Isabelle Fuhrman is returning and Julia Stiles is joining her in “Orphan: First Kill,” a prequel to the 2009 psychological thriller “Orphan” which contains one of the most bizarro twist reveals in modern cinemas. The new film from Entertainment One and Dark Castle Entertainment will build on that twist.
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “ORPHAN” (2009)
The 2009 film saw a couple (Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard) who, after the death of their unborn child, adopt a mysterious nine-year-old Russian girl named Esther (Fuhrman) whom they become suspicious of.
It’s revealed Esther is actually a 33-year-old highly intelligent, highly manipulative Estonian woman and escaped mental asylum patient named Leena Klammer who has the hormonal disorder hypopituitarism causing her to physical growth to be stunted (proportional dwarfism).
Leena has spent most of her life posing as a little girl initially as a prostitute and then in grifting schemes – murdering at least seven people, including the last family that adopted her after failing to seduce the husband. The film’s twist has earned it the nickname of the ‘Russian hooker dwarf’ movie.
This ‘First Kill’ prequel will see Klammer orchestrating her escape from the psychiatric facility and travelling to America by impersonating the missing daughter of a wealthy family. Her new life as ‘Esther’ however comes with an unexpected wrinkle and pits her against a mother who will protect her family at any cost.
Stiles, who has been busy recently shooting several seasons of Sky’s “Riviera,” will likely play that family’s mother. Fuhrman, who was 11 during filming of the first movie, is now 23 and will bring the character to life again using a combination of forced perspective shooting, make-up effects and some digital post-production magic.
William Brent Bell (“The Boy”) takes over as director from the first film’s Jaume Collet-Serra (“The Shallows,” “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”) and filming is already underway in Winnipeg. David Coggeshall penned the script while James Tomlinson, Alex Mace, Hal Sadoff and Ethan Erwin are producing.
Source: Deadline
