Orphan released in 2009 was a horror masterpiece in my opinion. I even bought the DVD
(remember those?). Despite having not seen Orphan in several years I can still remember
parts of it quite vividly. The starring role of ‘Esther’ (played by Isabelle Fuhrman); breaking
her own arm using a vice, kicking the hell out of that toilet cubicle, and of course creepily
cutting up her food with all the precision of a skilled surgeon. I can even recall some lines
like Esther threatening her adopted brother with a box cutter blade. Taunting the petrified
young boy by telling him she’s going to cut a certain appendage off before he’s even “learned
how to use it”.

So, when I saw Orphan: First Kill (2022) was now streaming on UK Netflix I was
skeptical. Knowing the genre’s track record for sequels and prequels, I didn’t hold out much
hope for reclaiming the glory of the first film. The first hour of the film is pretty much a
blood by numbers setup. The opening scene finds Esther, whose real name is Leena, trying to
escape from a psychiatric facility for dangerous patients. We are told Esther is the most
dangerous of these patients despite her petite size. We are also reminded of Esther’s
condition. Esther suffers from hypopituitarism; a form of dwarfism, which means she will
remain looking child-like despite her maturity. Esther plays into this in order to con people
into believing she is a harmless child. Orphan: First Kill takes place 13 years prior to Orphan
which means Esther is 20 years old.
The disturbed young woman of course escapes from the facility, resulting in at least
three murders by her own hand. Whilst on the run, she assumes the identity of a missing 9
year old girl named, you guessed it; Esther. This is how Esther gets her alias.
The burgeoning con artist ingratiates herself to the missing girl’s family by pretending
to be their long lost daughter. She takes a particular liking to the father, I’m sure she wants to
call him ‘daddy’ (sorry I had to). All very standard and following the same beats as the first
movie. It was at this point in the movie I resigned myself to returning to my very busy
evening of doom scrolling. But, then! The twist happened! I won’t spoil it but suffice to say I
was impressed with this switch up. I had suspected Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You,
Mona Lisa Smile) wasn’t going to be just a suburban mum whose becoming slightly
suspicious that her miraculously returned daughter is somewhat homicidal. The movie turns
deliciously campy and I couldn’t wait to find out how this truly twisted tale unfolded.
Actress Isabelle Fuhrman returns as Esther and is as formidable as ever in the role.
Some have criticised that at 27 Fuhrman is now too old for the role, even pretending to be an
adult pretending to be a child. In Orphan Fuhrman was 18 years old, so her youthful looks
made her portrayal of Esther all the more disturbing. In the prequel she looks far more like a
grown woman. Despite rumours there was no CGI de-aging, instead the production utilised
child stunt doubles and forced perspective shots. You can play a fun game, as I did, of trying
to guess in which shots Fuhrman was switched for the child stunt doubles. I also hypothesised
that the real Esther’s bedroom furniture was scaled differently to fit Fuhrman’s height which
makes the scenes in the bedroom with the other adult actors look…interesting.
Despite all these machinations the casts performances are excellent. Fuhrman even
makes the egregious Estonian a somewhat sympathetic character regarding the situation she
finds herself in. A special mention goes to the son, Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) who started out
a relatively benign but ended up as a character you love to hate!

Is Orphan: First Kill another horror classic? Not at all, but it’s a surprisingly fun
watch that will take you by surprise.

The death of patriarch Deetz brings everyone back together, tossing in Beetlejuice himself to stir the plot and some new faces to shovel in some ghostly shenanigans! 

Oh, thank goodness ya’ll. The first Beetlejuice film came out when I was but a wee thing and my mom, who saw it, forbade me to until I was a bit older. Which of course led me to see the film anyway, have gross and spooky but oddly compelling nightmares and in general, develop a love for all things Tim Burton. His unique style and color palette for each and every movie he lovingly crafts is a masterpiece of skill, always a labor of love, and it shows. And some 30-odd years later after the first film, a Burton homage to all the horror and ghostly influences he had as a youngling that inspired a very-good cartoon show that lasted more than 4 seasons and almost 100 episodes and a fandom that spanned decades, Tim Burton brought that same style, that same unique love for filmmaking he gifted us way back in good lawd was that 1988 come on, to an excellent sequel. 

So the Deetz’s have kind of scattered to the winds of various places, Delia with her “body art” pieces and Lydia with her unsurprising talking with ghosts show, while Lydia’s daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is in total denial and embarrassed by the whole thing, her whole family is just … weird. And things get even more weird when suddenly everyone has to converge on the family house in Winter River to attend the funeral of Grandpa, Charles Deetz, who died at sea but totally not in the way you think. 

It’s a pity there was no way in the netherworld that they’d bring back Jeffrey Jones, who played Charles Deetz in the first film, to play the character in the sequel. Look it up if you want to know why, I guarantee the knowledge won’t make you happy; I liked how the sequel got around the whole issue, it was actually a very Burton-style solution. 

So this armpit stain of a human, Rory (Justin Theroux), seems to be rather desperate. About everything! He just has to connect with Astrid somehow, he just has to remind everyone at the most inappropriate time dude seriously that he is there if anyone needs a shoulder to cry on, and oh yeah, he just has to ask Lydia to marry him … at her father’s wake. It’s enough to make a teenage girl run away, and that is exactly what Astrid does when our beloved Lydia just folds like a house of cards and says, wait for it, “Yes?” 

