Sunday, 2 April 2023

VOD: Orphan - First Kill (dir: William Brent Bell, 2022)

"What she needs right now is her family."

This belated prequel takes us back to snowy Estonia in 2007 and an isolated secure institution, at which a new art therapist encounters the murderous woman-who-looks-like-a-child Lena, unwittingly aids in her escape that then gives way to a loose cuckoo-in-the-nest re-run of the first film as Lena convinces everyone that she is the missing daughter (Esther) of a Connecticut family.  With the shockingly effective twist delivered at the end of the original movie, what we have here is a murkily-shot but occasionally energetic low-budget horror that does little except fill in some unnecessary backstory, but this time the audience is in on the set-up, with another rather crudely-delivered twist in this film proving to have promise that is not really fulfilled.  As the history within the film indicates, the title (First Kill) is a misnomer, but bland dialogue and generally unsatisfactory performances dominate this superfluous movie.
 

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