The Movie
Following a miscarriage, a vulnerable woman (Vera Farmiga) and her family adopt young Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a mysterious yet charming nine-year-old Orphan with a tragic past. Fitting in at home and at school is a bit bumpy for little Esther, but rather than suffer quietly she is violently, duplicitously confrontational, although only her new mother seems to notice. Mom's unhelpful therapist is completely fooled, and an increasingly dicky husband ("Them corpses is pilin' up, but she called me 'Daddy!'") takes Esther's side over that of his own wife.
Life becomes increasingly stressful--and painful--for all involved, with some routine plot developments until the start of Act III, when what begins as a just-plain-wrong sequence gives way to a genuinely shocking twist that I did not see coming, buoying the somewhat standard thriller climax. Take it from a dad, Esther is bad news, but in the end the movie is overwrought and hard to swallow, with a lot of false fights just to keep us interested.
Need a second opinion? Check out Lora Grady's review of Orphan.
The Picture
Some Blu-rays look not much better than DVD, but this one has a nastiness all its own. Exaggerated lighting can be quite effective and well preserved in high-def, but too often the backgrounds can appear unrealistically compressed, darks can be noisy, while blacks are just plain ugly. There's blatant ringing, even a weird flickering at times, and other seemingly random anomalies from the digital authoring, including blobs of poor resolution within the 1.78:1 frame (despite the package's report of it being a 1.85:1 transfer). At one point a character is writing music at the piano, and don't even think about reading the sheet. It's so hideous at points that I wanted to hit the Stop button, but I'm a pro.
The Sound
The accompanying Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround sound offers chilling bass, and the sound designer was not afraid to use any/all channels for a variety of effects. There's some of the more obvious, expected use of the surrounds, in an action sequence or to help establish an environment, and good basic directionality within the soundfield. One quick bit when the hearing impaired daughter takes out her electronic aid is also well-executed, but in the end Orphan is just fine, not a sonic standout.
The Extras
Likely in response to the outcry against the movie and its themes, the disc begins with a pro-adoption public service announcement, with poor audio despite HD video. "Mama's Little Devils: Bad Seeds and Evil Children" (15 minutes, HD) contains a lot of the usual cast gushing punctuated by expert insight, and commentary on the horror genre itself. Watch it after the movie, as it reveals the big secret. The Additional Scenes and Alternate Ending run four minutes total, technically in HD but looking like SD, perhaps owing to the low bit rate.
I'm becoming a little frustrated with the promise of "Exclusive Features via BD-Live" but then when I click on "Extras" under "Select to view extra content for this film," there is quite literally nothing there, more than a week past street date. Disc Two is a DVD carrying a Digital Copy of the movie for iTunes and Windows Media
Final Thoughts
Orphan is definitely worth at least a rental for fans of the horror/thriller genres, and if you like what you see then the extras are worth exploring, too. As for the image quality... yeah, that's scariest part of all.
Product Details
- Actors: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder, Jimmy Bennett, Margo Martindale, Karel Roden, Aryana Engineer, Rosemary Dunsmore, Jamie Young, Lorry Ayers, Brendan Wall
- Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
- Audio Format/Languages: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (French, Spanish, Portuguese)
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rating: R
- Studio: Warner
- Release Date: October 27, 2009
- Run Time: 123 minutes
- List Price: $35.99
- Extras:
- "Mama's Little Devils: Bad Seeds and Evil Children"
- Additional Scenes, Alternate Ending
- BD-Live
- Digital Copy
