by Jason Adams
Howdy folks and say howdy-do to my brand new series here at TFE, "Great Moments in Horror Actressing". I'll be smashing together my favorite things (horror movies) with your favorite things (actresses). We'll focus in on great women giving the scary movies that little oomph of something extra. I'm just going to be lasering in on little moments, scenes, flourishes that I find especially special -- the pieces that make the big scary whole all the sweeter. Or sourer, as the case will probably more often be, given the genre.
First up, Vera Farmiga in Orphan (2009). Jaume Collet-Serra's horror film about an orphan (Isabelle Furhman) just looking for a home, no matter the cost, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week. It's a truly astounding box of shocks that's managed to retain its ability to jaw-drop a full decade later. But for all its third act reveals that I still can't believe they got away with, and the titular mind-blowing performance, the film packs such a visceral punch as its bottom drops out because of the sound emotional foundation Vera Farmiga set up in its opening scenes...
After a gross-out opening nightmare sequence which ramps every pregnant woman's worst fears up to eleven (maybe even twelve) we spend a little time getting to know Kate (Farmiga), who's lost a baby and battled alcohol addiction to just barely come out on the other side wobbly but sober and alive. In the grand tradition of horror movie characterization dumps this all comes real fast and hard, over the course of a couple of minutes, but Farmiga gets us caring about this obviously still unwell woman with great ease.
... those icy eyes of hers have the uncanny ability to somehow transmit decency and warmth and utter awesome terror all at once.
Kate shifts awkwardly, a jangle of elbows and knees and too long pauses, under the glare of her therapist (Margo Martindale, holla), and she kisses her precocious deaf daughter a little too hard and a lot too often -- motherly desperation radiating from Kate in waves. This woman was ripe for the plucking -- an easy mark. But already we care, we care as desperately, that Kate will find her way towards the light again. Farmiga, big blues up, finds that light every damn time. .