Orphan (2009)

Orphan was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and stars Isabelle Fuhrman, Vera Farmiga, and Peter Sarsgaard. It is currently in theatres.


As a preface: SPOILERS! WATCH OUT!


What truly impressed me in this movie was Isabelle Fuhrman's acting. The girl is only twelve or thirteen, yet she pulls off nine and thirty three with equal aplomb. You see, the twist is that Ester is in fact a grown woman, a proportional dwarf masquerading as a nine year old girl. Now, this sounds patently ridiculous, as quite a few Internet sources have noted, but I feel Fuhrman gave a strong enough performance to make her secret believable.


Through almost the entire first act, Ester comes across as almost too sweet, and one finds one's self almost rooting for her, despite knowing that she MUST be evil. After a girl at school is particularly cruel to her, pushing her off a jungle-gym seems not only excusable but justified. However, Ester's rage intensifies as the movie progresses, and her transgressions get more and more serious, and correspondingly less well-thought-out, until she can disguise her true intentions no longer. Fuhrman gives Ester a snarl that slowly emerges through her East European accent as she begins her siege on the family, using their spotted history to turn them against each other until it is almost too late.


Additionally, I felt Vera Farmiga was excellent. She plays Ester's adopted mother, who lost her third child while it was still in the womb. She descends into suffering as Ester escalates into manic insanity, matching her in violence until they battle in the final act. In fact, one of the most shocking scenes in the movie is not due to Ester, but when Kate slaps her. She must be physically restrained from beating Ester, and this rage from a "good" character is quite jarring.


However, a few things did bother me about the movies. The reason Ester wears ribbons on her throat and wrists is to cover scars she recieved from her straight jacket when she was in the mental instituation, but these scars look more like cutting scars, rather than the abrassion marks one would get from rubbing fabric. I think they had these scars mostly for the sake of misdirection, really, and for visual effect.

In fact, I felt quite a few things in the movie were done mainly for mood, sacrificing logic. For instance, Ester likes to paint, but her seemingly innocent pictures are, when shown under blacklight, to contain twisted hidden images, such as burning children or heaqds on pikes. Now, these day-glow ciphers were certanly interesting and spooky, the whole thing seemed a bit too hoodoo-magic to fit with the logic of the rest of the film. I mean, did she own a blacklight in the orphanage? However, it did make for a great closing credits sequence.


B+

Inside (2008) or À l'intérieur (2007)

Inside was directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury and stars Béatrice Dalle and Alysson Paradis. It was released in 2007 in France, and has just recently been released on DVD in the United States.

First of all, if you do not appreciate stabbings, this is not the movie for you. At all. Just sayin'. It features quite a few puncture wounds caused by a wide variety of pointy objects, most notably by a shiny pair of sewing scissors. This especially freaked me out because I was working on a sewing project as I watched this movie, and just happened to have an identical pair sitting right in front of me on my desk. They were shining quite menacingly in the glow of my computer throughout the movie.

Also, according to Bloody Disgusting, this movie has been censored by Blockbuster in the states. They've removed a total of seven minutes, which I've heard really destroys the movie's integrity. Luckily, I managed to get a copy from a local independent rental place, (Video Fan, which, by the way, has an entire horror ROOM,) so my review will be of the complete film.

I think true suspense is not actually about the unknown, but more about knowing exactly what is about to happen and being powerless to stop it. Inside has a perfect understanding of this principle. I'm not one for yelling at the screen, but this movie had me cringing and shouting throughout. There were many moments where one could see exactly what was about to occur, which made that event so much more brutal to watch.

Accordingly, I think there is a legitimate place for predictability in horror. Twist endings are all well and good, but I feel they often result in "puzzle" movies. Figuring out the twist is entertaining, but as soon as the end is revealed, there is nothing left to ponder. Bruce Willis is dead and that's all one needs to know. I mean, there are notable exceptions, Fight Club (1999) being a prominent example, but most often all that results is a movie unworthy of a repeat viewing. There's nothing to care about once one knows the ending.

Consequently, it is when Inside attempts to be original that it fails. Towards the end of the film, the lights are shut off by La Femme, the killer who desires Sarah's baby. The police are of course killed when they go to the basement to turn them back on, along with a young Muslim man they had taken into custody earlier in the night for rioting. Later, Sarah enters the basement to confront La Femme in the dark when suddenly, the young man stands up and turns back on the lights. His eyes are blacked out, and I had a sudden "Huh? Is he a zombie?" moment before he was killed again. In a movie that seemed to pride itself in the authenticity of its brutality, this moment just didn't fit. It felt like a cop-out.

Similarly, La Femme's explanations for wanting Sarah's baby seemed a bit weak. It was just a bit too coincidental that La Femme and Sarah were both be pregnant when they crashed their cars into each other, killing La Femme's child and Sarah's husband. To me, it would have been more frightening to provide no motivation for La Femme's rampage beyond her desire for a child. Providing a reason breaks her character's actions down into a simple cause and effect reaction, rather than the result of a twisted human mind.

Overall, this movie is intensely feminine. A majority of the weapons, from sewing scissors and knitting needles to hair sticks and kitchen knives, have especially domestic connotations, especially in view of the motherhood-centric plot. In general, it was refreshing to see, in light of the constant barrage of plots concerning hulking men chasing after nubile college girls.

Suspense: A+
Movie Overall: B+