Warning: Major spoilers for Orphan: First Kill (2022)While the big twist in Orphan: First Kill is utterly wild, the revelation is also enough to salvage what would otherwise have been a redundant Orphan prequel. It is tricky to effectively reboot a horror franchise after a long absence from screens, making the position of the Orphan: First Kill movie a particularly tenuous one. Even iconic slasher series like Halloween and Friday the 13th have struggled to make new viewers care about famous killers like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees.
As a result of this issue, it was always going to be tricky for the Orphan: First Kill movie to make audiences care about Isabelle Fuhrman’s Esther again. The villain of 2009’s Orphan, Esther was a woman in her 30s who posed as a small child and tried to kill her adoptive parents when an elaborate scheme to seduce her stepfather failed. Orphan: First Kill promised to explain the origins of the campy Orphan’s memorable villain, but hopes were not particularly high for the belated psychological horror sequel.
However, despite the odds, the Orphan: First Kill movie avoids a lot of classic slasher franchise reboot mistakes, with the prequel providing viewers with a story as surprising and surreal as the original Orphan. This was mostly thanks to a shocking mid-movie twist that ensures Orphan: First Kill is more than a mere reworking of the original Orphan, a revelation which is not similar to Orphan's twist but is as unexpected as that infamous revelation. When it is revealed that Julia Stiles’ Tricia knew that the titular killer wasn’t her daughter all along because Tricia helped cover up her daughter’s death years earlier, this twist proves that horror prequels can work provided their plots adds something new to the existing franchise formula.
Why Orphan: First Kill’s Twist Works
Because Tricia becomes complicit in her so-called daughter’s deceptions from early on, the majority of Orphan: First Kill is a tense cat-and-mouse game between Tricia and Esther rather than a retread of the original Orphan's now-familiar story. The sequel making Orphan a horror franchise would have been a mistake since anyone familiar with the original movie knows that Esther isn’t really a child and subsequent sequels lack that pivotal reveal as a result. However, Orphan: First Kill worked around this problem by revealing that the seemingly sweet mother figure Tricia was as twisted as Esther, even assisting the villain in disposing of one unfortunate victim’s body shortly after she revealed that she knew Esther wasn't really her daughter.
Orphan: First Kill’s prequel was a risky proposition precisely because the new movie couldn’t create Orphan’s plot, but the movie managed to insert an even goofier, more twisted revelation into the story to make up for this issue. While not one of 2022’s best horror movies, Orphan: First Kill is still as silly, over-the-top, and undeniably ingenious as its franchise predecessor. Thanks to its shocking ending, Orphan has become known as a silly but undeniably fun psychological horror over the years, and now the Orphan: First Kill twist has ensured that the prequel lived up to this reputation.