In the first two minutes of this film I decided that I am never, ever going to willingly choose to squeeze out a baby. By the end I had totally decided that I am also never ever going to adopt. I guess I am going to be one of those lonely old women that dresses her pets and smells like wee, but at least I will be safe in the knowledge that I am going to die old, and not be murdered in a house fire while some evil child tries to steal everything I love.
The film follows a middle-class couple that is unlikable and smug. After their third child is stillborn (seriously, how many do they need?) they get over their grief by adopting a nine-year-old girl with a Russian accent called Esther, who has well-cute artistic skills and a sad story.
What starts out as a happy and welcome addition to the family quickly begins to turn sinister. Ester certainly does not play well with others. And as the strap-line of the film states, there is something very wrong with her. Not only that, there is also something clearly very wrong with the whole family. Mother, Kate, is a recovering alcoholic with guilt problems, and husband, John, seems to need this in order to feel like a man and in control. They were a horror before Esther even joined them.
There is not much wrong with this film though. Director Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed the 2005 remake of HOUSE OF WAX, has clearly got a good eye for horror and has a fair few things to say about dysfunctional family relationships, bad parenting and the horrors of clever people with addictions. Luckily, I guess I won’t have to worry about the dysfunctional family.
ORPHAN is in cinemas now
Review: Sara Passmore