Between sitcoms, game shows and reality series, from Steptoe and Son (remade as Sanford and Son) to Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, US TV has a long history of taking British TV formulas and reworking them for Stateside audiences. With Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s The Office finding massive, unlikely creative success overseas and remakes back en vogue, it was just a matter of time before other networks started snatching up more lucrative Brit shows to Americanise and hopefully spin into ratings gold. This month saw a trio of remade series hit US airwaves, with Skins, Being Human and Shameless all receiving the makeover treatment. So how do the pilot episodes fare against their originals?




The Show: Skins

What’s it about? The hedonistic lives of a group of 16-year-olds as they navigate their daily lives of sex, drugs and partying. The UK series kicked off in 2007 on youthful channel E4 to massive success and is now about to enter its fifth series (and its third cast – centring on the two-year college life of its characters, Skins picks up with a new cast every two seasons).

How does the remake fare? In a word: Terribly. Sure, the knee-jerk reaction upon hearing that a popular property is being unnecessarily remade and Americanised is to cry foul and wish a stabby torment on the studio who okayed it, but there’s always the potential that the show could quickly branch off into new territory and become a worthwhile companion piece, as NBC’s The Office did, and Skins – as much as I love it – left massive room for improvement, especially in its later years. With that in mind, I was curious and oddly hopeful that MTV’s Skins would be a worthwhile American alternative to the drek of Gossip Girl and similarly bland shows that saturate the US teen television market. Unfortunately, though not too surprisingly, the pilot to MTV’s Skins falls halfway between complete duplicate and neutered, generic facsimile of the original.



A great deal is lost in character, whether by virtue of less talented performers or script doctoring. Nicholas Hoult’s slightly slimy performance helped define series lead Tony as a middle class sociopath, while James Milo Newman plays him simply blank and arrogant – between Newman’s half-hearted effort and script alterations, the lead who didn’t feel too far removed from a Bret Easton Ellis character becomes just another bland, cocky doucheclown. Similarly, hopelessly adorable and slightly unhinged Cassie becomes a less interesting cliché; with her craziness thrown at us with jackhammer subtlety in a terrible scene that has her announcing her love of knives and death while inferring that she’s about to cook a bunny, she’s less the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of the UK series and more a cookie-cutter goth stereotype with better dress sense.

Feral drug dealer Madison Twatter also gets retrofitted into an infinitely less threatening American incarnation, who looks rather like a retired golf pro who skipped a night’s sleep (likely leaving viewers wondering why Stanley would even bother worrying about repaying the drug debt that fuels the episode). Amidst all the superficial changes, though, the most damning issue is that almost no attempt has been made to infuse the US retread with its own sense of cultural identity. The barely-adapted pilot script lazily and awkwardly still includes a handful of Brit slang (possibly due to the heavy involvement of very English showrunner/writer Bryan Elsley), while the show’s Canadian sets and locations (so often used as a cheap, generic double for urban America on film) lend the show a strange, faux-American aesthetic, taking place in an indeterminable city without character. When coupled with the awkward censorship of the UK original’s shagging-and-swearing content, it puts Skins US somewhere between an unnecessarily close retread of the original and the safe, sanitised land of 90210-esque teen drama soaps that Skins should be the counterpoint to.

It’s that what makes the process of remaking the original show such a pointless exercise. Skins is no sacred cow, being an occasionally excellent but often incredibly flawed and wayward series, especially as the show shifted into its later seasons, but the redeeming value of any remake is in how well (if at all) it steers the concept into new and interesting directions, emphasises different elements or infuses an imported idea with a new cultural identity. MTV’s Skins, so far, does neither, duplicating the original almost verbatim, while making minor alterations which only drives it into generic territory.

It remains to be seen if later episodes will steer away from its inherited foundations and forge its own original, worthwhile identity, but the opening episode only announces Skins US as an entirely unnecessary, creatively barren alternative to just airing the original series again for US audiences.

