In Theaters: Orphan

The smartest movies in the evil-child genre expose nuclear families as never-ending horror shows of misery, rivalry and constantly simmering resentment. Is it any wonder that the beleaguered bourgie parents in Jaume Collet-Serra's enjoyably nasty Orphan are named John and Kate? The couple, played by Peter Saarsgard and Vera Farmiga, is not plus eight but three: pubescent Danny (Jimmy Bennett), deaf moppet Maxine (Aryana Engineer) and preternaturally poised, 9-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), adopted soon after Kate has a miscarriage. Before completely going off the rails with a series of false climaxes -- and a plot twist that undermines its most daring ideas --_Orphan_ stealthily portrays middle-class family life as the most pathological existence imaginable.

Descended from the same mutant genetic strain as Rhoda Penmark in 1956's The Bad Seed, Russian-born, curtsying Esther favors Tchaikovsky, Bible study, starchy blouses, petticoats and ribbons to adorn her hair, neck and wrists. She also likes fire, hammers, knives, guns, threatening to castrate her new brother, pushing her baby sister in front of cars, exploiting Mom's past tragedies and spooning with Daddy. At its sharpest, first-timer David Leslie Johnson's script links the chaos and terror the coal-eyed young miss unleashes with the despair clinging to the walls of John and Kate's spacious Connecticut home, the result of drinking problems, infidelity, stalled careers and inconsolable grief over the stillborn child.

Orphan would never work as the thrillingly wicked indulgence it is without the psycho intensity of Fuhrman. She's boosted by Saarsgard and Farmiga, who push the film's Freudian themes, suggesting that the root of all evil is rehashed nightly in John and Kate's bedroom. Farmiga excels at playing mothers who lie awake at night wondering whether their children are going to kill them: In 2007's Joshua, she played mom to another 9-year-old malevolent piano prodigy. The real horror, though, would be if this is the only niche available to her. As Lynn Hirschberg's 2006 New York Times Magazine cover story on Farmiga proclaimed, substantial roles in studio films for serious, talented actresses like her have become exceedingly rare. Her demon-seed costar is likely to get more offers.