Critics Shrink From Adopting Orphan

Critics mixed on scary-kid horror film

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 24, 2009 2:33 PM CDT

(Newser) – Critics are divided over Orphan, a horror flick about an adopted child who makes scary things happen:

“Actors have to eat like the rest of us, if evidently not as much, but you still have to wonder how the independent-film mainstays Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard ended up wading through Orphan and, for the most part, not laughing,” writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.

“Once Kate and the audience discover the true reason behind Esther's path of destruction (a clever, if somewhat implausible, twist), Orphan descends into a formulaic bloodbath that barely registers a pulse,” notes Jennie Punter in the Globe & Mail.
But Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, calls the film “shamelessly effective.” “You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one.”

[Videos (1)]

In this publicity image released by Warner Bros., Isabelle Fuhrman and Vera Farmiga, left, are shown in a scene from "Orphan." (AP Photo)

In this publicity image released by Warner Bros., Vera Farmiga, Isabelle Fuhrman and Peter Sarsgaard are shown in a scene from "Orphan." (AP Photo)

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Critics Shrink From Adopting Orphan

Critics mixed on scary-kid horror film