Movie Review: 'Orphan First Kill' is Camp Horror Fun

Orphan First Kill

Directed by William Brent Bell

Written by David Coggeshall

Starring Isabelle Fuhrman, Rossif Sutherland, Julia Stiles, Hiro Kanagawa

Release Date August 19th, 2022

Considering that director William Brent Bell doesn’t have the greatest resume and the first Orphan movie from 2009 wasn’t very good, I wasn’t particularly interested in another Orphan movie. What a fun surprise it was then to find out that Orphan First Kill is a weird ballsy B-movie that embraces camp in the best possible way. Isabelle Fuhrman, on a roll after her exceptional performance in the rowing thriller The Novice, delivers a stunner of a performance against all odds in a prequel to a movie she made as a child.

Orphan First Kill takes us back to Russia where a new psychiatrist has taken a job at a remote psychiatric facility for the criminally insane. As the woman is being given a tour of the facility we learn that the most dangerous patient in the prison has gone missing. That patient is Leena Klammer and the new young doctor is about to come face to face with her unexpected evil. Leena, for those who don’t know, is 30 years old but looks like an 11 year old innocent child. After nearly killing the newest doctor at the facility, Esther is subdued and taken back to her room.

This expository scene sets a terrifically creepy and campy tone as Fuhrman is less than convincingly placed into the body of an 11 year old child and yet still manages to be convincingly menacing. This is also the set up for Leena’s eventual escape that will involve tricking the new psychiatrist and causing several deaths among the remaining staff of the hospital. You may notice that I haven’t mentioned the young doctor’s name. Let’s just say, her role is barely functional to the plot. She serves a purpose and that’s about it.

The real fun begins when Leena uses the doctor’s home computer to search a database of missing American kids. Finding a young girl that suitably looks like her and could believably have been missing long enough for the family to accept that she’s this child, Leena calls the police, plays the missing innocent, and gets herself a free trip to America. This is based loosely on the true story of a French con man named Frederic Bourdain who pulled this stunt, minus the body count, four times between 1990 and 2007.

In America, Leena becomes Esther Albright, the missing daughter of Tricia and Allen Albright. Esther disappeared at the age of 6 and the family had mostly given up the idea that she would ever return. Of course, we know that Esther hasn’t returned but even with a full on Russian accent, the family eagerly takes Esther home. Dad is certainly happy to see his missing daughter as he’s withdrawn completely since the seeming death of his daughter. Mom however, along with her teenage son, Esther’s brother, Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) are slightly more nervous and uncomfortable with Esther’s sudden return.

And that’s all I will say about that. I’m not terribly worried about spoiling Orphan First Kill, the movie isn’t terribly hard to predict. But, nevertheless, I won’t give away everything about Orphan FIrst Kill. I will only say that the choices made for the final act of Orphan First Kill were terrific. It starts to get exciting around the midpoint and then that last act flies into a wonderfully B-movie bit of chaos.

The fun is elevated by the dueling performances of Isabelle Fuhrman and the surprisingly game Julia Stiles. Stiles is a generally reserved actress known for being classy and attractive. In Orphan First Kill, Stiles takes surprisingly well to the kind of B-movie histrionics of Orphan First Kill. The anti-chemistry between Stiles and Fuhrman is so much fun. The two are completely at odds and there is an aspect of both Mommy Dearest and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane in their dynamic that is just delicious.

I really expected to be bored by Orphan First Kill. The further I got away from the movie however, the more I really enjoyed it. I keep thinking about moments in Orphan First Kill and giggling a little over this and that bit of campy horror nonsense. Isabelle Fuhrman and Julia Stiles each bite into their roles with relish and their back and forth late in the second act and all the way through the third act was incredibly fun, creepy and wild.

Orphan First Kill is available now on Paramount Plus. Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movies online at SeanattheMovies.Blogspot.com. You can also follow me on Twitter, at PodcastSean, and follow the archive blog at SeanattheMovies. You can hear me talk about movies on the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast on your favorite podcasting app. And if you’ve enjoyed reading this review consider subscribing, leaving a tip or making a regular pledge to support my writing here on vocal via the links below.