Celia

Title:  Celia Aka Celia: Child of Terror

Director:  Ann Turner
Released:  1988
Starring: Rebecca Smart, Nicholas Eadie, Victoria Longley, Mary-Anne Fahey, Margaret Ricketts, Alexander Hutchinson, Adrian Mitchell, Callie Gray, Martin Sharman, Clair Couttie, Alex Menglet, Amelia Frid, William Zappa, Feon Keane, Louise Le Nay

Plot: Celia (Smart) is a nine year old with an active imagination growing up in 1950s suburban Melbourne, who constantly escapes into a fantasy world to escape the ongoing troubles around her, while society deals with both the fear of communism and the rabbit plague.

Review:  This might be the vaguest Alt. Christmas movie I’ve covered to date, especially when the sole link we get to Christmas is in the opening scene which see’s Celia’s class breaking up for the holiday, while the blackboard reads “Merry Christmas” that’s it! No Christmas trees or celebrations, just some festive words on a blackboard. So while the link might not be the greatest, it does however mean I get to cover this obscure Australian film which sits amongst the likes of “Lord of the Flies” and “War of the Buttons” with a playful dark side which at the same time left me wanting to compare this film to arguably Peter Jackson’s best film “Heavenly Creatures”.

 Right from the start director Ann Turner wastes little time in showing the audience an insight into the psyche of Celia which see’s here escaping from her troubled home life via her active imagination which see’s slime covered monsters lurking outside her window, while at the same time sharing a tight bond with the three Tanner kids who live next door and whose parents communist beliefs keep them isolated from the community. Its also through her eyes which we see various adult events unfolding from affairs and barbeques through to events happening in society such as the rabbit plague highlighted through news reel footage which really helps to capture the time period and especially the tensions of the time.

Its worth pointing out that this isn’t a horror film as for some reason the distributors were seemingly keen to market it as judging by the alternative “Child of Horror” title, no doubt the result of them not knowing how else to sell this film, which is understandable when it constantly seems to exist in its own unique world were Celia can switch between blood pacts and childish feuds with her cousin Stephanie (Frid) and her committing and covering up a violent murder with little concern for the consequences of her actions, while the mock hanging she carries out with her friends is awhole other thing entirely. That being said the film is frequently a fascinating and surreal film.

The feud with Stephanie continually makes for one of the pillars of the film here as they engage in a series of tit for tat exhanges, with their rivally seemingly spawned out of their polar world views as Celia fights against the rule governed world of adults, while Stephanie is more happy to submit and more often use them to get a Celia often via her policeman father. However this being said she too has her own bad seed moment when she chooses to brand Celia’s rabbit seemingly out of pure spite. For some reason these confrontations usually around the quarry where Celia and her friends prefer to hang out for no real reason, especially when there is nothing of any real interest there apart from an old shed and it was a setting that I constantly thought would lead to some big moment, but sadly it’s just a setting and nothing else.

The other main antagonist for Celia here is her father with who she has one of the more complicated relationship with as he constantly scoulds her for not following the rules or for her friendship with the Tanner’s especially when he finds out that they are communists. He’s also responsible for her losing her beloved pet rabbit “Murgatroyd” under the rules being enforced by the authorities as part of their attempts to curb the rabbit plague, however when given the chance to reclaim him, he’s happy for her to believe that he has died, despite finding him a couple of minutes earlier. These scenes of high bastardry being countered by scenes of her being taken fishing which only makes it the more confusing how we are supposed to feel about this relationship.

Due to Celia’s behaviour throughout the film its hard to know if this movie should be classed as a “Bad Seed” movie, especially with the events of the film being largely seen through her eyes, while her blonde hair and plats certainly bringing to mind Rhoda Penmark. At the same time a lot of her activities are carried out with her gang of sorts, making it more of a kids gone rogue movie.  

This is far from the most action packed or gory film which means that those horror fans looking for their bad seed fix might find themselves sorely disappointed as it features neither but the interactions between the characters and occasional set pieces really help to carry this film which does at time feel a lot longer as a result than its surprisingly short runtime and what stopped me from rating this film higher. That being said it has enough interesting and occasionally shocking moments to make this one worth hunting down,  more so when it’s the kind of film which is sadly not made enough in these times were films seem to fall into the category of high drama or blockbuster its films like this which make it so much fun to hunt down and experience these movies.

