This prequel to Jaume Collet-Serra’s well-regarded 2009 horror Orphan stars the now adult Isabelle Fuhrman, reprising the role she first played as an 11-year-old. William Brent Bell’s film navigates the age issue by careful use of perspective (but apparently no digital manipulation) that just about convinces us that she is more or less the same age as in the previous film. But the force of Fuhrman’s performance – as she demonstrated in last year’s The Novice, she can be a remarkable and unsettling presence in front of a camera – goes a considerable way towards reclaiming the role of the malevolent mini psychopath Esther.
Even more impressive is Julia Stiles, a supremely talented yet underused actor who dominates this film from a gloriously unexpected midpoint twist onwards.