The first newcomer up to bat is Jeremy (Arthur Conti), simpering and sympathetic to Astrid, and did we mention cute? Astrid is staring at him with stars in her eyes and not noticing things she probably should be, so when Jeremy offers to spend the evening – not the night that’s the actual wedding ceremony yes we know gag – of Halloween doing whatever with her, of course she’s going to say yes. Astrid wants so badly to see her dead dad that she pays zero attention to what she is saying, out loud, from that one book. You know the one? Into the creepy green glow, we go! 

Elsewhere in the afterlife, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) has settled into a ghostly life of … office work? Really? Surrounded by Bob the shrunken head guy and his clones basically, BJ waits for a request to come in and does, well, whatever anyway! Our ghost with the most is the exact same slovenly creepily somehow briefly charming definitely smarming demon he was before, still pining for Lydia, and ready to run for the ninth circle of hell when he finds out that his ex-wife Delores (Monica Belluci) has somehow escaped her unraveling confinement, pulled herself together, and is coming for her wayward husband! 

That poor janitor (Danny Devito) sure didn’t deserve to die. Uh, again. And you have to wonder if the afterlife has actual cops and stuff to work crime scenes like this, ‘cuz this deflated sad sack this-shouldn’t-be-possible corpse is getting over-dramatized by the would-be cop at least he played one on TV, Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), or to be fair, his do-gooding ghost. He does have guys in uniforms with him that obey him, and assistant Olga (Liv Spencer) with word cards, gesture-coffee and helpful “You’re not a real cop,” reminders, so at least Wolf sure looks like a real cop. And needs must when a young handsome ghost plots to steal the life of your only daughter! 

The afterlife is the same mish-mash fever dream of clashing psychedelics with black and white stripe styles and surprise neons, and there’s even not one but a few musical numbers. Why should the afterlife be grim anyway? Break out that fringe, shake that thang, get on the soul train! But once you do, Astrid will be gone forever. How to prevent this?? Do the one thing poor Lydia, who suffered nightmares and therapy and stuff over this very guy, swore she would never do – say his name, three times! 

Anything more would give the entire movie all away and really, you want to catch all the zany ghostly afterlife shenanigans for yourself, so catch a sandworm to ride to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in theaters now! 

Tech mogul Slater King meets cocktail waitress Frida at a fundraising gala, and whisks her and her friend Jess off to a vacation on his freaking private island, where things begin to take a turn for the sinister! 

Any film where the main character keeps near-constantly asking his companions if they’re having a good time is going to start looking suspicious. Slater King (Channing Tatum) professes to be a firm believer in, let’s say for the sake of argument, alternate forms of therapy when it comes to dealing with one’s traumas and tribulations. The island, Slater’s own private island ffs, boasts at least the appearance of opulence, with white barely-there vacation clothes for both men and women, free-range chickens amongst the lush greenery, yoga, posh catered food on the daily, mountains of club-kid drugs and rivers of alcohol, pools and a ridiculous mansion to hide all kinds of horrific secrets, all surrounded by special purple lilies with a distinctive scent they turned into the perfume Desideria (meaning desire, longing) to give to the women as gifts. Oh, and like, a lot of snakes. 

It’d be easy to explain away how Frida (Naomi Ackie) doesn’t remember the first night – she’s here and overwhelmed by the opulence and purported acceptance of them-all, plus we’re talking all kinds of designer drugs she willingly partook in, who wouldn’t close their eyes and indulge a little? The gang Slater’s surrounded himself with all seem like real nice welcoming people – photographer Vic (Christian Slater) in his fishing hats constantly taking potentially incriminating polaroids, unwilling to talk about how his pinkie went missing; Cody (Simon Rex) the personal chef can’t seem to remember not to call former reality-show star Sarah (Adria Arjona) ‘babe’;  DJ Tom (Haley Joel Osment) turns out to be a joiner no matter what the wicked game happens to be; and rounding out our boys is innocent little graduate Lucas (Levon Hawke), who definitely does not have the stomach for the real purpose of the sinister island life. Stan (Cris Costa) is there as security, stoic and uncompromising, and even Slater’s dubious therapist Rich (Kyle MacLachlan) shows up on the island at some point, where he wigs the hell out of Frida’s already-increasing paranoia. 

For the feminine side of the foreboding island setup, we have – Camilla (Liz Caribel) and Heather (Trew Mullen), basically pretty mindless party girls always up for everything, even snake venom shots; the former reality show star who actually bothered training for months for the physicality of the role, Sarah; Frida and her long-suffering friend Jess (Alia Shawkat); and finally, like all good assistants, she who knows way more about the truth of the island than she should, the heavily beleaguered Slater King personal assistant Stacy (Geena Davis). Given that your movie reviewer here happens to proudly sport she/her pronouns, it’s safe to say I am completely biased towards the female side of the movie because, make no mistake, gender lines, like battle lines, are about to be laid on the island and crossed in the most vile, violent fashion possible. 

Saying much of anything more would give the entire game away – why the helper maid with the snake tattoo keeps calling Frida ‘Red Rabbit’ in the most familiar fashion, the whole deal with the red gift bags and unique flower perfume, the fishing trip for the men that is most definitely not a red herring, and perhaps most especially, the whole surreal forgetting-what-day-it-is nature of the island for the womenfolk only apparently. 

For a tale of horror turned into some well-deserved retribution, keep your eyes open for Blink Twice, in theaters now!