Wild Beasts

Title: Wild Beasts

Director: Franco Prosperi

Released: 1984

Starring: Lorraine de Selle, John Aldrich, Ugo Bologna, Louisa Lloyd, John Stacy

Plot: A large quantity of PCP finds its way into the local water supply, which also happens to be the main supply for the city zoo. Now driven wild the animals escape and wreak havoc in the city

 

Review: One of the best creations for film fans in recent times especially for bloggers / critics looking for their next watch is the site “Letterboxd” which essentially provides the same service as “Good Reads” only for movies instead of books. Ok it might seem alittle random to be opening with a recommendation of a film site, but honestly without it I would have never have stumbled across this little slice of deep fried animals gone wild fun!

Just looking at the plot alone makes this worth giving it a curious watch, so it only makes it all the better when it lives up to its premise. True it might be essentially the same as every other film in the genre with man once again finding a way of screwing up and inturn enraging the local animal population and being forced to pay the price when said animals strike back. The only thing which honestly sets it apart from the numerous other films in the genre is the fact that its drugs driving the animals wild than the usual environmental threats such as sewage or construction encroaching on the animals territory.

An oddity on director Prosperi’s resume having spent most of his career directing Mondo movies (documentaries focusing on shocking subjects) and crime drama’s and despite the film opening with a title card assuring the audience that no animals were harmed during filming, its soon clear that Prosperi hasn’t drifted from his Mondo roots as the film does in fact feature scenes of real rats being set on fire and a lion set preying on a cow to name but two scenes which seriously question this claim. Thankfully this is no way the same ballpark of animal cruelty like “Cannibal Holocaust” with its nightmare inducing turtle scene while they are equally so brief that they don’t detract from the film like that scene did.

Unlike so many other films in the genre the animal attacks are pretty frequent here and not spaced out with questionable plotting to pad out the runtime. This however is not to say that the plot is any better here as cult cinema favourite De Selle gets to take a break from her usual shockers like “Cannibal Ferox” and “House at the Edge of the Park” with this film being notably lighter as here she appears as Dr. Laura Schwarz who has to team up with Super Mario look-alike and zoo keeper Rupert (Aldrich) to stop the rogue animals while trying to get to the bottom of what’s driving them crazy. We also have the random plotline concerning Laura’s daughter who’s attending a ballet class while the city erupts into chaos and which serves little purpose outside of setting up the films finale.

The plot is pretty non-existent and generally serves to get the film from one animal attack set-piece to the next, while Prosperi still managing to find a number of random moments to scatter throughout the film such as shots of piles of syringes in the opening which have nothing to do with the PCP getting into the water supply which bizarrely never get explained as to how it got in the water in the first place. We also have scenes such as Laura phoning her daughter only to have the kid randomly have a frog puppet squawk down the phone. The standout moment of random plotting though has to be the ending which takes place at the dance school, were the film suddenly switches into a psycho child movie thanks to the dance school students really loving that water cooler!

The real selling point here though is animal attack scenes which are numerous to say the least with Prosperi certainly making the most of the premise starting with a group of rabid rats preying on a couple making out in a car in a scene which also sees a cat also falling foul to these rats. From here Prosperi seems to constantly be looking for a way to top the last scene as we get the expected scenes of zoo keepers being attacked by wild cats alongside more random scenes like a girl trying to outrun a cheetah in her bang up beetle and my personal favourite the girl having her head squashed by an elephant, the same elephants who in perhaps a cinematic first are also responsible for a jumbo jet crashing when they stumble onto the runway.

While not as shocking as some of his earlier films, Prosperi still includes a few shocking scenes, especially in terms of the animal cruelty but ultimately this is a fun romp and certainly one of the few examples of this kind of movie which manages to live up to the hype selling it. Yes the performances might be frequently questionable and the saxophone heavy soundtrack certainly a product of its time. However when the animal attack scenes are so much fun and inventive it’s easy to look past a lot of the issues here while fans of these kinds of movie will unquestionably find much to enjoy here making it well worth hunting down.

