ORPHAN: FIRST KILL
Cert 15 ★★
In cinemas
A 36-year gap wasn’t a problem for this year’s Top Gun sequel but audiences could find the 13 years separating the two instalments of this creepy kid series a bit more challenging.
That’s because this belated follow-up is also a prequel. Isabelle Fuhrman was 12 when she starred in 2009’s Orphan, an entertaining horror built upon a wonderfully silly twist. The parentless, adopted child of the title was actually a 32-year-old Estonian psychopath whose growth had been stunted by a hormonal condition.
The misdirection worked because Fuhrman then looked like an eerily mature nine-year-old. When they shot this film, which is set a year before the events of the first one, Fuhrman was in her mid-20s. And, despite extensive use of trick shots and body doubles, she always looks it.
The film begins with Esther escaping a psychiatric facility in Estonia and heading to Russia to pose as Esther, the missing eight-year-old daughter of a wealthy American couple played by Julia Stiles and Rossif Sutherland.
After dressing her up in spooky Victorian clothes (but not bothering with a DNA test), the couple take her back to their mansion in Connecticut.
Esther’s early antics aren’t as menacing or darkly amusing as in the original. But about halfway through, the film delivers another deliriously unhinged twist.
If you can handle Fuhrman acting on her knees from behind a sofa and stop yourself from thinking about Janette Krankie, you may find yourself enjoying the camp finale.