It’s never an easy time to be a disabled horror fan.
I like the horror genre more than any other, but an overwhelming number of films feature handicapped bodies as the great fear and disability as the reason – often the sole motive – for murder and worse. ‘Orphan’, Jaume Collett-Serra’s 2009 film, existed uncomfortably in this space, although her then-child star Isabelle Fuhrman elevated the role of Lena, a grown woman who presents herself as a young child due to hypopituitarism, to a real affliction. The film was also rightly criticized for portraying an adopted child, who presented her as evil.
The new prequel “Orphan: First Kill” tries to show that the real evil is ability, while other villainous characters spew prejudice after prejudice. But as Sezín Koehler writes about Black Girl Nerds: “[Lena’s] hypopituitarism has not caused its psychopathy and mass murder tendencies. But in ‘First Kill’ her appearance and disability are constantly linked to her evil deeds, as if being different automatically makes you a murderer.”
Falling back to tired prowess is a disappointing aspect the film shares with horror predecessors from “Friday the 13th” to “Midsommar,” linked in a line of stereotype and deliberate misunderstanding. But we can have horror without hate. It’s possible, even if storytellers don’t always get it.
And Lena, who’s called Esther, isn’t even the scariest person in the movie. What are some of the more positive, surprising nods to horror from the past? Fortunately, the film also has plenty. Let’s see:
The creepy, knowing bird
“Orphan” referred to the main character’s first family, who brought Lena to America, and it’s this family that the prequel focuses on. That parents take her to a child therapist in “First Kill.” (Unfortunately, they don’t take her to a pediatrician or dentist, who could have solved many of their problems much earlier.) Therapists feature prominently in many horror movies, but this doctor takes it one step further by having a bird as a pet inside her. office. I can’t imagine that a screeching parrot is always a comfort to young patients dealing with trauma, but at least the doctor has one. The cage is right there in the office and the pet is a crucial point.
Birds can be creepy in film. They move fast, their eyes are beads. Ravens eat bait. Crows can apparently do much worse, although there is a scientific reason for this. Edgar Allan Poe brought a talking bird from the shadows and forever into our nightmares with “The Raven,” and Alfred Hitchcock uses an entire aviary of winged horror in “The Birds.” Birds can also, as Audubon puts it, “distinguish and repeat sounds. Parrots are the pros,” according to the Bird Conservation Association, because parrots can imitate sounds after hearing them.
A parrot spoke his way in the horror parody ‘Scream 2’. Netflix’s “Sandman” features the chatty raven Matthew (and beloved predecessor Jessamy), and who can forget Mrs. Gambolini, the grumpy parrot of the even more grumpy Bunny (RIP), a bird inherited by Oscar (Martin Short) on Hulu’s “Only Murders in the building”? Oscar keeps hoping against the hope that the witness bird will solve the case, while Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) says, “This bird has seen too much.”
That unfortunate rodent
The parrot is not the only prominent animal in the film. “First Kill” can live in ability, but at least not intentional animal cruelty. Lena is taken to a huge mansion with her apparently wealthy family. Like most drafty mansions, it has mice. Specifically, a round rodent that is in her room, squeaking cute.
You would think that the psychopath known as Lena (well, now known as Esther) would kill the creature. But this is not “Firestarter” (2022). Lena takes care of the rodent, showing a loving side of herself and an example of how desperately lonely and isolated she is. (Did her parents ever plan to enroll her in school? And other helpful plot points.)
Like birds, rodents often wriggle their way in horror movies. Some horror is based entirely on them, such as “Willard” or “Rats” from 2016. In the movie “Graveyard Shift”, based on a story by Stephen King, a huge colony of rats has been able to evolve and mutate unhindered. In ‘Flowers in the Attic’, a mouse, adopted just like Lena’s visitor, suffers a poisonous fate intended for the children. Rodents in this regard function as canaries in the coal mine, an alarm system.
Lena can be mistaken for a Victorian ghost.
Lizzie Borden Dress
Clothing plays an important role in “First Kill” in setting the scene and establishing character. Part of Lena’s trickery comes with her clothes. She prefers not only children’s clothes, but also old-fashioned dresses with long sleeves and lace collars, which look more like a porcelain doll from a “Readers Digest” ad, which could be yours for just a few monthly installments. and less on a contemporary child.
Not only does she pretend to be a child, but with the antique-looking dresses and pigtails, she pretends to be much younger. This is used for a very creepy effect in an early scene with a guard.
Lena can be mistaken for a Victorian ghost. Or, as annoyed teenage brother Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) abusively tells her, she’s wearing a “Lizzie Borden dress.” Borden, of course, was the young woman tried for murdering her parents with an ax in the late 1800s. Borden was acquitted, but the rumors (and rhymes) persist. As a woman in the Gilded Age, Borden wore full, long skirts and puff sleeves, no different from Lena. The character has appeared in various forms in films such as 2018’s “Lizzie” and Lifetime’s 2014 “Lizzie Borden Took an Axe”. “American Horror Story: Asylum” also features a character based on Borden.
Isabelle Fuhrman as “Esther” in “Orphan: First Kill” (Steve Ackerman/Paramount Pictures)The ribbon around her neck
The most undeniable aspects of Lena are her accessories. The character wears a distinctive ribbon choker and two ribbon bracelets on her wrists, which appear to be velvet. The accessories serve a purpose: they are meant to hide the scars she has suffered from repeatedly fighting against limitations. But they are also her signature. Obsessed with them, she gives them pride of place in her drawer, she puts them on reverently, especially the ribbon choker, which instantly draws your eyes to posters for both movies.
What if someone tries to take off Lena’s ribbon? Well, heads may not literally roll. Or maybe they are, but they won’t be hers.
The Ribbon Around the Neck is a classic horror story with a long and complicated history, possibly as far back as the French Revolution. Many readers may remember its adaptation in Alvin Schwartz’ Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. In that version of the story, a woman named Jenny always wears a green ribbon around her neck and won’t tell her eventual husband Alfred why or ever take it off. On her deathbed, she finally unties the ribbon. And her head rolls off.
In her wonderful Book Riot article on the story, Kelly Jensen calls the Schwartz story “a title that many cite as a story that has never, ever left them.” Carmen Maria Machado in her stunning collection “Her Body and Other Parties” uses the green ribbon in her short story “The Husband Stich”.
What if someone tries to take off Lena’s ribbon? Well, heads may not literally roll. Or maybe they are, but they won’t be hers.
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screen mask
A hockey mask is a mask of choice for killers, although “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” might make you want to know that a mask of skin will suffice and Ghostface or “Scream” prefers a ghost face. But it’s a fencing mask that specifically comes into play in “First Kill,” as fencing in general does.
The workers who help run “Squid Game” (Noh Juhan/Netflix)Think how evocative the screen mask looks: the mesh front that completely hides the face, the alien look. The screen mask appears in horror like “Urban Legends” where a killer sports.
The guards in “Squid Game” are not only dressed in pink jumpsuits, but also in black screen masks which add to the menacing and anonymous appearance of the guards. You can’t see who someone is behind a screen mask. When it comes to the guards, they won’t see you, save you. And at least according to the Academy of Fencing Masters Blog in an article discussing the long-lasting benefits of fencing when it comes to horror movies, “There are reasons why fencers would be the ones who see the sunrise in the day after the long night of chaos. ” Is this a good mask for horror in the future? And Garde!
“Orphan: First Kill” is now in theaters and on Paramount+. Watch a trailer on YouTube.
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