Inbred

Title: Inbred

Director: Alex Chandon

Released: 2011
Starring: Seamus O’Neill, Jo Hartley, James Doherty, Mat Fraser, Emily Booth, James Burrows, Neil Leiper, Chris Waller, Nadine Rose Mulkerrin, Terry Haywood, Damien Lloyd-Davies

Plot: Following two care workers and their four delinquent charges, as they head to a remote part of the Yorkshire countryside to the seemingly sleepy village of Mortlake, which is seemingly so far off the beaten track that it just about makes it onto the map, which is just how the villagers like it. Despite a questionable greeting at the local pub “The Dirty Hole” were they meet the colourful landlord Jim (O’Neill) and some of the equally colourful locals the group are soon setting about the task of salvaging copper from an abandoned railway. However after a violent encounter with one group of the locals the group, suddenly find themselves less welcomed than they thought, while also the star attraction as the village entertainment.

Review: Having been brought up on the rain soaked coasts of Cornwall (just put your finger on the very end of England and your in Cornwall) this film carries a strange sense of familiarity for me, especially with its setting which is introduced during the opening titles of seemingly non threatening shots of the countryside are only given a sense of creeping dread thanks to Dave Andrews soundtrack which finally gives us a new horror theme music, than just trying to grab the audiences attention with some nu-metal track. Equally refreshing is the choice to set the film in the Yorkshire countryside were the broad northern accent of the locals makes a much needed change from the usual Londoner drawl and cockney rhyming slang, which is worrying becoming a central element of British horror, something which will hopefully be abolished in the wake of this film, as I could happily go for more northern based horror.

A highly inventive movie, which while it might not exactly break the mould when it comes to the setup, with the seemingly questionable locals unsurprisingly turning out to be a crazed bunch of psychotic inbreds (think redneck or yokel) or the group taking no time to upset said locals, even if this time the trigger point is less clear than usual. Were the fun comes from through is the sheer inventiveness once the crazy is unleashed, for while this might have all the makings of being another torture porn release from the outset, with the group being taken one by one to the barn, were an audience of frenzied inbreds, watch on as pub landlord Jim, now dressed like a Papa Lazarou tribute act which is kind of fitting seeing how “The League of Gentlemen” is a definite close relation of this film.

At the centre of this rabid mob of locals Jim is clearly the one calling the shots acting not only as the voice of authority when it comes to pursing the group, but also leading the grotesque Cabaret style variety show they hold in the barn. O’Neill is truly a revelation in this role with his broad accent and booming voice, he true embodies the role while never dominating the film, as his banter with several of the other colourful villagers ensures that they all get chance to shine in all their repulsive glory. Meanwhile the teens are by the large your typical mix with a spattering of characterisation for colour, while their care workers are essentially polar opposites of each other with Kate (Hartley) being keen to work with the kids on their level while also processing a surprisingly feisty streak, while Jeff (Doherty) is the dorky disciplinarian and ultimately marks himself out as an easy first kill. Elsewhere we also get a opening cameo from Emily Booth, who here continues in her bid to establish herself as a horror starlet as she takes a break from trying to be the British Elvira on “The Horror Channel”. Ultimatly this cameo is so overacted, even for the fake film she is supposed to be staring in it is left largely forgettable, unlike a surprising cameo by Mat Fraser which threatens to steal the film as one of the villagers complaining about the declining in standards of showmanship being used, while his naturally short arms (the result of a genetic condition known as Phocomelia) only adding to his onscreen presence as he combats the issue of holding a hammer by simply strapping it to his arm.

