Orphan: First Kill review: Isabelle Fuhrman is wonderfully deranged in a prequel that should satisfy fans

It's Estonia, 2007, and the opening sequence of "Orphan: First Kill" ensures we're in the realm of a horror movie, as it opens with an overheard image of a car winding down a mountainous road covered in snow. It's an obvious nativity scene from "The Shining" that horror filmmakers never seem to be able to resist, and it's never not a charming genre joke in the key of the Wilhelm Scream, an evocative and easy reference the filmmakers love to put us in a relaxed mood.

From there, this prequel to the 2009 cult film "Orphan," now directed by William Brent Bell, succeeding the director of the first film, Jaume Collet-Serra, mostly deviates from such a high fare, s settling into trashy TV movie vibes. for the rest of its torsion-laden runtime. Despite another wonderfully deranged performance from Isabelle Fuhrman (with the actress now 25, at an age closer to her character than she was at 10 in the original), "First Kill "can't quite live up to the reputation of the original. , beloved for its laughable on-paper plot about a 33-year-old Estonian immigrant able to pose as a 12-year-old girl due to a pituitary disorder that keeps her proportionately small.

That's not to say "Orphan: First Kill" doesn't have its share of thrills, like a violent escape from an Estonian mental institution that "Esther" (whose real name is Leena) brutally rams into a prison guard before stealing the identity of a missing American girl and traveling to the United States impersonating her. There are fewer stakes but greater world-building possibilities this time around now that the audience knows the reality of Esther's true identity: she's a grown woman, not a child, and it turns out. accompanied by complications.

As with 2009's "Orphan" starring Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard, Esther again targets grief-stricken couple Allen (Rossif Sutherland) and Tricia (Julia Stiles). The Albrights are a wealthy family reeling from the unexplained disappearance of their daughter Esther, whom Leena inhabits comfortably due to her stature and apparent mastery of childish bewilderment. But this time around, "Orphan: First Kill" weighs the existential dilemmas at its heart: is all the trickery worth it? Seeing Fuhrman down a mini-bottle of vodka down an airplane lavatory after reuniting with his “mother” Tricia is a hilarious image. Screenwriter David Coggeshall seems to have leaned into the campy possibilities of the original film.

The details of Leena's ruse are presented here in a way that must seem exhausting to her. She has to bandage her breasts, for one thing, and keep her mouth shut around the friends of her teenage “brother” Gunnar (Matthew Finlan), who is quick to point out that she dresses like Lizzie Borden. Pigtails, ribbons and all, Leena (and therefore Fuhrman) is convincingly childish on the outside, but her weary, shadowed soul is obviously miserable on the inside.

A detective (Hiro Kanagawa) who was assigned to the initial investigation into the disappearance of Albright's daughter becomes overly curious, and thus of course meets a dark fate befitting this franchise and its brutal approach to crime. occasional violence. "Orphan: First Kill," however, relies on a twist introduced at the top of the third act that outrageously derails everything we've seen before. Stiles, as a resigned, brown-haired mother feigning excitement at reuniting with someone claiming to be her daughter, reaffirms her knack for focused performances for women in crisis. And that aforementioned third-act twist is delivered in a wickedly sudden way by his character.

Karim Hussain, the cinematographer who has worked closely with Brandon Cronenberg and other genre entries, films the proceedings with a wispy, sleepwalking haze. There's a musty, even funereal decorum to it all, with the camera swirling around the actors' faces during particularly heartbreaking moments. Coggeshall's script isn't particularly sharp, as the film really revolves around this big twist, but the visual approach and the cast's performances give "Orphan: First Kill" an edge that should satisfy fans of the original.

'Orphan: First Kill' is playing now in select theaters and streaming on Paramount Plus.

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