Orphan

“I thought it might be frustrating for someone who loves music as much as you do to have a son who isn’t interested in it at all, and a daughter who can’t hear it…”

Okay, here it goes: Orphan has no business being as good as it is. I went in expecting a super-cheese fest that might be mildly entertaining, and while I admit that the reveal (AKA: Why Esther has something wrong with her) felt a little hacked together, the rest was quite a ride.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra gets started immediately with a disturbing hospital sequence full of lots of blood, and then just doesn’t stop. There’s virtually no lag time between clueless parents Kate & John Coleman (Vera Farminga & Peter Sarsgaard – playing what might be the most believable married couple ever seen in a horror film) adopting Esther and her starting to cause chaos, from pushing a snotty girl at school off a slide to terrorizing the Coleman’s birth kids with knives and guns…and it only gets worse from there.

And man. Whoever cast these kids got it dead on. Isabelle Fuhrman is simply amazing as Esther – and Aryana Engineer (who plays the youngest) has the best facial expressions I’ve ever seen.

No matter what your expectations are, if you’re a fan of horror, I definitely recommend you see this. It’s a whole lot of bloody, creepy fun.