Advantage: The UK Series.

The Show: Shameless

What’s it about? Shameless follows the day-to-day escapades of the sub-working class Gallagher family – a clan of six kids headed by motherly eldest sibling Fiona – as they endure the presence of their shambling alcoholic wreck of a father Frank, who milks unearned government benefits for all they’re worth when not begging, borrowing and (mostly) stealing the rest.

How does the remake fare? Considering that it adopts the same shot-for-shot, word-for-word remake tact as Skins, it’s strange that Showtime’s Shameless stands out as a solid, entertaining and worthwhile adaptation of the British show. I’d hardly begrudge a US network for remaking Shameless for American audiences to begin with; sure, the result is an English language, shot-for-shot remake of an already English language show, but Shameless is so filled with impenetrable northern regional accents that the dialogue may often prove indecipherable for US audiences without subtitles. In that sense, it’s less senseless fodder for a reworking than Skins is.

Unlike Skins, the US reworking of Shameless quickly grounds itself with a tangible sense of place; location is especially important for a show so ensconced in its lower-class roots, and the streets of Chicago, drenched in snowy sludge with the rusty L-train tracks blocking the sunlight as they loom overhead makes a suitably dank and oppressive American alternative to the dingy wastelands of Brit housing estates.



The retread does stumble a little in the casting department, though. William H. Macy clearly relishes the chance to play drunk, disgusting and despicable, and the usually bland Emmy Rossum is surprisingly fantastic, as are the younger cast. But then there’s Justin Chatwin, who is clearly no James McAvoy, and the more wooden abilities of the former result in the character of Steve (the middle-class boyfriend of Fiona) coming across as slimy and detached in moments where McAvoy’s inherent, effortless charm shines through. And though the addition of Shanola Hampton as Fiona’s neighbour/ best friend Veronica adds some welcome racial diversity, it’s unfortunate that her character quickly announces herself as a “sassy black friend” stereotype.

To the showrunners’ credit though, they at least seem aware of the charisma-deprived Chatwin’s failings – the US show’s first major divergence from the original is in the second episode’s emphasis on Steve’s creepy trend of trying to buy lower-class Fiona’s affection and their subsequent break-up. It bodes well that the writers seem to be shaping the show to suit the strengths and weaknesses of their cast rather than adhere rigidly to the British scripts. Admirably there’s no attempt made to tone down the content either – the remake’s cable TV home affords it the ability to avoid the censorship that Skins suffers from, and thankfully Frank Gallagher is still as despicable and watchable a scumbag as ever.

Advantage: Draw. Shameless looks to be the quickest of the shows to split off from the original and start forging its own path, and while it doesn’t better its original, it’s at least as entertaining and well performed.

The Show: Being Human

What’s it about? A vampire, a werewolf and the ghost of a young woman become roommates as they struggle to understand and control their respective curses.

How does the remake fare? Of the three remade shows surfacing this month, Being Human is the one that feels to some degree more like its own show from the outset, even if it does go on to cannibalise the British first episode for the second half of its two-parter. SyFy, who’re fronting the US remake, also have the benefit of Being Human being the weakest of the import trio pulled in from across the pond with the most room for improvement. But while Being Human is a decent reworking of the original, little attempt is made to better it, sadly.

Quick to embrace more American sensibilities, SyFy highlight the supernatural elements while exercising their comparatively larger budget. Annie the ghost is no longer corporeal or particularly mobile, bound to the house and fading in and out of existence with poofy CGI aid and unable to touch things, where her UK counterpart liked to engage in that distinctly English method of coping with deathly crises: Making craploads of tea. Broody vamp Mitchell/Aiden gets a more evident and immediate dose of superpowers, too, as an altercation in a hospital results in holes slammed in walls and some super-speed shoving. The superspeed thing makes little sense in execution, thanks to some lazy adaptation; Aidan having the gift of superspeed aids him in a last-minute rescue during a new crisis added for the in the US version, but his powers are forgotten when a familiar UK scene rolls around, and like his Irish counterpart, he just broods and lets a girl bleed out in an alley rather than dash her to hospital. Dick move, fang-boy.



