Collet-Serra's film succeeds in being genuinely creepy, is commendably well acted by all concerned, and contains the best twist since The Crying Game.
Comment
08/21/09
Orphan (2009)
55
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:133
Fresh:73
Rotten:60
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: While it has moments of dark humor and the requisite scares, Orphan fails to build on its interesting premise and degenerates into a formulaic, sleazy horror/thriller.
Runtime: 2 hrs 3 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
US Box Office: $41,472,886
Synopsis: The tragic loss of their unborn child has devastated Kate and John, taking a toll on both their marriage and Kate’s fragile psyche as she is plagued by nightmares and haunted by demons from her... [More]
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder
Director: Jaume Collet-Sera
Reviews for Orphan
Top CriticOne of the good things about ORPHAN, which is directed by Jaume Collet-Sera, is that it takes itself quite seriously and manages to bring a surprising level of originality to the potentially familiar material.
08/12/09
Top CriticEnough jump-out-of-your-seat moments to make this nonetheless trashy, implausible thirller watchable.
08/12/09
Top CriticPreventing Orphan from surpassing its “solid” status is the predictability of much of its plot. You’ll be able to guess Esther’s next move well before she makes it, and some of her sinister shenanigans suffer from being too outlandish.
08/10/09
Top CriticThere's something wrong with Esther says the marketing tagline to this film, which sums up my response to the film itself.
08/08/09
Top CriticBad Seed-style horror movie is gory and ludicrous.
10/26/09
Orphan is not very good. At 90 minutes, it might have been amazing. At nearly two hours, it's tedious.
10/25/09
This is the rare fright flick that is actually grounded in some genuine human emotion.
10/24/09
Click to read the article
10/22/09
...more concerned with producing cheap thrills and melodramatic effects than creating any sense of mystery or suspense.
10/20/09
David Johnson's script plays fair with red herrings before a devilish denouement with all the torque of a good twist. Esther doesn't just want to topple the Colemans' house of cards. She wants to torch it, and "Orphan" is gruesome, gripping material.
09/19/09
A difficult child that horror-loving parents will find hard to adopt as one of their own.
09/11/09
Something isn't quite working in the intended way when the audience's primary reaction for two-plus (!) hours is raucous laughter.
08/31/09
Orphan is as much a high-tension, frightening thriller as it is a straight-up horror flick, at least it is until it devolves into outright silliness in the final act.
08/28/09
a carefully staged deconstruction of our assumptions about horrorshows about preternaturally manipulative and malevolent children
08/25/09
"A superior entertainment."
08/23/09
Director Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax) endows this ugly mess with a slew of unintentional laughs, but not enough to repay the 123-minute time suck.
08/20/09
The movie amps up the tension to a laughable degree, using every cliché in the horror movie guidebook.
08/16/09
A pretty good little B-movie thriller.
08/15/09
Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther does her best with the material, but frankly the story lacks a strong central thesis about the nature of evil.
08/14/09
Top CriticLatest News for Orphan
August 03, 2009:
Watch RT This Week on Current TV
This week, The Rotten Tomatoes Show will be looking at the movies that opened over the weekend, with help from you (the Rotten Tomatoes community), the Current TV community, and... More...
July 23, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Orphan Is Mixed Bag
This week at the movies, we've got an evil adoptee (Orphan, starring Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), a battle of the sexes (The Ugly Truth, starring Katherine Heigl and... More...
July 23, 2009:
Box Office Guru Preview: Ugly Truth and G-Force Battle Potter
As Harry Potter inches closer to graduating wizard school, the box office prince will face three new releases opening on Friday each targeting its own specific audience. Sony... More...
July 23, 2009:
Total Recall: Evil Movie Kids
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