Orphan (2009)

Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Written by: David Johnson/Alex Mace

I didn’t do my homework on this one. Not at all.

But before I get to that, let’s see some previews.

DAYBREAKERS–Besides the cool cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” this actually looks like a pretty cool vampire movie…at least as far as the story goes. (Vampires are the ruling class and basically farm humans…but the humans are dying off. What now?) And it has some actors that I really like (Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe). Yes, it’s yet another vampire movie, but I’m for it.

THE BOOK OF ELI–The Hughes Brothers? Denzel Washington? Michael Gambon? Gary Fuckin’ Oldman?! I’m there! Add Mila Kunis there as eye candy and it sounds kinda awesome. Oh yeah, and it’s a post-apocalyptic action film. Oh…um…well, maybe it’ll still be good. I guess we’ll see. I’m always up for a good PA flick. Let’s say that again: I’m always up for a GOOD PA flick.

A PERFECT GIVEAWAY–Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich just want to get away from it all. Instead, they meet Timothy Olyphant and his gang of possible murderers out in the wilderness/beach of a foreign country. Looks like a stereotypical “are they or aren’t they, of course they are” flick. I might check it out on video. Oh, wait…David Twohy directed it? I’m out.

THE COLLECTOR–The director of Saws 17, 18 and 19 brings us a movie that I’m suddenly not interested in at all.

DISTRICT 9–I’m all kinds of up for this one. Peter Jackson? Yes, please! Sure, he didn’t direct, but it looks like he’s put his stamp all over it and he’s being interviewed about it more than The Hobbit at this point. And it looks like it’s going to be a really good story about immigration issues. I’m there.

JENNIFER’S BODY–And what a body it is…Megan Fox in her first real non-Transformers flick (don’t hit me with semantics, the others hardly count) is an alien? A demon? A vampire? I’m not sure. But she’s killing boys at the local high school and it’s up to her “best friend” (Amanda Seyfried) to stop her. Karyn Kusama (Girlfight and…erm…Aeon Flux) directs, but I’m more excited that Diablo Cody wrote it. Yep. You guessed it. I’m there, home skillet.

Ok, on to adopt a kiddo.

Ya know, if I had known that this movie was a Dark Castle film, I would have skipped it. If I had skipped it, I would have missed…um…not much, really. I would have seen another, better movie.

Kate and John Coleman (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard) lost their third baby. So, naturally, they want to adopt so that their two other kids have the sister they lost. They go to an orphanage for girls to find one that they click with. Of course, the find the loner, Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). She’s from Russia, loves to paint and is just different from the other girls.

Esther fits in ok at first. She takes the Coleman’s youngest daughter, Max (Aryana Engineer) under her wing, even learning sign language so that she can communicate with her new sister. The brother, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett from the upcoming Shorts and was little Jim Kirk in Star Trek), on the other hand, doesn’t quite know what to make of this intruder who wears strange clothes and seems just a bit…off.

Eventually, Kate starts to realize that something is up. But will anyone believe her since she’s a recovering alcoholic?

And, really, this is where everything kind of fell apart for me. I HATE it when the entirety of the action hinges on the fact that no one believes one fucking person. If only they would take a little bit of time to investigate, the movie would be over. Instead, we have someone irrationally saying, “Nope. I don’t believe you. Go back to your hole.” And we have an extra hour of crap to deal with.

There was really absolutely nothing new here at all. From The Bad Seed to The Good Son to The Omen (both versions), we’ve seen it all before. Sure, there’s a twist at the end, but it’s completely ridiculous and, if you’re paying attention at all, you can figure out it. I almost did, but I thought that there was no way that they would go there…but this is a Dark Castle film and they are the kings of going places that no other filmmaker would ever want to go because it’s just too fucking stupid to go there.

They are also the kings of the “cat in the closet” scares, of which there were at least six in this movie. Fuck them. Fuck them right in the ear. “Ooooh! I’m opening a medicine cabinet! And it’s really loud!! SCARY!!” I fucking hate them.

Here’s one thing that they did really well: Kate and John were actually very well written. They speak (for the most part) like a young couple would speak. My favorite bit was when Esther said, “fuck.” They debated about what to do and Kate says, “Ok, I’ll fuckin’ spend some time with her.” John replies, “It’s about time, bitch.”

That’s funny! And real! How come they can’t write like that all the time? How come the story doesn’t fit this bit of dialogue? How come there’s a part that’s supposed to be creepy, but it just made the audience laugh their asses off?

I’ll also give them this: the acting was very good, especially from the kids. Isabelle was VERY good and, at times, pretty creepy doing things that no child should have any right to know how to act out. (For the record, she is a bit older than she’s playing…but not much.)

Unfortunately, that’s as far as the quality went here. A little bit of good dialogue and some really good acting. Otherwise, it was a pretty dumb “horror” flick with no real heart and nothing to latch onto but a ridiculous ending and a gimmicky plot. You know. A Dark Castle movie.