The mismatched roommates comedy/drama takes a relative backseat to the race-against-time monster-mash thriller plot (complete with cliffhanger ending) that takes prominence as Josh finds himself locked in the hospital’s cell-like isolation room with his sister (a character added for the US remake), moments before he’s due to transform into chompy wolf form. It’s rather tense and effective, mostly thanks to the choice of cast: Meghan Rath proves a rather boring, less likeable alternative to Lenora Crichlow, but the casting of Sam Witwer as vampire Aidan has the opposite effect, giving the chronic brooder a charisma upgrade. Sam Huntington especially provides an great replacement for the excellent Russell Tovey, with a wolfy George (or Josh) who’s a tad more self-centred than the kind-hearted nerd at the heart of the original series, and he and Witwer display a solid chemistry.

But while the show is just as entertaining as its inspiration, albeit for slightly different reasons, it sadly doesn’t embrace the opportunity to improve on much, either. Like the original, far too much time is lent to the elitist vampire society needling at Aidan to rejoin the fold while he just wants to smoulder and brood in peace. Sure, the awesome Mark Pellegrino (Supernatural’s Lucifer and Lost’s Jacob) gets welcome screentime as the series’ sinister antagonist, and makes the storyline more enjoyable than in the original, but the diabolical threat of elitist, well-connected and well-dressed network of evil vampire elders is tremendously dull, familiar stuff that’s been over-explored in almost every bit of vamp fiction to hit page or screen.

Advantage: Draw. If you’ve seen the original, there’s nothing particularly new in SyFy’s interpretation, but a mostly fantastic cast and some slight tweaking of the concept make Being Human a decent and energetic alternative if you’ve never caught the UK series.

Every year, dozens of new TV series assault the airwaves in hopes of maintaining the attention of your eyeballs, and perhaps even your brains, as they strive for both ratings success and that coveted multi-season run. A sad fact of life, though, is that while a few genuinely great shows attract the love they deserve from critics and viewers alike, equally fantastic or simply incredibly entertaining shows often go unnoticed by audiences, doomed to a swift cancellation or maybe scraping by with enough Nielsen numbers to barely earn a second season.

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, 2010 was no different, and while great new shows Justified, Sherlock and Boardwalk Empire all managed to nab the two-fer of ratings and critical love, a handful of shows barely dodged the axe or suffered an untimely death despite being just as wonderful or entertaining as anything in their respective genres. Here’s a few superb new shows you might’ve missed in 2010:

The Show: Terriers (FX)

What’s it about? Toss a copy of Fletch, a stack of Shane Black scripts and the first season of Veronica Mars in a blender, and you’ll be somewhere close to Terriers.

Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) is a recovering alcoholic ex-cop who teams up with best friend and reformed thief Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James) as the two start an unlicensed P.I. business in Ocean Beach, California. The two low-rent beachfront gumshoes will take on any case, however small, and will probably let you pay them in free dry cleaning.

When an old drinking buddy of Hank’s turns up dead, the two scrappy underdogs who can barely keep their lives together will have to pool every ounce of wit and ingenuity they have to stay alive and bring those responsible to justice as they uncover a major conspiracy behind the murder.

What’s so great about it? Where to begin! Terriers blends a pitch-perfect neo-noir spirit and the crackerjack dialogue you’d expect from the genre with impressively layered, fundamentally flawed three-dimensional characters. It’s show that can turn on a dime from making you laugh your ass off with a tremendous one-liner to slugging you with an emotional gut punch of amazing character work, all with a tonal dexterity that most comedy-dramas pray for. Above all though, it’s an incredibly sharp buddy comedy that’s driven by two fantastic and overwhelmingly loveable lead performances.

