ORPHAN - DVD review

The last really good supernatural thriller I watched was "The Orphanage" from Warner/New Line in 2007, so it's probably no coincidence that WB titled their 2009 demon-child tale "Orphan." The film is a pretty ordinary entry in the evil-youngster genre popularized over half a century ago by Ray Bradbury in his short story "The Small Assassin," followed by movies like "The Bad Seed," "Rosemary's Baby," "The Omen," and "The Good Son." Indeed, not only is "Orphan" ordinary, about the only controversy surrounding it came from various people concerned that the film gave orphans a bad name. Yeah, well, in the same way that ghost stories give ghosts a bad name. Still, it was enough controversy to prompt Warners to preface the movie with a disclaimer reminding audiences that the characters in the film are fictional, not real children. Fair enough.

It's too bad the studio didn't warn us in advance about how frustrating the picture was going to be. Now, that would have been useful. As it is, the film may well infuriate you more than it scares you. It actually made me long for a good, old-fashioned slasher flick, which at least makes no pretense of being anything more than a gore fest. "Orphan" takes itself so seriously, you'd think the filmmakers were working on "Citizen Kane."

The movie is not only ordinary, it's fairly predictable, too, the director, Jaume Collet-Serra ("House of Wax"), generally following the standard demon-child formula. Even the frights seem predictable, like the tricks with a bathroom mirror or the ominous music when somebody so much as opens a refrigerator.

The story involves a husband and wife, Kate and John Coleman (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), who adopt a nine-year-old girl. The mother says she needs another daughter to replace the one who died in childbirth, to give the adopted daughter all the love she felt for the one she lost. I'm not sure what this says about her feelings for her other two young children, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) and Max (Aryana Engineer).

The Colemans adopt Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) from a local orphanage, and from the beginning she appears too good to be true: bright and charming and innocent, but just a little odd. She seems to exult in being "different." It seems Esther originally came from somewhere in Russia, the family who brought her to America mysteriously dying in a house fire.

The Colemans are well off, the father a successful architect and the mother a pianist and composer, their residence, a huge architectural gem overlooking a valley, attesting to their affluence. They are well able to provide for another child and are more than willing to give Esther all their love.

But things are not always as they appear. About a third of the way into the movie, we begin to see Esther's darker side, with weird and evil deeds escalating fast. For instance, Esther seems to know more about sex and dirty words than a typical nine-year-old, and she spies on her new parents making love. We know Esther is getting creepier by the minute because every time she's up to something no good, storms burst forth with lightning and thunder.

Esther brings out the worst in everybody, dredging up the Colemans' past problems with infidelity and alcoholism and then moving on to more unpleasant things. When she starts using a hammer, we know we're in trouble.

My biggest problem with the film was not its premise, though; its basic idea is a given from the start. No, it's with the characters, who must be among the dumbest people ever to grace a movie screen. The mother is an emotional time bomb; the mother's shrink (Margo Martindale) is an idiot; the nun (CCH Pounder) who arranges the adoption is a fool; the father is a dimwit; and the young brother is a jerk. The little sister is the only person in the movie with any sense, and she's too scared to do anything.

"Orphan" seems more concerned with producing cheap thrills and melodramatic effects than creating any sense of mystery or suspense. What the movie does best is generate disappointment in the viewer. If that's your idea of a good time, "Orphan" delivers.

Video:
Warner engineers use an anamorphic widescreen transfer to reproduce the movie in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Nothing helps much, though, the picture quality looking deliberately soft and dingy, intended no doubt to convey the story's downbeat mood. Whites are clean enough, yet there is a moderate degree of natural film grain present. Still, after a short time the gray veiling that shrouds most of the indoor shots and the somewhat chalky facial tones become more depressing than atmospheric.

Audio:
One can hardly fault the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound (unless you compare it to the lossless Dolby TrueHD on the Blu-ray edition). The Dolby Digital conveys a fairly wide dynamic range and a strong bass impact. Detailing is quite good in the front channels, with a multitude of small, subtle noises contributing to the action, while the surrounds come to life during the most-intense moments. I did expect more from the side and rear speakers, and the Dolby Digital does tend to be a bit bright and forward, but those are really the only sonic limitations.

Extras:
For so recent a film, there are surprisingly few extras involved--one to be exact. It's a brief, four-minute series of deleted scenes, including an alternate ending, in non-anamorphic widescreen.

And that's about it. Of course, we get the usual amenities: scene selections, thirty of them; assorted promos and trailers at start-up; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; French and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Shots:
Although the ending of "Orphan" is completely preposterous, laughable even, it's exactly the kind of thing we expect from the film. It never plays fair for an instant and then cops out with the ridiculous. I said at the outset that the only controversy surrounding the picture was the possibility of its giving orphans a bad name. People should have been more worried about the film giving horror flicks a bad name.