‘Orphan’ is One of the Worst Movies I Have EVER Seen
-----Back before I had the exceptionally convenient job of working at a movie theater, I avoided paying to see any movies as bad as, ‘Orphan.’ I feared it may be one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but went in hoping it would be entertaining at the least. Instead, it was two hours of pain, watching sick, stupid, and dreadfully un-scary attempts at entertainment. I don’t know what they were thinking or what they were doing. It is the worst movie I have reviewed on my site, surpassing the excruciatingly bad films ‘Burn after Reading’ and ‘Dance Flick.’
-----‘Orphan’ is another in a long line of horror movies that for some reason still believe little girls are scary. No, they’re not scary, mostly just stupid. In this one, the evil little girl is adapted, and instead of getting straight to the killing like any self conscious horror flick, we wait two hours as if we’re supposed to be surprised the girl amply named, “Esther,” is actually evil. Throw in an adequate but reasonably expected twist, and you’ve got the whole movie in a nutshell.
-----Isabelle Fuhrman plays the evil nine year old, Esther. She’s not scary, and mostly just annoys and makes you a bit angry; but then, you don’t care enough about the supposed protagonist to really get too involved either way. Playing the protagonist who failed to garner my sympathy was Vera Farmiga, as Kate Coleman. She proved she can get the audience going with her performance in the amazingly awesome “Running Scared,” but here, thanks to the overall premise of the film, she gets nothing. Jimmy Bennett plays the young son of Farmiga, and anyone familiar with the one of the year’s best films, “Star Trek,” will recognize him as young James Tiberius Kirk. It seems weird to talk about one of the years’ greatest achievements in “Star Trek,” during my review of the years’ worst film yet. Honestly, one of the few actors in the film that wasn’t dreadful and nearly made a case for a half-star rating was the young Aryana Engineer as Farmiga’s daughter. Engineer at least manages to look amazingly cute, but then again her character only leads to another of the film’s flaws. We’re expected to believe that both of the children in the house wouldn’t run screaming to mommy after being threatened by Esther, which is ridiculous because it’s a nine year old girl they’re fighting. As soon as it was made apparent that she was evil, mom and dad could have easily beaten her down. Smack, smack, we win! The only real threat Esther poses is that of being secretly evil. And to answer your question, yes, the movie is that stupid.
-----On top of never being scary, and never making you feel much at all, “Orphan,” is just a nasty film. After the very first scene, I looked over to the person sitting next to me (in a theater occupied by three), and said, “I could leave right now.” They agreed. So terrible and dumb was the opening scene that I knew the next two hours would be painful ones. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie that almost completely kills itself in the first two minutes. On the bright side, there was a scene that almost forced a legitimate chuckle out of me, but it was the only scene in the film that didn’t take itself 100% seriously. Not to mention that almost-chuckle-worthy scene was also dripping in drama, and pretty much the whole film doesn’t even realize its own stupidity. It’s not even so bad it’s good! I couldn’t even laugh at the ridiculous parts as I did with ‘The Clone Wars!’ ‘Drag Me to Hell’ looks like a masterpiece after seeing this, being a film that at least realized how silly it was. ‘Orphan’ doesn’t even hold your attention! What kind of horror movie can’t even entertain you on a primitive level? Crappy as ‘The Final Destination’ films can be, at least they get the blood pumping. I’m probably one of the jumpiest people on Earth, and not once did any of the many attempts at surprising the audience force me to so much as flinch.
-----Ultimately, I’d rather watch a dog lick itself than watch ‘Orphan.’ It’s insultingly dense, and boring throughout. There are a few scenes that really should have gotten the audience revved up, but instead just kind of come off as more filth in an already disgusting movie, pointing out its own flaws repeatedly. The movie even fails to make you legitimately worry about its characters, because in cohesion with not relating or connecting to just about any of them, the film never really feels like a movie that’s going to kill off any of the children. It’s all trying to keep the evil tendencies of Esther shadowed, so you know no one is going to get killed off anytime before the closing moments of the film, making every other piece of the movie absolutely trivial. Don’t ever waste your time on this movie; it’s not even worth a viewing to see just how bad it is, because it can’t even accidentally entertain you with its own stupidity! There are certainly worse films out there, but with movies you should never have to pick your poison; especially when the poison just might kill you.
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