Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Paramount Pictures
Every so often, a film comes along that is so ingenious, so daring, so completely out-of-this-world bonkers that you have no choice but to be pulled in by its incomprehensibly powerful gravity. Watching it, your body goes slack, and your mind ascends to a higher plane of consciousness that you didn’t even know existed on this earthly sphere. These are the kinds of films that make you believe in both a Heaven and a Hell, for surely something this good can’t exist without an equal evil existing to balance it all out.
This was how I felt watching Julia Stiles sprinting through lines on a telephone call with no one on the other end in Orphan: First Kill.
Before last Saturday, I was, shamefully, a total newbie to the Orphan cinematic universe. But then Orphan: First Kill, the new prequel to the 2009 cult-classic horror film, landed in theaters and Paramount+ Friday. I knew that it was finally time to delve into what Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) had in store for me.