Most of us have had it happen to us. You're browsing online when you accidentally come across a spoiler for a movie you've been looking forward to. Typically you're disappointed, and your desire to see that movie may even fade away. Then sometimes you come across a spoiler for a movie you have no plans to see, and it's so ridiculous that you decide that you need to see that movie. The latter is what happened to me with the movie Orphan.
I suppose my need to see Orphan really wasn't that urgent because I read the spoiler when the movie came out in 2009, and I didn't see the movie until three years had passed. Still, when I saw that Orphan was airing on TV, I didn't hesitate to record it to my DVR (although it still took me another month or two to watch it).
Orphan focuses on Kate and John Coleman, a couple who are dealing with the miscarriage of their third child. They decide to adopt a child and come home with Esther. At first Esther seems like the perfect child, but because this is a horror movie rather than a Hallmark movie, Kate soon starts to suspect that Esther's not quite as perfect as she appears to be.
I think that the mindset with which one approaches Orphan plays a big role in the way he or she will view it. If I had gone into Orphan expecting a serious, scary thriller, I probably would have thought it was terrible. Instead, I expected a ridiculous movie about an evil orphan that I could laugh at, and I was thoroughly entertained.
While I was probably more laughing at the movie than I was laughing with it, Orphan was at least a little bit higher in quality than I expected. The acting was nothing amazing, but it was decent. The little girl who played the daughter of the family was especially adorable and well cast. The back story wasn't particularly original, but it worked well for the movie.
Before watching Orphan, you should be aware that it's really not scary at all. There are a couple moments that might be described as creepy, but they're campy enough that they'll probably just make you laugh. There are a couple jump scenes, but most of them fall flat. In fact, the photography as a whole was kind of wonky. Some of it worked, but there were several instances of strange shots that almost felt like student experimenting.
Overall, Orphan is a hard movie to take seriously, but with the right mindset, it's a decent little thriller. I wouldn't recommend going to much trouble to watch it, but if you catch it on TV, you might want to give it a shot. Personally, I think knowing the twist made the movie ten times more fun to watch. So I'm putting a spoiler in this review (just click the button below), but I'll leave it up to you if you want to read it.
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