Donal Logue has always been an effortlessly likeable and funny comedic everyman who elevates anything he shows up in, but here he gives a pretty revelatory dramatic performance that’s above and beyond anything he’s ever done. Michael Raymond-James is like the missing link between Robert Downey Jr. and James Franco, which puts him squarely in man-crush territory. The two of them have a natural, dynamite chemistry that’d make a show featuring them just watching TV and shooting the breeze a joy to sit though. That the series around them is one of the most consistently superb and sharply-written P.I. shows ever is just the icing on the cake.

I need visual aids! Okey dokey! Sadly there’s no promo material that truly gives a sense of what makes Terriers work so perfectly (half the blame levelled at the show’s inability to find an audience was aimed at a botched marketing campaign that focused on a troublesome dog that never appears in the series). But here’s the one trailer that sells the premise well enough:





Okay, I’m sold. What’re my viewing options? Terriers was tragically cancelled this month, proving that the world is a fundamentally backwards, broken place and taking new episodes off the table. Still, what we’re left with is 13 episodes of perfection that wraps up its season-long arc in the finale, so there’s no need to feel gun-shy about catching up.

If you’re in the US, the last 5 episodes are available to watch free at FX’s website or at Hulu.com. The full series is available to buy digitally via Amazon.com VOD in standard definition or HD or on the US iTunes Store.

UK folks will unfortunately have to hope that FX UK decides to air the show in the new year.

The Show: Community (NBC US/Viva UK)

Okay, so if you’re in the US, you probably did catch this, and it’s not quite a 2010 show for you guys and gals, having kicked off in ’09. However, here in the barren plains of the United Kingdom, the first season of Community first started airing in October. Don’t feel bad for not noticing – it was unceremoniously buried on MTV’s sister channel Viva amidst reality TV reruns and with zero marketing.

What’s it about? Fast-talking, self-absorbed lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) has a problem: Unbeknownst to him, his law degree isn’t quite real, and he’s soon disbarred and forced to attend community college to earn a new, more authentic degree. After meeting gorgeous student Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), he pretends to be a skilled Spanish tutor in order to spend time with her.

His plan backfires when his tutor session becomes a study group of mis-matched oddballs: Former jock Troy (Donald Glover); divorcee, mother and devout Christian Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown); Abed (Danny Pudi), the socially robotic pop culture junkie; neurotic academic Annie (Alison Brie) and wealthy, bigoted retiree Pierce (Chevy Chase). Despite their overt differences, the group becomes a makeshift family and hilarity, naturally, ensues.

What’s so great about it? It’s like the US version of Spaced – an incredibly clever, achingly funny show that’s overflowing with note-perfect pop culture references and not adverse to streaks of sly self-reference and sublime parodies that’d make Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers proud. Episodes like Goodfellas pastiche ‘Contemporary American Poultry’, for example, or ‘Modern Warfare’, which plays out like the paintball episode of Spaced dialled up to a hundred and eleven, resulting in one of the most astonishingly great 22 minutes in TV history.

It’s a sitcom that knows it’s a sitcom, with genre-savvy Abed (Danny Pudi) often poking the fourth wall while the writers subvert genre trappings with inventive glee. Embodying an increasingly rare quality in sitcoms, Community often not only instils the overwhelming urge to watch an episode again right the hell now, but rewards rewatching with some of the most ingenious easter eggs and layered continuity ever. Case in point: Season Two episode ‘The Psychology of Letting Go’ contains an entire sub-plot featuring a noticeably absent Abed covertly hidden in the background of scenes. But while great writing is the foundation for Community’s hilarity, it’s brought to life by a cast that’s comprised entirely of scene-stealing characters and actors, from the amazing Donald Glover to a career resurrecting turn from Chevy Chase as the group’s resident sexist bigot.

I need visual aids! How about mere glimpse of the awesomeness to be found in ‘Modern Warfare’?