The gore however is were the film really comes into it’s own with director Alex Chandon, combining a mixture of old school effects and CGI to really paint the screen crimson, as we are treated to exploding heads, torture by vegetables and even death by shire horse to name but a few of the numerous gory highlights. Needless to say if gore is not your thing then this won’t be one for you, but for the gorehounds they will no doubt find much to enjoy especially in the sheer terms of creative ways he has found to maim and kill various members of the cast over the course of the movie. However the real strength here is with the pitch black vein of humour which runs throughout the film, which features such fun moments as the questionable pork scratchings served at the dirty hole, which come in the varieties of Hairy or Smelly, while the humour is used to never turn the film into farce and ensuring that your wincing and laughing at the same time. Equally memorably is the villagers folk song, which is so catchy I have found myself still singing it days after seeing the film, thanks to it’s random appearances throughout including the villagers taking a break from attacking the farm house to sing a few verses, while possibly being the only murderous mob to have their own banjo player!

Okay while this weeks new movie review might not perhaps be a new movie per say, seeing how it has skipped the theatres outside of a handful of horror festivals and only now ended up on direct to DVD release, it still makes for a ghoulish Halloween treat, while the former shame of having the film released like this is far from a bad thing, especially as it has been proven many times in the past that this is not exactly the kiss of death it might once have been considered especially with the DVD market now holding as much sway as the theatre takings. Just look at “Family Guy” or “Futurama” both pronounced dead shows, only to be resurrected on the strength of their DVD sales.  I can only hope that this film now finally finds its audience on DVD as it is a genuine cult classic in the making while also being one of the most original and inventive British horror films since “The Kill List”.

Elwood's Essentials #5: Battle Royale

Seeing how  “The Hunger Games” is still currently one of the most talked about releases of this year, even more so with the forthcoming sequel which will pointlessly split the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy in two what better time could there be to revisit the film which it essentially ripped off, despite Suzanne Collins frequently going on record to state that she “had never heard of that book until [her] book was turned in,” and unsurprisingly in return the fans of this film have continued to savage her book as a ripoff, while early promotional material for the book marketed it as “Battle Royale for Kids” only further questioning such shaky claims. So this week I essentially choose to add fuel to the fire and look at the original movie, which is undoubtedly one of my all time favorites. I should also warn that the videos do contain some scenes of violence which might be shocking for some readers and are used purely in the context of illustrating points raised, so if easily shocked do not view.

Set at the dawn of the millennium, Japan as a nation has collapsed and with unemployment on the rise and the youth boycotting the school system, the government makes the radical decision of passing the Millennium Education Reform Act, AKA the “BR Act”, Each year a class is chosen by lottery to take part and having been placed on a deserted island, the class are given three days to battle amongst themselves until only one student remains, with the survivor being used as an example of the lengths the government are willing to go, to maintain order in the nation.

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Released as what could be marked as the start of the new Asian invasion were the interest in Asian cinema literally exploded at the start of 2000, with films like “The Ring”, “Audition” and of course this film winning huge acclaim from not only established fans of Asian cinema, but many non fans of foreign cinema aswell, with these films paving the way for the slew of titles with followed in their wake, as they proved that there was more to Asian cinema than Kung fu and art house samurai movies.

Based on the Bestselling pulp novel by Koushun Takami, the film directed by Kinji Fukasaku manages to take a novel which would have made a perfectly good exploitation movie and turns it into what could almost be considered high art with exploitation undertones, let alone the fact he managed to find a way to mould the multi-stranded plotlines of the novel into a filmable script. At the heart of the film though we have Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) who has been finding his life growing increasingly difficult since the suicide of his father, a situation which only gets worse when his class find themselves unwittingly elected to participate in this year’s Battle Royale with each member of the class finding themselves fitted with an explosive collar and assigned a bag containing supplies and a randomly selected weapon (to help remove any natural advantages). Seeing the chaos erupting around him he takes it upon himself to try and save his friend and secret crush Noriko Nakagawa (Aki Maeda) while forming an uneasy alliance with transfer student and BR Veteran Shogo Kawada (Taro Yamamoto), who also hides his own secretive past.

What is most interesting about the film is how it manages to focus on so many characters at the same time, finding a way to explore their individual goals while even more skilfully managing to make them all unique and individual which is certainly no easy task especially when you consider that there are 42 students to account for. True some of these are mere cannon fodder or choose to leave the game early, opting for suicide over the choice to killing their classmates, but within these students are those with their own engaging agenda’s and while most of the class are busy just trying to survive or team up with others for safety, we have characters such the psychotic exchange student Kazuzo Kiriyama (Chiaki Kuriyama) and the beautiful and deadly Mitsuko Souma (Kou Shibaski) who happily kill friend and foe alike with Mitsuko especially using it as a chance for revenge against her former gang members and tormentors.

