- Film Review
- Reviewed By Alan Jones
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3 out of 5
House of Wax director Jaume Collet-Serra here delivers a stylish shocker that's streaked with morbid playfulness. A couple adopt a nine-year-old girl after their third child is tragically stillborn, but young Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) is not what she seems... Before you can say "Bad Seed", Esther is playing Russian roulette with her younger, deaf sister, threatening her older brother with emasculation and hammering nuns to death. Will mother Vera Farmiga's internet research into "children who kill" make her oblivious husband Peter Sarsgaard finally face the truth about their terror tyke? Thoroughly contrived, this really flips into high-camp gear when Esther's intriguing "secret" is revealed. Even an over-extended finale can't entirely dampen this enjoyably daffy yet suitably sick crowd-pleaser.
Plot Summary
Horror thriller starring Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, and Isabelle Fuhrman. When bereaved couple Kate and John adopt nine-year-old Esther from an orphanage, their dreams of family happiness soon descend into a nightmare.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Kate Coleman
- Vera Farmiga
- John Coleman
- Peter Sarsgaard
- Esther
- Isabelle Fuhrman
- Sister Abigail
- C C H Pounder
- Max Coleman
- Aryana Engineer
- Daniel Coleman
- Jimmy Bennett
- Dr Varava
- Karel Roden
- Dr Browning
- Margo Martindale
- Grandma Barbara
- Rosemary Dunsmore
Crew
- Director
- Jaume Collet-Serra
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