orphan

I found this year's collection of horror films to be relatively lackluster. In the first incarnation of this list, which was posted on my own personal site, I was only able to come up with nine films I genuinely believe should be on a Best Of... list for the year. My list is similar to Peter's, in a way, as it contains many of the same films, yet one of the films he included (Antichrist) ended up on my Worst Of... list, and I'm still in awe over how he could include the Friday the 13th redux as number one despite his explanation.

This list took some time to compile, and for the sake of conformity, I have added a tenth film. At the end I've included my Worst Of... list just so you can get an idea as to why I'm relentlessly teased for my vastly superior taste in horror films. So without further adieu, my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2009, rewritten and tweaked for Horror Squad.

10. House of the Devil My ex post facto entry to this list, House of the Devil was not an enjoyable film for me. I found it incredibly slow and lacking a sufficient payoff, all while only giving AJ Bowen approximately ten minutes of screen time. So why am I including it on this list? Because Ti West didn't make an homage to an 80's Satanic Panic film, he MADE an 80's Satanic Panic film. House of the Devil captures the look and feel of the time period perfectly, from the way it was filmed to the soundtrack. It is based on that alone that he deserves a spot on this list, even if it's number ten.

I think Orphan kind of got the brush off when it came out in theaters, but against all my better instincts I found myself enjoying it quite a bit; not unlike director Jaume Collet-Serra's equally as dismissed, but surprisingly impressive House of Wax remake. Is it flawless? Of course not, but it's an efficiently paced thriller that goes to darker territory than most 'killer children' movies do. It's beautifully shot and wonderfully acted by both Vera Farmiga and Isabelle Fuhrman, who knocks it out of the park as the title character. Worth a rental in my book, and my book is a book of laws.

I haven't actually seen either Fear(s) of the Dark or Sauna, but I have heard nothing but happy thoughts about both of them. The former is an animation feast exploring several artist's, well, fears of the dark, while the latter is a Finnish film about sins that haunt the sinner.

By Jenni Miller

Peter Sarsgaard made his big-screen debut in 1995's Dead Man Walking as the murder victim Walter Delacroix, but his breakthrough performance was in 1999's Boys Don't Cry as John Lotter, one of the killers of transgendered man Brandon Teena. Since then, he's become famous for his nuanced performances in a wide variety of films like Shattered Glass, Kinsey, Jarhead, and the upcoming An Education.

If you have missed the ubiquitous and creepy posters for his new movie with Vera Farmiga, Orphan, let me give you a quick synopsis. After Kate Coleman (Farmiga) has a stillborn baby, she and her husband John (Sarsgaard) decide to adopt Esther, a deadly serious Russian orphan who wears ribbons around her neck and wrists and old-fashioned ruffly dresses played by Isabelle Fuhrman. But things keep going wrong when Esther's around... hence the tagline in those ubiquitous and creepy posters with the tagline "There's something wrong with Esther."

After a long weekend of interviews and roundtables, Peter Sarsgaard was kind enough to talk to me over the phone about his favorite horror movies, the Orphan protests, and much more.

There are plenty of folks on the internet who devote a significant portion of their writing careers deconstructing, criticizing or otherwise just condescending to folks whom they disagree, are forced against their will to share interview time with, or just read and regularly get outraged. And while I generally prefer to keep my outrage private – not the least of which because I've been guilty of many of the selfsame offenses I might criticize – some quite remarkable behavior at the Orphan junket over the weekend has forced me to come forward, if only to highlight what actors and filmmakers must sometimes endure in the name of promoting their work.

On Saturday morning, Warner Bros. coordinated the print and online portion of their junket for Orphan, a film I didn't much like but was very interested in discussing with cast and crew members, including producer Joel Silver, screenwriter David Leslie Johnson, director Jaume Collet-Serra, and stars Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, and 12-year-old newcomer Isabelle Fuhrman. The writer and director were paired, and the actors all sat together as a group of 15-20 journalists – decidedly larger than normal, but mostly populated with familiar faces – peppered them with questions about the film, their participation and other musings best left for catty comments on individual Facebook postings.

Suffice it to say that there are always "agenda" questions asked regardless of the room in which one sits; someone will almost always want to know about their next project, what fitness regimen a star maintains, or what they do over Labor Day weekend. But quite frankly, there's a difference between off-topic inquiries and just plain inappropriate questions, whether they're asked deliberately or not. As such, it seemed appropriate to compile a list of the five dumbest questions overheard at the Orphan junket, even if (thankfully) screenwriter Johnson insisted that he didn't think anything bad happened when I apologized to him - via Facebook, of course.

By William Goss

Another day, another snafu on the ol' political correctness front. It seems that adoptive parents and adoption agencies are up in arms because of a line in the trailer for Warner Brothers' forthcoming thriller, Orphan: "It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own."

A full ABC News report has parents calling for the studio to remove the line from the trailers, which it did, despite the fact that the trailer can only play before other R-rated films. But that's not enough, because apparently, the film itself can be and has been taken as one big campaign playing up the stereotypes and exploiting the fears of adoption.

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