The origins of Esther are explored in Orphan: First Kill. Leena Klammer (Isabelle Fuhrman) is a 31-year-old Estonian woman with a gland disorder that halted her growth at age 10. A seasoned grifter, Leena has been locked away in the Saarne Institute after killing a family that took her in. However, Leena ends up escaping from the institute and finds her way to America by posing as a missing child named Esther Albright. As Esther, Leena is taken in by Tricia (Julia Stiles) and Allen (Rossif Sutherland) and their 16-year-old son Gunnar (Matthew Finlan). However, Esther’s infiltration of the family is threatened by nosey Detective Donnan (Hiro Kanagawa) and secret held by Tricia.
Orphan: First Kill is a horror film directed by William Brent Bell (The Boy) that serves as a prequel to the original 2009 film. Despite now being in her early 20s, Isabelle Fuhrman returns as the titular orphan Esther with the help of both a child body double and digital de-aging effects. Set in 2007, Orphan: First Kill explores the circumstances that led to the first film’s events.
The biggest problem with Orphan: First Kill is that they decided to make a prequel to a film with a child antagonist that is now 13 years old. Isabelle Fuhrman was 23 at the time of filming Orphan: First Kill, and despite the attempts at recreating her look from the original, Fuhrman still looks like a grown woman pretending to be a 10-year-old child. Given that this was the major twist from the original film, bringing Fuhrman back to reprise a role she played when she was ten is somewhat ironic.
Another problem that Orphan: First Kill has is that the set-up is essentially a reprise of the original film, except with a few new twists to keep it from being a carbon copy. This includes the fact that Esther is much more firmly a protagonist this time, albeit one with a habit of killing people who threaten to expose her true identity. The antagonist role in the film actually belongs to Julia Styles’ Tricia, who makes a very unexpected character shift around the film’s midpoint. The only truly sympathetic character in the movie is Rossif Sutherland’s Allen, who strikes up a bond with Esther given their mutual love of painting.
Altogether, Orphan: First Kill is an unnecessary prequel that was only produced to cash in on an original film that admittedly didn’t make much of an impact in 2009 but has still developed a cult following. It is probably not surprising then that the producers opted for a VOD/streaming release over theatrical.
