Orphan [Blu-ray]

Orphan [Blu-ray]
by Jaume Collet-Serra

Orphan [Blu-ray]

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: CCH Pounder, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jimmy Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, Vera Farmiga
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Brand: WHV
Blu-ray: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, Dubbed, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 123 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2009-10-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:

Tragedy seems to follow nine-year-old Esther. She was orphaned in her native Russia. Her last adoptive family perished in a fire Esther barely escaped. But now the Coleman family has adopted her, and life is good. Until amate takes a serious fall from a slide. Until an orphanage nun is battered to death. And until Esther s new mom wonders if that tragic fire was an accident. From Dark Castle Produ

Movie Reviews of Orphan [Blu-ray]

Movie Review: Orphan Review
Summary: 5 Stars

ORPHAN

STARRING: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jimmy Bennett, Aryana Engineer and CCH Pounder

WRITTEN BY: David Johnson and Alex Mace

DIRECTED BY: Jaume Collette-Serra

Rated: R
Genre: Horror / Thriller
Release Date: 24 July 2009

I'd be lying if I said that Orphan didn't have all the little moments you have seen a thousand times in horror flicks and thrillers. You know the ones I mean; the loud noises, the fast camera jerks and the annoying false-alarm-scares. It has them all. So why did I give it such a high rating you might ask?

Because although it has all of those little tidbits that feel like fillers and has a premise that's been recycled countless times, it has much more than any of the films you are thinking of. It makes movies like The Omen and Rosemary's Baby look like Disney films in comparison. Orphan is beyond disturbing.

We feel like a silent guest in the home of Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) Coleman. We feel their love for one another and the love for their children, Max and Daniel but we also sense dark secrets and an essence of mistrust as well. The family is holding it together but there have been some issues, for sure.

Kate is a recovering alcoholic and has miss-carried their third child in a very late stage of pregnancy. She had a name picked out and everything. She even dedicated a patch of rare flowers that she grows indoors to the unborn child.

This is obviously why things are a bit off with the family, so she and John agree to look into adopting. They've done a pretty decent job raising the two kids they already have, so it's no wonder they are fond of nine-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) when they meet her at an orphanage. It's almost hard to believe she can be just nine. She is a very talented artist, plays the piano effortlessly and insists on dressing elegantly all the time. Despite all of this, she is without a doubt creepy.

As you may have guessed, at first everything is great. She gets along with the other kids, the parents love and adore her and all is well. Then things start happening. There is a close call here and a questioning concern there and then things get nasty.

What sets Orphan apart from similar films of its genre, is that things don't just get bad, they get really, really bad. This kid is one disturbed little individual.

Perhaps what made kids scary in movies in the past, was that they were just kids doing bad things. What makes Esther so terrifying is that she acts like an adult when she does them. She's too mature and smart for her own good and that's more horrifying.

At times it's almost like she is more aware of things than the parents. I think another factor that works is the way she dresses. They could have very easily tried to make her look eerie with dark clothes and Goth makeup and have her not say anything. Instead they chose to dress her up like a little church girl, complete with ribbons in her hair and dress shoes and they gave her a huge vocabulary and a grown up sense to know things that no child should know.

Another element it has that most horror films lack, is good acting. Every character is portrayed so well, it's insane.

Vera Farmiga makes us feel her pain in every scene. She is an extraordinary actress and is severely underrated. It was nice to finally see her in a lead role.

Peter Sarsgaard may very well be one of the best actors out there. I have seen several of his films and he has so much diversity between his characters. Here he plays denial that anything is wrong with Esther to a T and his chemistry with Farmiga is always believable.

Even the other two child actors who play Max, (Aryana Engineer) and Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) did amazing jobs. They both are so convincing that they're horribly scared, you can't help but wonder if they will need therapy after making this movie.

The director, (Jaume Collette-Serra) clearly has a knack for horror films, a previous film being 2005's House of Wax, which was also done very well. He keeps you on the edge of your seat and rips amazing performances out of all the actors.

The third act of the film was by far the most interesting. All bets are off for predicting anything that will happen. I was shocked repeatedly and amazed by the ending. This was easily the most original ending I have seen in any film since The Sixth Sense.

It's good to see that there can still be some decent horror films made. And it's reassuring as an avid horror fan, to know that good solid actors like Farmiga and Sarsgaard are interested in the material and that talented directors like Collette- Serra are behind the reins. Even mainstream icons like Michael Bay, Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, and Martin Scorsese have been conjuring up new horror films.

It will probably take several years, if ever, for anyone to see Isabelle Fuhrman as not creepy. She does for scary little kids what Anthony Hopkins did for deranged serial killers. I wonder how this role has affected her because she conveys such evil in her performance, that you are impressed and repulsed simultaneously. And I also wonder if her parents will have any trouble finding a babysitter after this.

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Summary of Orphan [Blu-ray]

Tragedy seems to follow nine-year-old Esther. She was orphaned in her native Russia. Her last adoptive family perished in a fire Esther barely escaped. But now the Coleman family has adopted her, and life is good. Until a classmate takes a serious fall from a slide. Until an orphanage nun is battered to death. And until Esther?s new mom wonders if that tragic fire was an accident. From Dark Castle Productions comes Orphan, bringing stunning new twists to the psychological thriller and locking audiences in a tightening vise of mystery, suspicion and terror. You?ll never forget Esther. So sweet. So intelligent. So creative. So disturbed.

Features:
- Mama's Little Devils: Bad Seeds and Evil Children: cast and crew reinvent the evil kid genre and discuss notable movie psychopaths
- Additional scenes, including an alternate ending
- BD-Live features

A bad seed with a Russian accent, 9-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) is a nasty little girl with a nasty little plan. Unfortunately, this malevolent tyke has landed in the home of adoptive parents Kate and John (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), an unsuspecting couple with two kids of their own and considerable grief over recent family tragedies. It doesn't take long for Esther to make her creepy presence known, as broken limbs on the playground and torched tree houses can attest. Give this movie some credit--the psychological underpinnings are all set carefully in place: Maternal trauma? Check. Backyard pond as emotionally charged danger zone? Check. Feminist parable about husbands not listening to troubled wives? Check. The casting of reputable actors such as Farmiga and Sarsgaard also ups the movie's class quotient; Farmiga in particular has an emotional workout, and this gifted actress strikes few false notes even as the scenario becomes increasingly lurid. (There's some déjà vu here: Farmiga also played a mother realizing her kid was "not right" in Joshua, a much superior film.) Director Jaume Collet-Serra, of House of Wax notoriety, knows full well the unsettling weirdness of seeing a child commit murderous mayhem, and he presses all the buttons with something like unholy joy. The movie begins to drive off the rails even before a clumsy twist hits the fan near the end, and at that point, the mechanical exercise becomes downright silly. The Omen's Damien has nothing to worry about. --Robert Horton

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