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[Editorial] ‘Orphan’ Isn’t Perfect, But I Still Love It 10 Years Later

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Something is wrong with Esther, alright.

Released on this day 10 years ago, Jaume Collett-Serra’s unique twist on the bad seed subgenre, Orphan, pummeled its way into theaters after weeks of both anticipation and controversy, going on to earn $78 million at the box office over its relatively modest budget. Both influenced by, yet also a subversion of the tropes of previous films such as The Bad Seed, The Omen, and The Good Son— and undoubtedly affecting the coldness within this year’s The ProdigyOrphan is one of the more memorable psychological horror efforts we were given in 2009.

If you need a refresher, when a family of four makes the decision to adopt an older child after suffering the loss of their unborn daughter, they get more than what they bargained for with 9-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman)— a bright, raven-haired Russian orphan with a flair for painting and a seemingly charming maturity to boot. Of course, things start to go awry for the family shortly after they bring Esther into their home, and as matriarch Kate (Vera Farmiga) and father John (Peter Sarsgaard) disagree on what kind of child they each perceive Esther to be, their family begins to crack, as Esther’s true intentions and identity are revealed in one of the most what the fuck endings in recent memory.

What makes Orphan work on a poignant level is its group of primarily fleshed-out characters whose fates you feel invested in. In particular, we are consistently on Farmiga’s Kate’s side, even when others who should be are not (like her own damn husband and the family therapist.) A once successful piano teacher at Yale, Kate has become a recovering alcoholic after the death of stillborn Jessica, as well as a near-drowning accident involving daughter Max that Kate blames herself for. Whether we are parents or not, we can identify with Kate, because she’s imperfect. She has suffered from a lot of internal and external tragedies, and she’s just simply trying her best. When we first meet her, she experiences nightmares from PTSD and wants to do something positive with her pain by giving an orphaned child a home, which is something not all of us have the bravery to do.

Her husband John, albeit loving and laidback, comes off as a tad selfish. He seems to be more concerned about getting laid than the issues arising within his family unit— especially after Esther’s arrival— and not just because Esther acts differently around him, but because he sees what he wants to see within her. The dude is in complete denial. The film later reveals that John once had an extramarital affair, which Esther discovers and exploits, to cause the two spouses to argue. Son Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) is visibly envious of the attention that close-in-age Esther gets as she worms her way into the family dynamic, and youngest daughter Max (Aryana Engineer) looks up to her new sister, as she also possesses a disability, even though Esther’s is not as easy to spot at first glance. By placing this family into an already emotionally vulnerable state of their grief and past strife, the film is almost cruel when it plays on their fears, punishing them for doing a good thing and welcoming a stranger into their home.

Orphan further elevates itself with its performances, which likely would have made it pretty schlocky had it lacked. Vera Farmiga’s committed turn as Kate likely helped Farmiga land one of her most notable roles to date as Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring four years after Orphan’s release. And, most notably, the performance from the young Isabelle Fuhrman as the deeply troubled Esther was almost too good to be true. Let’s be honest, child actors’ performances can make or break, but Fuhrman as Esther is transcending. From her moments of false charm as she curtsies and smiles, to her glaring stares at Kate when she challenges her— not one moment in Fuhrman’s performance feels tacked on. The young actress exceeds at this multi-faceted character that could be mentioned in the same breath as the performances from others like Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed and Harvey Stephens in The Omen. I mean, who could forget that snarl on her face when she takes off her disguise and smashes her belongings into her mirror?

Additionally, Orphan is satisfyingly brutal and effective as a horror film. 

Sure, it employs some unnecessary, cheap jump scares throughout, but when it wants to get dirty, it doesn’t mess around. At just the right pace, the tension builds, as its more subtly chilling moments, like when Kate catches Esther flawlessly playing Tchaikovsky after pretending not to know how to play piano, become increasingly deadlier. In one of the film’s most unforgettable moments, poor Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder) felt quite the literal blows of Esther’s rage when she pays the family a visit and admits Esther may be more detrimental than she initially realized. After some conniving, Esther tricks the nun into getting out of her car and sneaks up behind her, with hammer in hand. We wince while watching, as we sympathetically feel every blow, and Sister Abigail’s undeserving blood splatters across Esther’s face. Gives me chills every time.

But Orphan is not without its flaws. The dope of a dad John is infuriatingly naïve. The movie suffers from an occasional lack of believability. The editing during pivotal moments of Isabelle Fuhrman’s doubles standing in for her is way too noticeable. And yes, its messaging can be considered problematic at times, which we’ll dig into.

