Orphan: First Kill 4K 2022

After settling in on a hot (very hot) summer evening, armed with sunflower seeds and a huge bag of husks, I began watching the prequel to 2009's Child of Darkness.

The story centers on Lynn, a woman with a genetic disease that affects her height and she looks like a child. Of course, according to the law of the genre - she is the most dangerous patient in the psychiatric hospital, but managing to 'tame' for candy another mental patient. Drawing pictures in the studio with pencils, which is a potential murder weapon and seducing the guards, which somehow does not fit with the hospital for dangerous mental patients. Whatever.

After escaping from there, she is reincarnated as a similar, missing girl, Esther, who has been missing for several years. Once in her new family, she encounters a loving 'father,' but her mother and brother do not share his love and know who Esther really is. Not to spoil - the film shows us that rich, successful and physically healthy people can be much more evil than people with mental and physical disabilities.

An undeniable plus of the film is that Lynn--Ester is not presented to us as an absolute evil. She is a mentally ill, humiliated person, even her loving 'father' blurts out that she is a monster. Is she a monster? And aren't they monsters too, far more sick and cruel?

As for the acting, this is a film that Isabelle Fuhrman drags, and does so firmly and tastefully. It's not Megan Fox, thank goodness, and all, even the most minimal emotions are wonderfully played out with both facial expressions and gestures. The rest of the characters, unlike in the original film - where the family was well-described - are just background. You don't empathize with the father, the brother is the background, the mother is out of place and her actions defy logic.

As a result, the movie doesn't get any stars from the sky, the story often sags and the illogic of the 'family's' actions is off the charts. When watching it, you catch yourself thinking that everything is very chambery, crumpled, the locations are dull and faded. The change of the director did not help the film, and the level of Jaume Collet-Serra, the director of the first film is much higher than the ceiling of William Brent Bell with his Puppet Brahms. Watch for fans of the first film and those who want to see a one-actor film by Isabelle Fuhrman.