Meanwhile others pursue more legitimate goals, with Shinji Mimura (Takashi Tsukamoto) and his friends plotting to hack into the game’s military mainframe, while we also get a surprising love triangle on the battlefield between Hiroki Sugimura (Sosuke Takaoka), his best friend Takako Chigusa (Chiaki Kuriyama who is probably best known as “Kill Bill’s” Chain Whip / Meteor Hammer welding Gogo) and his love interest Kayako Kotohiki (Takayo Mimura) all adding surprising levels of depth to the film, which contains a lot more heart and emotion than you would usually expect from a film of it’s type, with director Fukasaku frequently managing to surprise the viewer with moments of real emotional intensity.

Although the film has characters who could be considered the villains, the real main bad guy here is Kitano, the former teacher turned government agent, played by the always amazing “Beat” Takashi Kitano who is once again on great form, as he provides a running commentary of the dead and acts as an unquestionable supporter of the government’s actions, no doubt due to his own fractured home life, which is highlighted through a phone call with his estranged daughter, who would later appears in a more pivotal role in the sequel “Battle Royale: Requiem”. Needless to say Kitano’s laid back and mysterious motives make him another fascinating character, especially when he chooses to involve himself in the game, while showing an especial fondness for Noriko.

Though incredibly violent, Fukasaku still manages to capture several moments of genuine humour from the day glow coloured training video complete with bubbly presenter, to the students which receive the more useless weapons from Pan lids to paper fans, which really puts them in a worse position considering that their fellow students could be armed with any one of the nasty weapons available from scythe’s and stun guns to shotguns and machine guns.

Needless to say with so much hardware available things do frequently get violent, with hosepipe arterial sprays, exploding heads and even a poisoning making up just some of the smorgus board of violence which Fukasaku has crafted, while at the same time carefully editing and reworking some of the more graphic sections of the book, so that while frequently shocking it is never prolonged so that the film descends into farce.

The soundtrack is comprised of popular classics and original music performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and composed by Masamichi Amano, who previously has composed music for anime classic’s “Urotsukidoji” and “Giant Robo”, aswell as more recently “Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games”. Here though he turns Verdi’s Requiem into the official “Battle Royale” theme which never fails to get me amped up for this film whenever I sit down to watch it, while also effectively using Bach’s Air from orchestral Suite No.3 In D Major and Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz, which will no doubt have a whole new set of imagery attached to it after seeing this movie, in much the same way that Oliver Stone did for Barber’s Adagio for Strings or what Quentin Tarantino has done to a number of pop obscurities.

A classic in every sense from the skilful direction, choice casting and superb soundtrack, it’s a brutal non stop ride, that only further highlights why film goers shouldn’t be narrowing their cinematic world view to just the English spoken productions, while no doubt opening a doorway for many into the exciting world of Asian cinema.

The Brood

Title: The Brood
Director: David Cronenberg
Released: 1979
Staring: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle, Susan Hogan, Cindy Hinds

Plot: Frank’s (Hindle) wife (Eggar) is currently under the care of the eccentric and highly unconventional psychologist Dr. Hal Raglan (Reed), who is also pioneering a technique called “psychoplasmics”. Meanwhile a brood of mutant children responsible for a series of violent attacks seem to be linked to the reclusive psychologist but how?



Review: Cronenberg has always held a strange fascination for me, perhaps due to his obsession with bodily mutation, disease and infection, which even from my early exposure to his work, easily set him apart from other directors especially as they always felt like they contained some element of clinical study of these themes within, perhaps due to voyeuristic nature in which he chooses to shoot these main obsessions in his work.

So with my blogging hombre Emily over at “The Deadly Doll’s House of Horror Nonsense” wrapping up her month long celebration of vertically challenged villains with “The Shortening”, I was inspired to delve into one the Cronenberg back catalogue and revisit one of his earlier films, aswell as one of my personal favorites yet sadly most overlooked from this period.

