Rated: MA15+
Directed by: William Brent Bell
Screenplay by: David Coggeshall
Story by: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Alex Mace
Based on Characters Created by: Alex Mace
Produced by: Alex Mace, Hal Sadoff, Ethan Erwin, James Tomlinson
Starring: Isabelle Fuhrman, Rossif Sutherland, Hiro Kanagawa, Matthew Finlan and Julia Stiles.
‘Welcome home, Esther.’
The prequel to, Orphan (2009), Orphan: First Kill takes the story back to Esther’s (Isabelle Fuhrman) origins, back to Estonia 2007.
But back in 2007, Esther isn’t, ‘Esther’. She’s Leena.
Incredibly, Isabelle Furhman has returned in the same role and yes, is believable.
Many in the audience will know of Esther’s disorder, hypopituitarism where she’s essentially an in-proportion dwarf making her look like a child even though she’s an adult woman in her 30s.
As do the psychiatrists in the film, treating her in the Saarne Institute.
Opening with the same emotionless bloody violence that Esther is capable of, there’s no surprise or hiding who she really is, so the prequal is layered differently.
I wasn’t sure what concept returning story writer, Alex Mace along with original screenwriter, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick was going to come up with after the big reveal was already known – that the innocent 10-year-old girl Esther is in fact a psychotic, manipulating, murdering, adult woman. But Mace and Johnson-McGoldrick have teamed up with new screenwriter, David Coggeshall and director, William Brent Bell (Separation, (2021), The Devil Inside (2012), The Boy (2016)) to create something, dare I say, playful.
Here, Esther manipulates her way into a wealthy American family, The Albrights.
Their family came over on the Mayflower and built this country. They ‘mean something.’
Esther finds another man to fall in love with (Allen, (Rossif Sutherland)) while hating her new, ‘mummy,’ (Julia Stiles as Tricia is fantastic in this role) while her older brother, Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) remains suspicious of his returned little sister.
Let the manipulation and killing begin.
I was bracing for a bit boring and more of the same, but as the film progresses, I was drawn in and ended up having a lot of fun watching this new perspective of Esther. Fun. In a good way.
Prequel Orphan was better than expected and that’s all I’m going to give away, except to say, gotta like a wry sense of humour in a horror movie.