Recently I found out one of my favorite Stephen King novels, “Cell,” is going to be made into a movie starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. They once starred together in another Stephen King adaptation of “1408.” I also saw a young actress playing the part of “Alice” and wondered who she was. The actress is Isabelle Fuhrman, and I had not seen her in anything, except for “The Hunger Games” as “Clove” although I fell asleep right after it started. But I noticed on her profile on IMDB that she was in a movie called (SURPRISE) “Orphan” and it looked good enough that I thought I’d give it a watch.
Cute.
You should know by now I’m all about spoilers, so expect them.
First of all, this movie reminded me quickly of “The Good Son” with Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood. Except “Orphan” was good.
Seriously, I was 13 when I went to the theater to see “The Good Son” and when Macaulay said to Elijah, “Don’t fuck with me.” I wanted to walk out. The only way Macaulay could have ever been scary is if he promised to straighten himself out and continue his career by first revitalizing the “Home Alone” franchise. No fucking thanks. There’s a reason Elijah still has a great career and Macaulay doesn’t, and drugs ain’t it. Well okay, drugs is one of the bigger reasons.
BAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously, you little shit? Elijah should have climbed back up that rope and beat the fuck out of him. On to something better.
She’s a pretty good little psychopath.
“Orphan” is about a rich married couple who has two children. They would have had three, but the last one died before it was born. So now they want to adopt. They go to the orphanage to pick out a new child and CCH Pounder helps them to find one. CCH, for those of you who don’t know, is an amazing actress who was in one of my all time favorite movies, “Demon Knight.”
At one point while the main characters were walking around their very nice, most likely very expensive house, my wife asked me why it is these movies always show people living in the posh estates and not in a trailer or something. I told her I appreciated seeing rich people having bad shit happen to them. It makes me feel like we’re not that different, they and I.
The parents discover little Esther painting some really good stuff. They talk to her, decide they like her and take her home. And then, naturally, shit hits the fan. She starts destroying the family from the inside. Slowly, methodical, devious. And then she starts killing people, like CCH Pounder, whom she bludgeons to death with a hammer. It’s actually a pretty nasty scene, too. She doesn’t just hit her a couple of times, she really goes to town on her. It was so bad my wife said she couldn’t watch any more. Then again, my wife sort of is a pussy.
With that said, here’s the scene.
Then she does more bad stuff but the mom had caught on to her, only the family wasn’t believing her. The son knew and the daughter knew, but both were too scared of Esther to say anything, even though the mom made it clear she knew something was wrong. The dad, on the other hand, was a fucking douche and it’s a good damn thing he was murdered violently. It looked like he suffered through a lot of pain as well, which is good.
With that said, here’s the scene.
Some bad moves on the parts of the characters in the movie, which one should expect when watching a horror movie. Those moments when you’re all “What the fuck are you doing, dumbass?! Don’t go in there! GOD YOU’RE SUCH AN IDIOT! Fuck I hope you die.” And then you applaud when they die. Yeah, quite a few moments in there. Otherwise, pretty good movie. Not nearly enough deaths, but that’s something I’ll just never really be happy with, so I’m used to it. But at least the deaths we get out of this movie are pretty awesome.
I give this movie 4 of 5 stars. Or 8 of 10, if you need that kind of rating.
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