie, “Orphan.” There is nothing actually scary about it (at least not to me anyway), but some moments are so ridiculous that it still manages to entertain in surprising ways.

“Orphan” is the story of a couple who decide to adopt after their third child is still-born. They go to an orphanage and find a girl who is eccentric, and although she is odd they decide she is the perfect addition to their family. Eventually, it becomes clear that the Russian orphan, Esther, is in fact psychotic with a murderous lust. The acting in the movie is fine; it succeeds for what the movie requires. Peter Sarsgaard plays possibly the worlds worst father/husband, and maybe the worlds dumbest. The girl who plays the orphan gives it all she’s got and is substantially creepy. She has the makings of a great actress if Hollywood doesn’t destroy her first. There’s nothing remarkable about the directing, although (and I mean this in the best way possible) it could have been much, much worse. There are a lot of those moments where something seems like it will jump out of nowhere to startle you but it turns out to be nothing. And structurally the story is pretty well written, even if you do see a lot of things coming. The movie starts out pretty slow, and is fairly boring for the first half hour, but it slowly builds to an unbelievable and totally preposterous ending. That’s what redeems the movie, the way in which it unfolds.

I was pretty set on giving the film a bad review until about half way through, but as it goes along it gets crazier and crazier until it reaches the height of craziness. And it’s not even the surprise twist itself that makes it good, it’s the execution and the utterly ludicrous lengths they take it to. And that’s really what makes the film entertaining. Don’t go to see this film intending to be scared, but rather go into it expecting to see a sociopath meticulously destroy lives and how that story unfolds. If you do that then it actually has some value. The only thing that worries me is that this movie may cause at least one child who would otherwise be adopted not to be, and that would be a tragedy since the movie isn’t good enough to justify ruining the life of an actual orphan; their lives are hard enough.