Isabelle Fuhrman is reprising her role as sinister orphan Esther thirteen years after the first Orphan horror movie was released in 2009. And confusingly, it’s not a sequel, but a prequel. Reportedly, no de-aging CGI has been used for the 25 year old to play a girl who is apparently nine-years-old.
The prequel, called Orphan: First Kill now has its first trailer. Julia Stiles and Rossif Sutherland play a couple whose 5-year-old daughter has been missing for four years. She has now apparently been found, and returns home to her old bedroom, which has been untouched. Predictably, Esther starts behaving strangely.
She has got really good at art, she is behaving erratically, and her therapist suspects that she is performing. Hiro Kanagawa plays a cop, and he discovers that Esther’s fingerprints don’t match (maybe that shouldda been checked before you released her back to her family?!). We see Esther pouring a white powder into a drink that she gives to her mother. We see various shots of knives slashing and blood splatting and of Esther surrounded by fire. Julia Stiles says; “the mother protects her family, no matter what.”
The 2009 movie was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and made almost $80 million at the box office, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 57%. Fuhrman was 12 when she filmed the first movie, and has been excited – if a little freaked out – to once again be playing someone who looks like a little girl.
Stiles said; “they didn’t use CGI. The tricks that they did with the camera and different perspective tricks that they had, plus her costume and prosthetics and all that – she looks like a child.”
You can watch the new trailer below;
Fuhrman said; “We didn’t use special effects; we didn’t use any crazy makeup tricks. And I think that’s what makes the movie work. Because you really can’t figure out how I look like a [nine-year-old], but I do. And it’s really creepy.”
Orphan: First Kill is set for cinema release in the UK on August 19, 2022 and will come to Paramount Plus in the US on that date. While we wait, check out our guide to the best ghost movies.