Many of the most beloved movies in this genre typically offend somebody, and in this case, the backlash was warranted in some ways. Prior to the film’s release, several United States senators and members of the House of Representatives penned a letter to the studio heads at Warner Bros., expressing their concern that the film would discourage families from adopting children, particularly those from foreign countries. And there was definitely merit to the controversy: the film’s original marketing campaign displayed somewhat of an “adoption= you’re screwed” diction. Warner Bros. was eventually coerced into removing the line, “It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own” from the movie’s theatrical trailer and posters. The film’s DVD smartly contains a pro-adoption message to viewers.

Where things really start to get icky is within this exploration of this complicated, Freudian, adoptive mother-daughter relationship between Kate and Esther. Esther is of superior intellect: she preys on everyone’s weaknesses, mainly to use as a distraction, so she can run amuck and do what she needs to do to obtain her ultimate goal, which is to get everyone out of her way and seduce John. After one scene in which Esther catches Kate and John having sex in the kitchen (a ballsy move when you have three kids) Kate tries to console her and she coldly responds, “I know. (Grown-ups) fuck.” As we come to find out, Esther is resentful towards Kate’s advances of being a loving mother towards her because she hates that Kate and John share a primarily loving marriage, and it infuriates her when Kate gets in the way of her subtle advances towards John. Holy dysfunctional. Like the little jerk that she is, she purposely picks the white roses from the ashes of stillborn Jessica’s garden to piss Kate off, and secretly breaks her own arm (to make it look like Kate did it) in order for John to defend Esther and to put a wedge between her mother and father. It’s all the more disturbing when Esther puts on her full face of makeup and black dress and makes her way to seducing John— which grossly edges on pedophilia— until we learn that Esther isn’t quite who we think she is. Thankfully.

Of course, the shocking reveal of it all is that Esther is actually a 33-year-old woman named Leena with a rare condition called hypopituitarism, which has stunted her growth, and she uses this to exploit families into adopting her. As stellar as Fuhrman is in this role, does the film cross moral boundaries by having a then-11-year-old child actor partake in these behaviors that Esther was written to have? Is it problematic to have a minor actor (pretend) to bash a nun’s head in with a hammer or to hit on her on-screen dad? Some critics panned Orphan’s “twist” ending at the time, criticizing that, by Esther not being a child after all was just a cheap cop-out and an excuse for making it acceptable for a child actor to do some despicable stuff on-screen (and I wouldn’t totally disagree). But none of us saw that final reveal coming, and it was so chilling that I would argue it partly makes up for these issues. After all, we probably wouldn’t have horror movies at all if we didn’t explore the horrible depths of humanity— no matter what age the antagonists are.

With both its strengths and its blemishes, 2009’s Orphan still holds up as an awesomely fun addition to the killer kid subgenre, which, at the time, was stale. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another 10 years for Leonardo DiCaprio, of all people, to serve as a producer on another future horror film.  (True story!)

Journalism/Communication Studies grad. A24 horror superfan- the weirder, the better. Hates when animals die in horror films.

Editorials

‘The Fog’ 19 Years Later: There’s a Reason You Don’t Remember This John Carpenter Remake

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Pictured: 'The Fog' (2005)

John Carpenter’s illustrious catalog of horror and non-horror classics has already seen three remakes (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, and this column’s focus), with at least one more kinda-sorta confirmed on the way (Escape from New York). If you consider 2011’s The Thing enough of a remake, notch another on the bedpost. It makes sense; Carpenter turned his no-bullshit attitude into a masterful filmmaking style, and those listed titles harbor nostalgic admiration. We’re probably closer than we think to seeing Bryan Fuller’s Christine remake for Blumhouse or a contemporary They Live, while Dwayne Johnson’s Big Trouble in Little China sequel project fades away. Imagine Julia Ducournau’s Christine should Fuller exit, or what about if James Gunn booked a brief horror vacation away from the DCEU for his take on They Live?

Carpenter’s brand of down-and-dirty storytelling mixed with societal commentaries make his works perfect for generational updates, but they can’t all be winners.

Take 2005’s woefully tragic The Fog, for example.

Rupert Wainwright’s disastrously shallow remake lacks the finesse of even a crusty barnacle attached to the underbelly of Carpenter’s original. During a period of horror cinema inundated by remakes, The Fog asserts itself as one of the worst. The 2000s had a very “show, don’t tell” approach to horror filmmaking and leaned on grisly violence popularized by Saw, all exploited in their lowest forms throughout The Fog. Bless both Carpenter and the late Debra Hill for serving as producers, but Wainwright and writer Cooper Layne do their salty source shanty zero justice.


