Orphan

Orphanis a madly over the top – and absolutely riveting – horror treat, writes DONALD CLARKE

ANY SANE observer who endured House of Wax(Paris Hilton gets skewered) or Goal II(one of this writer's five worst of 2007) could be fairly certain that the director of both, one Jaume Collet-Serra, was never likely to deliver a meditative art house masterpiece. Indeed, those films were so poor it seemed improbable that Señor Collet-Serra could even offer us high-quality hokum. Yet here it is.

Delightfully inappropriate in any number of ways, Orphanturns out to be a minor classic in the field of pedophobic Grand Guignol. Featuring a juvenile performance of annihilating ferocity by Isabelle Fuhrman and a denouement that is either magnificently bold or unforgivably preposterous, Orphansets out to appal and, in one way or another, will almost certainly have just such an effect on every attentive viewer.

Fans of earlier scary child films such as The Omen, The Innocentsand (most conspicuously) The Bad Seedwill recognise many familiar moods and tropes. The picture follows a wealthy, good-looking couple – why is the husband always an architect in these things? – as, following a gruesome miscarriage, they set out to adopt another child.

We know we are in gothic territory when the orphanage they visit turns out to be run by heavily wimpled nuns and, unlike any such institution in contemporary America, dresses all its wards in identical grey pinafores.

While Kate (Vera Farmiga) is chatting to the sisters downstairs, John (Peter Sarsgaard) encounters a strange Russian child completing highly competent paintings in the art room. Charmed by her formality and politeness, John falls for Esther and persuades his (at this stage) only marginally less enthusiastic wife to sign the papers.

Initially, this sombre-faced child, who dresses like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,seems like the ideal house guest. She learns sign language and makes friends with the couple's deaf daughter. She plays Tchaikovsky like a professional. But, this being a scary-child flick, malign instincts soon announce themselves.

Esther proves very adept at triggering Kate’s guilty feelings about her former alcoholism and about the accident that caused her daughter’s hearing difficulties. While John remains convinced of Esther’s innocence, Kate becomes ever more suspicious and the two younger kids, now threatened at knifepoint by their new sister, begin to believe they are living with a member of the junior Russian mafia. Then things turn properly nasty.

One can understand why some adoption groups have squirmed at the film’s treatment of Esther. But the young villain is such an absurdly heightened character that it makes any such deliberations slightly ridiculous. You may as well complain that Dracula misrepresents the Romanian aristocracy.

No. The character of Esther exists to play upon all those suppressed concerns – guilt at not having enough love to give, jealousy about the young person’s preference for the other parent – that parents sometimes have about their children (whether born to them or not). As such, it does a rather brilliant job of inducing profound discomfort in the viewer and causing him or her to wonder whether film-makers are really allowed to do that on screen.

More than anything else, however, Orphanis a roaring, boisterous melodrama that forgoes no opportunity to yell "boo" in the cinemagoer's gawping face. The film is certainly at least 15 minutes too long, but it would be a shame to lose any of the outrageous shenanigans that follow the big revelation. Some will find that twist hilarious. Others will rock with joy. Most will say: "Well, I didn't see that coming." For that notable achievement alone, Collet-Serra's shocker deserves two enthusiastically raised thumbs.

Still, the inevitable 25 sequels will undoubtedly stink to high heaven.