[photo grabbed from IMDB]
Creepy - that’s one apt word that would fully describe this movie! But I got interested to watch it after seeing the movie listed as one of the scariest movies of all times. It was not really scary in the real sense of the word but rather disturbing, especially if it is something that would happen to you or to someone you care about. The movie is top billed by a young girl named Esther who was adopted by a young couple, Kate and Jon. They already have two children – Danny and a deaf-mute girl named Max. But still the couple opted to adopt a child so that Kate could cope with the death of their last child, who was stillborn. Kate became an alcoholic and had been seeing a therapist who also encouraged them to adopt so that Kate could get over the loss of her daughter.
The next scene shows Jon and Kate at an orphanage for girls and there they meet and immediately fall in love with Esther. They soon take Esther home and find that Max takes an instant liking to her new sister while Danny remains aloof and even asked why she dresses differently. A celebration at home is held to welcome Esther and she is entered in the same school as Danny. At home, Kate begins to sense something different about Esther – while taking a bath she locks her doors though Kate said they don’t lock doors in the house, particularly bathrooms. But Esther says she doesn’t want anyone walking in while she is in the bathroom and so she says she will just sing for Kate to let her know she’s okay. Kate also found an old bible with a photo of a man inside, hidden in Esther’s drawer.
Meanwhile, at school Esther’s book is purposefully knocked off by Danny and as she bends to pick it up, another girl, Brenda tries to remove the ribbon at her neck and she ends up screaming and kicking in anger. The next day, at home during piano lessons with Kate, she tries to encourage Esther to talk about what happened but she says there was nothing to talk about. Then, another incident is shown with Esther pushing the girl Brenda off the slide at the neighborhood park. Max saw what she did but did not tell anyone and merely said the girl slipped because she was afraid of Esther.
A few days later, Sister Abigail from the orphanage comes to visit after learning about the incident at the park. She tells them that details about Esther’s past have remained a mystery even to them so they should try to find out more about her past. Esther panics and so with Max’s help she kills Sister Abigail with a hammer and they push her body off the hill. Afterwards, they change out of their bloody clothes in Danny’s tree house. Danny, hiding in the bushes, sees them going out of the tree house. Esther sees him but doesn’t make a move. While he slept, Esther visits him in bed and holds a cutter blade to his throat to ask what he saw. But he said he saw nothing so she threatens to castrate him if he tells anyone.
The next day when Kate dropped Danny and Esther at their school, Esther releases the car’s brakes with Max still strapped in her seat. Kate runs after the vehicle as it rolls down the hill but she is unable to stop it. Finally, the car bumps into a huge pile of snow and she is able to retrieve Max unharmed. Jon and Kate get into an argument about what happened but Kate insists she put the car brake on. Jon finally relents and lets Esther see a psychiatrist but surprisingly she was able to make the psychiatrist believe that it was Kate who had trouble accepting her.
In the next scene, Jon is seen waking up Esther to bring her to the dentist but Esther refuses to go and instead said she wants to spend the day with Jon. Jon allowed her to paint by his side while he works (as an architect). Esther says she has waited a long time for a father like Jon and that she feels Kate doesn’t love her. Jon suggested that she do something nice for Kate. So at dinner time, Esther presents Kate with a surprise – cut white roses from Jessica’s garden – and Kate in her fury grabs Esther by the arm. Jon arrives and sees Esther rushing off crying while Kate crumples to the floor with the roses in her hand. That night, Esther sneaks into the tool shed and places her arm in a vice to break it. Then, she goes to bed and cries for Jon who rushes to comfort her and bring her to the doctor. He sleeps with Esther in their bed while Kate, still insisting that she didn’t grab her that hard, slept downstairs on the sofa.
A few days later, Jon confronts Kate with Dr. Browning about her going back to drinking. She denies it and he countered by showing two empty wine bottles. Kate insists she did not drink them but poured the wine down the sink. But Jon was not inclined to believe her and threatened to divorce her if she does not go to rehab. Meanwhile, Danny has gotten tired of always being in fear of Esther so he decides to do something about it. He asked Max what she knew and so Max showed him drawings of what happened to Brenda, Sister Abigail and the car accident. She even told Danny that the bloody clothes and hammer she used were in his tree house. They vowed to get the evidence to convince their parents about Esther so she can finally be locked away. Their only problem was that Esther overheard them.
So when Danny sneaks into the tree house to find the hammer and clothes, Esther suddenly appears behind him. She pours gasoline over the ‘evidence’, locks Danny inside the tree house and lights a match. Danny crawls out the window and screams for Kate but she doesn’t hear him. The tree house crumbles beneath him leaving him broken and unconscious but still alive. They bring him to the hospital and while Jon and Kate were talking with the doctor, Esther sneaks into Danny’s room to try to kill him. But the nurses were alerted when Danny’s heart flat lined so they rush into his room to revive him. Kate sees Esther inside the room and screams at her to stay away. Kate is sedated and is confined in the hospital with Danny. Jon decides to bring the girls home.
At the hospital, Kate receives a call from the Saarne Institute in Estonia where Esther was last held. It turns out that Saarne Institute is not an orphanage after all but a mental institution. The Doctor Varava she talked to further revealed that Esther wasn’t a nine year old girl but a 33-year old woman named Leena Klammer. She was one of their most violent patients hence the bruises from her straitjacket in her wrists and neck (now Kate knows why she wears those ribbons all the time). Meantime, at the house Esther puts on tons of makeup and wears a revealing outfit to try to comfort Jon. Jon, who had been drinking sobs openly to her and tells her of his worries. But when she comes on to him and tells him that she loves him, Jon snaps out of his stupor and tells her to go back to her room.
Kate escapes from the hospital to try to rescue her family. Jon goes off to search for Esther in her room and is horrified to see hidden beneath her paintings so much scenes of sex and violence. Esther then turns out all the lights in the house and stabs Jon. Max saw everything so she runs off and hides in the greenhouse. Kate arrives and breaks down upon seeing Jon dead. But she continues to search for Max. Kate ends up in the roof of the greenhouse and when she sees Esther about to discover Max she screams and so Esther shoots her instead. She falls on top of Esther who is rendered unconscious. When Kate wakes up, she takes Max to the pond and they see cops enter the house. But when the cops reach the greenhouse, Esther’s body can’t be found. It seems she followed them to the pond and she then stabs Kate with a knife. Max gets Esther’s gun and fires but she hits the pond so the two fall into the water. They continue to wrestle in the water and as Kate climbs up, Esther holds on to her leg pleading with her to not let her die. Kate kicks her hard and she sinks down into the water as Kate and Max escape.
Now for the review – the movie was beautifully done – particularly with the almost natural performance rendered by the child/woman Esther. But this movie is definitely not for kids because of its ‘anti-adoption’ theme and dangerous imitable behavior. The violence shown against and by the children in the movie is shocking and brutal. This movie was just totally, totally disturbing …one that could chill and thrill at the same time. Would I watch this movie with my kids, well I already did but I just need to properly guide them that such kind of behavior is not something to be emulated.
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