The Approach

‘The Fog’ (1980)

Carpenter’s The Fog is successful because of the auteur’s influence. Between his stronger emphasis on churchly greed, eerie musical score, and abilities as a simplistic yet impactful visionary, viewers get plenty of “bang for their buck” in 90 minutes. Wainwright doesn’t possess those qualities and relies on archaic horror templates without any investment. In an era where computer graphics were still advancing, and some producers only valued horror as gory inserts within a lax narrative, Wainwright’s direction equates to background noise. There’s nothing spectacular or signature about the filmmaker’s approach, as recyclable as the plethora of 2000s horror films plagued by the same churned-out doldrums.

Smallville heartthrob Tom Welling follows in the footsteps of fellow WB/CW stars like Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki to shepherd his own horror remake, playing Tom Atkins’ role of fisherman Nick Castle. He’s a descendant of Norman Castle, one of the founding fathers of Antonio Island, which is located off the Oregon coast. It’s been over 100 years since the island’s bustling Antonio Bay community was established, and to celebrate an upcoming anniversary, a statue is commissioned that displays its founders as a dedication to their contributions. Mayor Tom Malone (Kenneth Welsh) wants everything to be perfect, but little does he know Antonio Bay is about to have an undead problem to confront when a mysterious fog rolls in thick as sauna steam.

The bones of The Fog are all there, but both needlessly overcomplicated and disparagingly unkempt. Carpenter introduces his film with an eerie ghost story told around a campfire that becomes a grave truth for Antonio Bay — Layne’s remake screenplay does backflips to try and explain the unexplainable. Nick’s charter fishing vessel unleashes the curse when second-mate Spooner (DeRay Davis) rips open a burlap bag concealing curse items with the boat’s anchor because the film doesn’t trust audience comprehension past any viewer’s eyesight. One of the biggest scourges upon 2000s horror cinema was creators believing their audiences were as dumb as algae-covered rocks, causing them to spell the obvious out in even more blatant and less captivating methods.


Does It Work?

The Fog remake carpenter

‘The Fog’ (2005)

The adjustments Wainwright oversees in 2005’s remix are a bungle of what out-of-touch producers presumed horror fans wanted to see at the time. Carpenter’s quaint coastal atmosphere is eradicated by Spooner’s Girls Gone Wild behavior or the need to belabor flashbacks that lay out every grim detail about Captain Blake (Rade Šerbedžija) and his lepers. Antonio Island’s tainted history is still prevalent as a driving force behind the weather-based haunting, but where Carpenter leaves us to imagine the atrocities founding fathers committed, Wainwright and Layne lean on time jumps that detract from overall moods for cheap betrayal thrills. The remake retains less reflection, whereas Carpenter’s original better depicts a town reckoning with its horrifying heritage — an example of hollow vengeance versus frightening introspection.

Maggie Grace co-stars in Jamie Lee Curtis’ hitchhiker role, except she’s no longer affable nomad Elizabeth Solley; she’s Kathy Williams’ (Sara Botsford) daughter, Elizabeth Williams. Her ties to Antonio Bay are supposed to represent how we can’t escape our fates, fair enough. What’s unfortunate is Layne’s need to shoehorn relationship drama because she’s (apparently) the love of Nick’s life despite his handful of hookups with KAB radio DJ Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair) while Elizabeth fled her hometown for six months — a love triangle situation that adds no special sauce and is practically forgotten. Carpenter is fantastic when letting his characters exist without bogging their arcs with fifty reasons why they’re exactly where they are in any given scene. Wainwright is no mimic, nor does his film’s desire to tangle characters together as friends, lovers, or family members add further intrigue. If anything, it adversely tanks character development because there’s no resident we intimately care about.

Which brings us to the “fog” of it all. Carpenter’s maggot-ridden swashbucklers from the deep are memorable and creepy, while Wainwright pulls his haunted visuals from a grab-bag. Sometimes, they’re atrocious see-through animations made of mist — other times, indiscriminately human entities. One victim contracts leprosy as his punishment, another fried to ash upon touch, and yet another is dragged underwater by invisible hands — there’s zero continuity to Wainwright’s justifiably antagonistic forces. They become a Mad Libs gaggle of props fitting whatever scare-of-the-hour The Fog decides is necessary at that moment, none of which ever collaborate in unison. That includes Captain Blake’s parting climax, in which he abandons his group’s attack on Antonio Bay because he claims Elizabeth as his ghost wife after it’s clear she’s the spitting image of Blake’s 1870s lover [insert seventy thousand question marks].


