Movie Review – Orphan: First Kill

By James Murphy

2009’s Orphan starred Isabelle Fuhrman when she was 12 years old. Making a prequel to this movie, once again starring Fuhrman, 13 years later without the use of CGI; that sounds like quite an unrealistic premise. For those that have difficulty suspending their disbelief when faced with plot holes, an ageing star and, well, a protgagonist/antagonist that just won’t stay down, no matter how many staircases they’ve been hit, Orphan: First Kill will be an uncomfortable time. The prequel’s central message, if it has one, is that appearances can be deceiving. Privileged nuclear families can harbour secret shames, wolves can wear sheep’s clothing, and films that commence with bleak and gruesome scenes in an Estonian asylum can be surprisingly funny black comedies.

The twist of the original Orphan, that Fuhrmann’s character, Leena Klammer, is not a child, but rather a 31-year-old-woman with a rare condition, hypopituitarism, that has prevented her ageing, is revealed in First Kill’s opening scenes in the correctional facility where she is housed. It wouldn’t be much of a film if she were to remain in custody, though, and so she escapes, poses as a missing child, then is re-united with her wealthy American family, the Allbrights, played by Julia Stiles, Rossif Sutherland and Matthew Finlan. While fans of the first film will know the broad-brush strokes of where this is all headed, twists of equal magnitude to the original lay lurking around a corner, like Leena with a knife.

Aside from Rossif Sutherland as the grieving father, every character that shares the screen with Fuhrman feels expendable; often because their purpose is to be expended, violently. The propriety of villainising and sexualising an Eastern European orphan with a disability, too, is up for serious debate. Killer kids is a well-trod horror trope. The execution of the tale’s twist, though, and the consequent shift in tone, is immensely pleasurable. For a genre where every jump scare can be seen coming, Orphan: First Kill was refreshing in its unpredictability.