Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

Orpahn gets off to a strong start then peters out by the end.

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 Stars

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

This is a terribly disappointing film, trading its very good beginning for typical horror movie tripe by the end. Still, the build-up is worth two-and-a-half stars, even if it is wasted on this ending. The only good thing about the ending, in fact, is the explanation for why Esther—the adopted girl—acts the way she does. There are just too many things that no nine-year-old would think of or understand how to do; manipulating parents in order to get an extra bowl of chocolate pudding or get a sibling blamed for something they didn’t do is one thing, setting up and executing a vicious murder (by bashing the victim’s skull in with a claw hammer) then scaring a six-year-old into covering it up are totally different things. But they do give a plausible—I guess, anyway, but I’m not a doctor—explanation for it in the end so I guess it’s all right.

The film centers on Kate and John Coleman, parents of two who want to adopt a third child. Kate had lost her third child through miscarriage before the film starts, although the viewers are treated to a nice nightmare about it at the beginning of the film. After the miscarriage, Kate had gone through a bout of drinking that had nearly led to the death of one of her other children, and her husband had apparently cheated on her as well, so she had to go through some counseling and jump through whatever legal hoops Child Protective Services set up before being declared fit to adopt. They then go to a Catholic orphanage and John finds Esther hidden away painting. He is pulled in and gets Kate to agree so they adopt her and take Esther home, where she proceeds to manipulate them and their two kids, the older Daniel and the younger Max; Max is deaf and communicates by sign language. Various things happen which give a dark impression of Esther but John rarely sees any of it and always glosses over what little he does see—he’s always far more eager to blame his wife than anyone else for anything untoward that happens. Esther scares Daniel and Max into remaining silent about what they know, but Max does eventually tell Daniel about Esther killing one of the nuns who had come to the house to check on her and that Esther had hidden the evidence in the treehouse in the back yard (the family lives way out in the woods).

And this is where the film really falls apart. Esther follows Daniel up into the treehouse and sets it on fire with him in it. He escapes but falls the fifteen feet or so to the ground and is knocked unconscious. All during this Kate is piecing Esther’s past—her real past, rather than the one the orphanage had given—and is on the phone in the house ,with her mother-in-law right there. Esther walks up to the unconscious Daniel and raises a huge rock to bash his head in only to be knocked down from behind by Max. By this time Kate has seen the fire and is in the backyard while the mother-in-law dials 9-1-1. Daniel is pronounced to be very lucky at the hospital, his prognosis very good once he rests up. Kate tells John what she has started to learn about Esther—he refuses to even attempt to listen. Esther disappears and—Shazam!—Daniel redlines and doctors and nurses barely manage to save him. Kate goes wild as Esther reappears suddenly and she runs to her and slaps her to the floor, hard. She is then sedated and dragged off. John, of course, can’t believe that anyone other than his wife can ever do anything wrong.

I won’t say how the story ends, or what Kate subsequently finds out. The problem here is that I see no way Max doesn’t raise her hand right there in the hospital and tell everything that’s been going on. She may have been scared of Esther before but I would have thought that ended when she pushed Esther down to save Daniel under the treehouse. Also, she knows that Esther wasn’t where she was supposed to be in the hospital and I just can’t see her leaving with her father and Esther after they put Kate in a room (after they drugged her; she went off on Esther). Then, of course, as in every horror movie they make now, the killer always becomes Michael Myers-like at the end—and we’re all really surprised that… <roll eyes> And it’s really too bad they end it this way; it started with so much promise.