The Result

The Fog remake tom welling

‘The Fog’ (2005)

The Fog remake is everything I despise about thoughtless horror outputs rolled into a briny clump of seaweed and misbegotten reinventions. It’s hardly scary, unable to let audiences invest in atmospheric spookiness, and so wildly incompetent. Each scene gets progressively worse, starting with the reveal of evil personal belongings stamped with identifiable “Hallmarks” that become pieces of a puzzle that never gets finished. Carpenter makes you feel the offshore breeze rolling in with his fog, sending chills up your spine as these scurvy-soaked scoundrels start stabbing and hooking Antonio Bay residents. Wainwright doesn’t ever grasp what his iteration of Blake’s demons should look like or how they should cause havoc, so he starts throwing basic horror visuals at the screen out of desperation.

Revolution Studios’ The Fog downgrade sinks thanks to primarily messy effects, hampered by the early millennium’s digital capabilities. That’s not exclusive to awful ghost illustrations that look like someone just decreased the “Transparency” slider in Photoshop. The fog, the TITULAR FOG, doesn’t even hold up to Demon Wind standards (in which the wind is essentially fog, roll with it). Wainwright and his team brainstorm ideas that sound rad on paper — an older woman gets barbecued, a ghost outline appears in fog like Imhotep’s sandstorm face, a younger woman is attacked by seaweed — but execution almost exclusively whiffs. The remake’s drunkard generalization of Father Malone (which is such a slap in the face to Hal Holbrook’s fantastic original performance) should meet an epic death when Captain Blake levitates glass shards as a containment circle, but three pieces fly through Malone’s body, and it’s over. That’s the level of SFX disappointment that festers throughout 2005’s The Fog, all buildup with no reward.

The film’s finale feels like a prank; the rest of the conflict’s resolution is lost at sea. Carpenter’s much heavier scolds against organized religion’s dirty dealings help give his film an identity down to the glimmering golden cross, while Wainwright goes as generic as they come and abandons ship when the well runs dry. Nothing justifies the kind of conceptual excitement that comes along with worthwhile remakes, whether that’s copycat role replications (I love Selma Blair, but her Stevie doesn’t match Adrienne Barbeau’s presence) or storytelling reductions that choose numbing violence over folkloric sensations of dread. We love a horror movie that’s critical of early America’s disgusting colonization tactics, but The Fog doesn’t know how to turn those frustrations into a compelling genre production. Whatever’s kept from the original holds no candle to Carpenter’s version, and whatever’s added — like Nick and Elizabeth’s awkward shower sex scene set to softcore porno music — brings nothing of value.


The Lesson

‘The Fog’ (2005)

Just because your remake starts with a banger like Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down Swinging” doesn’t mean the film itself is a banger. There’s no world where I’d recommend Wainwright’s The Fog over Carpenter’s titanically superior original, and I say that as a leading Aughts horror remake champion. It’s another Nu-Horror approach that strips away commentary crucial to the plot’s intrigue since all Layne musters is a non-creepy and waterlogged story that feels like an unwieldy CW episode — not meant as a compliment. Not even the chiseled beauty of an early 2000s Tom Welling in a wool turtleneck can save this travesty from becoming another forgotten wreck.

So what did we learn?

● Not all CW figureheads have a hit horror remake in their blood.

● Less is so often more when it comes to horror movies, as long as you’re selling scares and confidently telling a story within your means.

● Some movies from the 2000s horror era will always suffer thanks to dodgy digital effects because while it was the shiny new toy everyone wanted to play with, golly, the technology was rough to start.

● Horror fans can be easy to please, but they’re also first to call out your bullshit — get out of here with these ghosts and their inability to pick a lane.

Wainwright’s film never knows what kind of horror movie it wants to be, and that’s the kill shot. Is it a slasher flick? Zombie movie? A large-scale haunted house blueprint? There’s never any indication that Wainwright or his screenwriter conceptualize a path forward, so they barrel on, praying there’s enough horror familiarity to appease the masses. There isn’t, it’s a boneheaded slog, and that’s that. Horror fans deserve better than to be fed the equivalent of table scraps for 100 minutes. To each their own and all, but now that I’ve finally seen 2005’s The Fog, the only times I’ll think about this movie again will be if someone interacts with my Letterboxd post.

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