Written and directed during his messy divorce from his first wife, this would be one of his most personal films to date and almost a form of personal therapy, with his own battle for custody of his daughter being especially highlighted through Frank’s own battle to protect his daughter Candice, who is seemingly being harmed by his wife, when she returns to him covered in cuts and bruises. Still being a Cronenberg movie nothing is quite what it seems, as he crafts here what could almost be seen as the horror version of “Kramer Vs. Kramer”.

Opening with Dr. Raglan holding a showcase for “psychoplasmics”, a highly experimental method which forces his patents to invoke painful and traumatic memories with encouraged role play, which we get to see him demonstrate with one of his patients, while the more Cronenberg side of this method is kept for a later revel. This however is the perfect introduction to the barmy yet fantastic performance Oliver Reed brings to this character and while some might argue that Reed’s appearance here was miscasting, I personally adored his performance here, especially as he frequently plays the big secret so close to his chest that we never see the big revel coming, which also serves to highlight in many ways the depths of his own personal obsession with furthering his psychoplasmics research.

While the rest of the cast might not manage to reach these same levels of performance, Hindle is still convincing as the concerned father, while Eggar is suitably insane as his committed wife, while her most bonkers scenes sadly felt the wrath of the censor cuts, much to the frustration of Cronenberg who rightfully argued that these cuts completely changed the context of the scenes they were cut from. Hinds however is possibly one of the worst child actors I have ever seen in, as she fails at any given moment to show any form emotion other than looking permanently stunned and to see her try and pull off any kind of performance is a painful experience to sit through, so it’s almost a blessing when she gets kidnapped by the mutant kiddies.

Despite frequently being sold on the prospect of baseball bat welding mutant dwarf children, this film is actually a lot more of a slow burn than you would expect, with the mutant kiddies only making a handful of appearances throughout and while memorable as they are, it still feels like more of a detective story with elements of horror than a straight forward shocker, as Frank investigates what is really happening at Dr. Raglan’s clinic, an investigation which along the way leads him into a number of colorful characters, who all hint at the larger secret being hidden by Dr. Raglan.

Still gore fan’s needn't be too disappointed, as we still get some meaty bludgeoning to enjoy via a variety objects from mallets to paperweights and these sporadic deaths are shot with such a sobering view point, that they are just as effective as if Cronenberg had doubled his body count, an urge he resists in favor of more focused kills with each death ultimately serving a larger purpose, rather than to just add to the death toll. While perhaps traumatizing a whole group of small kids with the clubbing scene at Candice’s school, Cronenberg would also go on record in “Cronenberg on Cronenberg” that he particularly enjoyed the scene were Frank strangles his now frenzied wife, especially with so many of her characteristics being based on his ex wife.

Howard Shore provides a rich and haunting classical score to the film, which adds the perfect edge to the film, especially as it is frequently kept to the background with Cronenberg allowing his imagery to present their full power, rather than using the soundtrack to provide any false sense of horror or discomfort.

“The Brood” would serve to be the film to elevate Cronenberg from his schlocky origins which had began with “Shivers” and “Rabid” and showed a director with an impassioned desire for artistic expression, while setting the tone for the films to come which would continue to push the boundaries explored here, yet on it’s own merits it remains like it’s director great, yet sadly underrated.

Orphan

Title: Orphan
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Released: 2009
Staring: Vera Farminga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder, Jimmy Bennett, Aryana Engineer

Rating: 4 / 5

Plot: Kate (Farmiga) and John (Sarsgaard) Coleman are slowly rebuilding their troubled marriage and having met the nine year old Russian girl Esther (Fuhrman), during their visit to the St. Marina Orphanage, they are keen to adopt her, despite her troubled and mysterious past, however it soon becomes clear that Esther is not as innocent as she seems.

Review: Okay let’s face it Modern horror is currently in a state of being DOA, especially looking at the release schedule for 2010, which is already shaping up to be a year remakes and sequels, with nothing that seems especially groundbreaking or original. This despair is only really increased when you consider how over saturated the modern horror market has become in recent years, let alone how safe and sterile modern horror constantly seems to be. So I guess it makes “Orphan” that much more of a surprise, despite from the fact that from the outset it looks like nothing special, which probably explains why it slipped under the radar for a lot of horror fans, which is kind of a shame as it’s exactly the kind of modern horror film, that most of us keep hoping that the mainstream will finally start making.

