Esther Returns in 'Orphan: First Kill' A Prequel To 'Orphan'
When a studio gets a good return on a horror movie and you can bet something will come along to help flesh out the “cinematic universe” created from the original. Back in 2009, a movie titled Orphan was released in cinemas without much critical or audience success. While the movie overall was not all that great, typical modern horror fair but it was saved by the twist ending.
A spoiler alert for the first film but since it is over 10 years since the release of the film (I suppose you could still turn back) the statute of limitation is long past but the twist revealed is the couple who thought they had allegedly adopted a homely 9-year-old girl from Europe was actually a 33-year-old woman who suffers from genetic disease hypopituitarism which caused Esther to suffer stunted physical growth and proportional dwarfism. During the dramatic reveal we learn that Esther, actually named Leena had killed her previous family in a way similar to the events of the movie. 13 years later and Paramount has returned to the Orphan well to tell us the story of what happened with that family.
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Paramount has released the first trailer where we see that the original Esther actress, Isabelle Fuhrman, is returning to the role to make everyone feel really creepy and Julia Stiles has now left the teen idol phase of her career and moved on to mother roles. Based on the trailer, we learn how Leena becomes Esther and it appears we will get a bigger background into her motivation for what she does and how people are fooled by her appearance.
After the first movie, while critics and fans wrote off the movie, Isabelle Fuhrman was the lone bright spot by playing a character leading a double life and her portrayal of someone being young yet old all at the same time. But seeing her in the trailer with quite obvious VFX to de-age her even more than what she looked like in the first movie is a visual distraction. I know that the technology has improved, look no further than The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett to see younger versions of actors but was this something we truly need? I get that the concept told in the first movie was unique and not something I have seen played around with since the first movie but I just don’t see this becoming a cult hit like the first.
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Source(s): YouTube