The best part about school starting is that there will be more horror movies coming out.
Or, at least I hope so!
That being said, I caught “Orphan: First Kill” last week via Paramount+ and am a little disappointed.
It’s a prequel to the 2009 “Orphan” film and falls short of capturing its predecessor’s horrifying magic.
Most of the fault lies with the storyline’s weakness and lacking some sort of twist that throws the audience.
Orphan: First Kill is a psychological horror film that serves as a prequel to the 2009 film Orphan.
Directed by William Brent Bell, it was written by David Coggeshall, based on a story by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Alex Mace.
Mace wrote the screenplay and story to the predecessor, respectively.
It stars Isabelle Fuhrman reprising her role from the previous film, with Julia Stiles, Hiro Kanagawa, Gwendolyn Collins, Matthew Finlan, and Rossif Sutherland.
The movie is 99 minutes long and rated R for bloody violence, language, and brief sexual content.
On January 26, 2007, Estonian psychiatric patient Leena Klammer (Fuhrman) - a 31-year-old woman with a rare hormonal disorder called hypopituitarism that gives her the appearance of a 9-year-old child - orchestrates an escape from the Saarne Institute.
She manages this by seducing and killing a guard and hiding in the car of her art therapist Anna (Collins).
After breaking into Anna’s house and killing her, Leena looks up missing American girls and finds that she bears resemblance to a girl named Esther Albright, who went missing on May 2, 2003.
Posing as a lost girl, a police officer approaches Leena and she introduces herself as “Esther,” claiming that her parents are in the United States.
In Darien, Conn., wealthy artist Allen Albright (Sutherland) and his wife Tricia (Stiles), who have since come to terms with the disappearance of their daughter, are informed by Detective Donnan (Kanagawa) that “Esther” has been found.
Tricia travels to the American embassy in Moscow where she is reunited with Esther.
Tricia brings Esther home and immediately starts to have doubts when she notices that Esther has forgotten about the death of her grandmother or that her painting skills have increased enormously compared to before she disappeared.
Leena grows fond of Allen after they both start bonding over their painting skills, and tries to separate him from Tricia.
Esther’s older brother Gunnar maintains that she is not his sister and is rude and short with her at almost every turn – especially when the pair are alone.
While Tricia and Allen attend a charity gala hosted by Tricia, Detective Donnan arrives at the house where he steals a vinyl record from Esther’s room which has Leena’s fingerprints on it.
He takes it back to his house, unaware that Leena has followed him, and analyzes the fingerprints to find they are not a match.
Leena attacks Inspector Donnan before Tricia arrives, having followed Leena, and shoots him dead.
Tricia reveals that she knows Leena is not Esther, who died four years earlier during an altercation with Tricia’s son Gunnar (Finlan) which Tricia covered up without Allen’s knowledge.
While that’s an interesting twist, it’s pretty much the high point of this movie and everything is pretty predictable afterward.
Though, if you haven’t seen the 2009 film, this will probably entertain you more and create a better lead-up if you’re going to watch “Orphan” afterward.
Overall, It’s a gory romp with plenty of homicidal maniacs and mildly entertaining – unless you’re not a fan of bloody and violent death scenes.
