Metacritic reviews

You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one. Do not, under any circumstances, take children to see it. Take my word on this.

Orphan, with a perverse plot twist at the end, will keep you on tenterhooks from its nightmarish opening scene to its chilling last frame.

Furhman plays pure evil with such supreme calmness that only her eyes shine with madness. Indeed, all of the child actors are superb, especially the expressive Engineer.

The best part of Orphan is the outstandingly lunatic plot twist that kicks in just as you're checking your watch and hoping they'll wrap things up. This development - I'd love to tell you, but you wouldn't believe me - boosts the movie into overdrive for a final 20 minutes of happy, disreputable mayhem.

It's a cut above most spooky-kid movies, with a twist that sets it apart.

Assuming your psycho-pigtailed-killer memories extend back as far as "The Bad Seed," Maxwell Anderson's play filmed by director Mervyn LeRoy in 1956, Orphan may remind you of the icon made famous by Patty McCormack.

Clocking in at more than two hours, the movie teeters between psychological horror and violent blood-letting and, as such, probably won't completely satisfy fans in either camp.

Teasingly enjoyable rubbish through the first hour, Orphan becomes genuine trash during its protracted second half.

If director Jaume Collet-Serra (House Of Wax) set out to make a parody of horror-film clichés, he succeeded brilliantly.

Depraved, worthless piece of filth.