Orphan - Not like all those other scary kid movies

When I rented Orphan, I thought it was going to be like all of the other movies where a kid is evil and kills everyone. Kind of like The Omen or Joshua, neither of which I liked very much and neither of which really scared me. I basically rented it because there wasn't much else worth renting and I was kind of in the mood for a scary movie. But man am I glad I rented it. Orphan is a good movie. I really wouldn't even throw it in the horror category. I would describe it more along the lines of a thriller. A very good, very frustrating, very scary thriller.

For those of you who want me to get to the synopsis already, Orphan is about a family who, after a miscarriage, decide to adopt a young child. The decide on a 9 year old girl named Ester. And while Ester is a very unusual girl (one of the reasons they adopt her) things with her are beyond strange little girl unusual, bad things start happening around her.

The movie is incredibly frustrating because the audience sees all the evil things that Ester does. She kills, threatens, and torments. And the only person who sees all this is the wife, Kate, played by Vera Farminga (Matt Damon's girlfriend from The Departed). The husband, John, played by Peter Sarsgaard, (Jake Gyllenhaal's sniper buddy from Jarhead) doesn't see this and thinks that Kate is just going crazy. Throw in the fact that Kate is a recovering alcoholic and it just makes it that much harder for John to believe her. Of course, the audience knows the whole time what Ester is doing, but no one else will listen to Kate.

The little girl who plays Ester does a fantastic job as a sadistic, psychotic 9 year old. Also, the little girl who plays the John and Kate's (HA! Just noticed that, John and Kate...okay, lame...) deaf, child is cute as button.

As, in any thriller you spend the whole time waiting for a twist or a revelation as to why things are the way they are. Many times, you figure it out way too soon and it kind of ruins the movie. In Orphan, there are quite a few questions that you spend the whole movie asking. Why is this girl a murderous psycho? Why does she wear those ribbons on her neck and wrists all the time? Why does she have a picture of a man in her bible? All these questions drive you nuts during the movie, and I personally spent the whole time forming hypotheses in my head. While I kind of guessed the ending, it was still pretty jaw dropping and very cool how it all unfolds.

I highly recommend this to any one who likes a little pulse quickening when watching a movie. If you hate horrors, you may not totally hate this one. Yeah, its creepy and there are some scary parts, and it may keep you up the night of, but its still pretty dang good. The only 2 knocks I have against Orphan, are that it drug on a little too long in the middle -- which leads to even more frustration, and the opening scene is totally disgusting and I highly recommend that you fast forward through it. Not only was it gross and bloody and gory, but its it ridiculously disturbing. Plus, if you miss it, it doesn't affect the rest of the movie. Let's just say it is a nightmare involving a bad child birth. Enough (maybe too much) said. I've been on a string of bad dramatic films (horror, thriller, drama) but this one was really good. Go rent it. It may not be a cuddle session type flick but its still a good movie.