Okay, I’m sold. What’re my viewing options? In the UK, you can catch a double bill of episodes on Viva on Tuesdays at 10pm. While you’ll certainly want to catch all the episodes you missed at some point, the plus side is that it’s a show that greatly welcomes jumping in at any time, too. And the kicker is that you haven’t missed the stand-out episode yet! “Modern Warfare” is due to air tonight.

The first season is also available on US DVD and is also available to buy digitally in the US via iTunes or on Amazon.com VOD in standard definition or HD.

The Show: Tower Prep (Cartoon Network)

What’s it about? It’s equal parts The Prisoner, Lost and X-Men as Ian Archer (Drew Van Acker) falls asleep in suburban America but wakes up at Tower Prep, a mysterious boarding school for teens with superpowers, with no idea how he got there. The campus is cut off from civilization with no links to the outside world, surrounded by impenetrable walls and dense forest filled with dangerous creatures.

Faced with teachers who impose rules but don’t answer questions, Ian teams up with his own Scooby Gang of superpowered students: C.J. (Elise Gatien), who can read the most imperceptible facial tics and body language like a book, Suki (Dyana Liu), who can perfectly imitate the voice of anyone, and Gabe (Ryan Pinkston), who has the ability to talk anyone into anything with Jedi-like skill. With the help of his new-found friends and his own supernatural reflexes, Ian must try to find a way to escape the school while attempting to figure out what Tower Prep is and why they were brought there.

What’s so great about it? Okay, so it’s a teen show on a kids’ cartoon channel, but don’t hold that against it – Tower Prep is smart, fun and one of the best teen-centric shows in ages, which just happens to boast impeccable pedigree: Creator Paul Dini is responsible for the superb Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited, and had a hand in the earliest, strongest seasons of Lost; writer/producer Glen Morgan is mostly to thank for The X-Files’ best years and his brother, screenwriter Darin Morgan (The X-Files’ ‘Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose’ and ‘War of the Coprophages’), has crafted a handful of the smartest, funniest, most hilariously subversive scripts in TV history.

It’s no surprise, then, that while Tower Prep is still inherently a teen show, it’s a well-crafted throwback to the days when TV aimed at younger viewers were less hesitant to smuggle in more intelligent, cerebral ideas and stories. The result is incredibly entertaining even for those too old to know who or what the hell an iCarly is. The central mystery is well-handled, engaging stuff, with an engrossing premise and clues and revelations unveiled at a steady pace. The cast are uncharacteristically likeable for a teen show, too, and the well-written camaraderie and substantial chemistry between the core group of characters make for an adventure mystery that’s endlessly entertaining.

I need visual aids! Sure thing, have a trailer:





Okay, I’m sold. What’re my viewing options? In the US, the show airs every Tuesday at 8/7 C. Sadly there are no reruns scheduled, but the episodes aired so far are available for download on the US iTunes Store.

In the UK, aside from the nefarious torrenty download options, Tower Prep will be airing here sometime in 2011.

The Show: How To Make It In America (HBO)

What’s it about? Twenty-something design school drop-out Ben Epstein (Bryan Greenberg) and small-time hustler Cam Calderon (Victor Rasuk), tired of working low-rent hustles and the nine-to-five grind while their friends become rich and successful, borrow a chunk of money from loan shark Rene (Luis Guzmán) with the hope of achieving the American Dream in the form of their own denim design company.

What’s so great about it? Remember when Entourage first started, back before it became bloated and stale and it was 22 minutes of light, infectious fun a week? Say hello to How To Make It In America, which recaptures that breezy tone and spirit perfectly. The Entourage similarities aren’t accidental – both shows come from HBO and producer crew Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Rob Weiss and Julian Farino, while How To Make It often borrows Entourage’s “…and then everything worked out perfectly in the last 60 seconds” formula.

