The Orphan

WARNING: THIS REVIEW GIVES AWAY THE MAIN SPOILER. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE SURPRISE OF THE MOVIE

The Orphan has definitely caused me to reconsider ever adopting a child because you never know if that child is going to be a psychotic midget who is actually 33 years old yet passes him/herself off as a nine year old in order to be adopted into a family and seduce one of the parents but then kill the entire family because the parent isn't seduced. Oh, and yes, this is what The Orphan is about.

The movie was not bad. It wasn't completely horror, but it was fairly scary. Actually, only the psychotic- midget-posing-as-a-child character was scary. By the way, I found it very disturbing that the girl who plays this messed up character is actually the same girl who plays Clove in the Hunger Games. Anyways, it is a very dark film (go figure), but it has a good storyline.

The acting was good, especially Esther (psychotic- midget-posing-as-a-child) played by Isabelle Fuhrman. She pretty much made the whole movie. As I referred to in a previous post *House of Wax*, I normally root for the bad guys except for in this one.

Esther is a Russian "child" who moves from family to family to be adopted. Now, why does she run through families so quickly, you may ask. If she cannot seduce the father, then she kills the whole family. Bitter much? But what is the really scary deal is the fact that Esther is a 33 year old woman who looks like a 9 year old child. I really give props to the make up department for doing a phenomenal job on transforming Esther from a sweet, pretty 9 year old girl into a disgustingly old 33 year old woman. She really looked like a mini-sized woman. It was great.

The movie does have some racy scenes in it (which I made sure to skip over...yes, sex scenes scare me more than the actual horror aspects do) but they are actually necessary to the movie. For example, Esther watches her new mommy and daddy do a dirty. They catch her watching them, feeling embarrassed (as they should since they were getting it on in the kitchen!), and then go to talk to her. She surprises them with her extensive knowledge on the birds and the bees. I told you...she's a messed up girl...woman...

I would recommend this only because the plot twist of her actually being a woman in the end is worth seeing it for.