It’s clear pretty much from the start that director Collet-Serra is keen to prove himself as a director capable of directing a film for the mainstream audience, without feeling that he has to restrain his vision, especially when you consider his only other horror credit is the 2005 “House of wax” remake with it’s famous “See Paris Die” tagline, it hardly boded well for this film, that it could holding anything suprising, which is certainly an opinion I questioned, as I witnessed the opening scene of a surreally shot hospital visit, which really makes you question what is real and what is actually part of the dream, while also helping the viewer to understand in some way, the feelings which Kate bottles up inside of her, when she looses her child and fuelling an alcoholic spiral of depression, which she is only just recovering from, when we are snapped back to reality, still haunted by the nightmarish visions of complacent surgeons removing Kate’s child and of the Ariel view of the bloody smear left on the hospital floor as Kate is pushed in a wheelchair through the hospital hallway.
Farmiga is spot on with her performance as Kate, never feeling that she has to overwork any of the aspects of Kate’s personality, especially in regards to her battles with Alcohol which could easily have been portrayed in a more cliché way, but thankfully here it seen as a problem that Kate is only just struggling to keep on top of, with her family situation only looking like it might finally push her over the edge, all the more so as the mystery around Esther continues grows and she finds herself feeling only the more alone, as those around her fail to see Esther for anything more than a well spoken little girl.

When it comes to Esther’s true character nothing is kept from the audience, so we are left with no question as to her true intentions, especially from the early warning signs that there is something seriously wrong with her, as she calmly bludgeons an injured pigeon to death, which her brother Daniel (Bennett) has injured with his paintball gun. However it is the mind games she plays with the family, which prove to be the most intriguing, especially with the manipulative relationship she develops with Daniel’s young sister, the deaf mute Max (Engineer) whose condition could be seen by the more sceptical viewer as a cheap way of writing off why Max, just doesn’t tell her parents the truth about Esther, though this never seems the case, largely because of the mature portrayal of Esther by Fuhrham, whose performance is one of the most surprising aspects of the film, especially when it comes across as a much more mature performance than you would expect, let alone how any of her manipulative actions never feel forced or unnatural, much like when she does allows her aggression to show itself, whether throwing herself against the walls of a toilet cubicle or during one of the satisfying murders she commits throughout, in order to keep her secret. It is the final revel of this secret though, which is the moment that the rug is most defiantly pulled from underneath the feet of the audience, even more so by not being one of the usual write off conclusions, which are typically associated with the “Bed Seed” genre, in which the reason for the evil children is typical attached to the involvement of Satan or some cliché source of evil, even if it is kind of a stretch and certainly works best when it is not too closely scrutinised. Still by the time this revel is made, you are kind of grateful seeing how at this point, Esther’s wackiness has been cranked to the max.

Despite having a low body count “Orphan” does not seem to suffer, thanks largely to the horror being more psychological, but despite this we still get a few decent deaths including a brutal bludgeoning with a hammer and a pillow suffocation, with Collet-Serra certainly making full use of his snow covered setting, especially by combining these shots of violence with the always effective shots of splashes of blood on the snow. Looking at the original script though it would seem that we might have been denied some scenes which might have proved to have been equally effective, such as the girl whom Kate and Jon had originally intended to adopt being found hung in a closet, after their first meeting with Esther, aswell as the character of Daniel remaining dead, which would have been largely welcome, seeing how Bennet’s performance is one of the weakest in the film, coming off largely bratty and too annoying for the audience to actually feel anything for his character.

Although the material might look like well trodden ground, “Orphan” still manages to provide enough unique twists to help it stand out from the rest of its bad seed brethren. It might have started off darker in script form, than the final film, but despite this, it still remains a film worth giving a look, if only for the astonishing performance by Fuhrman, who might have just created in her performance of Esther a character worthy of placing next to the likes of Damian, when they come to write the list of truly evil children.