Orphan
Dir: Jaume Collet-Serra
2009
*
I specifically sought out Orphan due to rather complimentary reviews online. Did I see the same film? This is one of the worst written pieces of crap I've ever seen. The twist ending was okay but the rest of story was truly awful. If it is a horror it fails for not being scary and if it's a thriller it fails for not being thrilling. I couldn't care less by the end whether anyone lived or died, although I think I would have preferred that everyone had died. It's a cliched, rehash of every other 'colour by numbers' formulaic 'horror' movie but with added bad editing (towards the end the Mum and deaf daughter are with the police who have just arrived by car. The next scene they're alone and battling the Orphan once more and the police can be seen arriving in their cars in the distance. Again). If you want to scare people in this way you have to add realism, they fell at the first hurdle when they simply waltzed into a convent and picked a girl to adopted within seconds like it's that easy to adopt. A good horror/thriller should have you on the edge of your seat and looking through your fingers with anticipation of what is about to happen, Orphan had me shouting at the TV and made me want to throw it out the window. Honestly people, this is an awful film!