But while the vicarious-living appeal of Entourage’s Hollywood glamour has lost its shine over time, the rags-to-riches underdog beginnings of How To Make It are immediately more engaging than Vinnie Chase’s latest rush to make yet another million. There’s an infectious fun to Ben and Cam’s hustles to make it big and each episode just flies by with style to spare. The theme song is phenomenally good, Victor Rasuk is great, Luis Guzmán is better (naturally) and finally someone put the laid-back, easygoing charm of Bryan Greenberg to perfect use. It’s not the deepest show you’ll find, but it’s immense fun and if you’re mourning Entourage’s swift downturn in quality, How To Make It In America is the perfect rebound.

I need visual aids! Would a trailer suffice?





Okay, I’m sold. What’re my viewing options? If you’re in the US, Season One re-airs on HBO Comedy starting on the 31st of December.

Sadly no plans have been announced to air the show in the UK.

Directed By Tom Shankland
Starring Hannah Tointon, Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell Moore and Jeremy Sheffield.

Ah, kids. They’re a creature so terrifying that simply pointing a camera at one can help make a movie creepy (or earn you jail time, depending on the circumstances). From The Shining to The Ring, cinema has steadily relied on ‘The Creepy Kid’ to be as reliable and often effective a genre convention as the noble ‘Jump Scare’. In the past few years there’s been a mini-resurgence of creepy kid films, from Joshua to 97.559% of Cameron Bright’s filmography. With The Children, writer-director Tom Shankland takes a stab at a British entry in the sub-genre, since posh English accents and unnerving children are always an easy fit. As two families get together at a remote house in the woods for a Christmas vacation, things get a tad unsettled when the kids start showing symptoms of a strange illness before having their behaviour switch flipped to ‘Homicidal’ and starting to off the adults.

Rather than rely on cheap jump scares, The Children often ratchets up the tension purely by virtue of how brain-piercingly shrill and screamy these damn kids are; much like being stuck sitting next to a crying baby on a bus journey, a dinner scene featuring the unrelenting shrieking and shouting of four toddlers in unison is guaranteed to crank your blood pressure through the roof.

Unfortunately, while The Children is well-made, with a great deal of tension and atmosphere, it’s devoid of any characters who aren’t either insufferable morons, two-dimensional cut-outs or complete wastes of celluloid. Hannah Tointon’s the closest thing to a lead, but while insanely cute, she’s also given a character who’s not much more than another privileged upper-class teen rebelling for no real reason whatsoever. It’s not until the third act that we’re given a reason to care about her, by which time – when she’s the only one taking any real action – it only serves to highlight how infuriatingly dumb every other character is as they either sit around doing nothing or make mind-bogglingly dumb decisions to put themselves in harm’s way (a climbing frame scene is especially infuriating). Shankland throws around the moral dilemma of being a parent forced to harm their own child, but after a while it feels like less a theme well-explored and more a flimsy excuse to justify the stupefyingly retarded actions of poorly-written characters.

Shankland admirably casts “real” kids – there’s no Dakota Fanning-esque precociousness at play in the children here, they’re just as loud, immature and grating as real toddlers are, and the distinct lack of change between the unsettling hyperactive creepiness when they’re normal and when they’re evil (aside from the, y’know, parental mangling) makes things all the more unsettling. But while the source of the evil kid sickness is left unanswered, what’s offered instead doesn’t quite work – numerous hints to Chinese alternative medicine being the cause are thrown out at the audience via pretentious douchepuddle Jonah, and there’s an abundance of muddled abortion-related imagery that never fits coherently, while the editing flits between jittery and unnerving to resembling a bad avant-garde student film.

Ultimately, at an hour and twenty minutes, it doesn’t stick around long enough to be truly horrible, and at times it’s incredibly tense, but for the majority of the film, The Children is an unengaging, messy film littered with unbearable characters, and never manages to be more than a serviceable horror entry. It might just make you want to high-five the parent who smacks their kid in the supermarket cereal aisle though, assuming you don’t do that anyway.

Rating:

Directed By Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard and Isabelle Fuhrman.

There’s something wrong with Esther.  She’s trapped in a cliché-ridden movie you’ve seen a dozen times before.

Built on the generic framework of sinister kid movies like The Good Son, and the abundance of bland ’90s domestic thriller potboilers, Orphan tells the tale of Kate and John, a blissfully married couple with two kids who, after tragically losing a third child late in the pregnancy, decide that adoption’s the way forward. They meet bright and artistic Russian 9 year old Esther while touring a local orphanage and become immediately smitten with her, bringing her home to live with their children Max and Daniel.  Things then proceed to go about as well as can be expected when bringing home a twisted bundle of malevolence.

Most reviews mention the ending as being the most loopy and notably outlandish part of the movie, and while the final revelation is certainly gleefully daft, yanking the film from the gaping maw of mediocrity, throwing a much-needed dose of originality into the proceedings, it’s the earlier moments that stand out as the most bafflingly out-of-place. An early scene has Kate reading a bedtime story to deaf daughter Max (a scene that’s quite wonderfully shot – director Collet-Serra drops us into Max’s aurally-bereft world, with nothing but a barely-audible static hum and some handy subtitles to read Kate’s lips along with her). Which would be cute, only Kate sits and tells a fairy tale about Max’s unborn sister dying and being yanked away to heaven, while Max ‘listens’ and giggles with glee at every word. It’s intended as a heart-warming mother-daughter moment, and there’s no hint that Collet-Serra intends it as anything more, but it’s a bafflingly strange moment that’s creepier than almost anything Esther accomplishes. It’s also never explained quite how Kate came to own a published book (and a kid’s book, no less) so strangely specific to her miscarriage; Barnes & Noble are evidently stocking some extremely niche titles these days.

Also worthy of note is the sheer hilarious amount of haunting past experiences dumped on the protagonists’ shoulders; most lead characters get one tragic skeleton-in-the-closet to brood over, but ever the overachievers, Kate and John have so many it’s bordering on spoof territory – from the horrible miscarriage to a former drink addiction, a tragic accident where Max almost drowned, and more are all revealed, and that’s just in the first 20 minutes.

That’s not to say it’s a bad film; it’s actually a solid and effective little horror film with some incredibly good acting from Farmiga and especially Fuhrman. The problem is that until the last ten minutes, Orphan glues itself so rigidly to the standard ‘My *Insert Relative Here* is evil and nobody believes me!’ thriller plot beats that anyone who’s ever pointed their retinas towards a movie screen will feel a nagging sense of frustrating deja vu.

Still, while Orphan treads familiar ground, at least it does do in well-made shoes – Collet-Serra handles the film with a style and talent far above the usual bland horror director ilk, and the central performances are better than the content deserves; Fuhrman is quite amazing, not just a child actress blessed with acting ability beyond her years, nailing every nuance of a multi-faceted character flawlessly, but she handles a thick accent with more grace and conviction than most actors with decades of experience. It’s a shockingly good performance, and one that becomes all the more impressive in the final act. Farmiga – who isn’t having a good run of things in the cinematic kids stakes, having already birthed evil in recent creepy kid film Joshua, but also wound up adopting perpetually terrifying child actor Cameron Bright in Running Scared – is great, as always, and proves again that she deserves better than being relegated to ‘young emotional mother’ roles. Peter Sarsgaard, as well as seemingly being named after a Middle Earth fishing village, draws the short straw character-wise, and though he’s an effortlessly natural actor, he’s stuck with a character so stubbornly and bafflingly mistrustful that it’s hard for the audience to relate or engage with him after the first act.

Orphan’s a solid, well-made B movie that’s elevated by excellent performances and a fun ending, it’s just a shame that its adherence to tired plot conventions keep it from being anything truly great.

Rating:

The Children is available to buy now on US and UK DVD/Blu-Ray.

Orphan is out now on US DVD and Blu-Ray, and hits UK home video on 30th November 2009.