The Orphan (1979)

Drifting along the meandering currents of low-budget horror flick The Orphan are pieces that, assembled differently, might have comprised an offbeat psychological thriller—a little cross-dressing here, a touch of pedophilia there. Alas, how these pieces relate in this context is anyone’s guess. The story is set in the 1930s—anachronistic costumes and hairstyles notwithstanding—and the gist is that after his father dies, preteen David (Mark Owens) receives an unwanted new guardian, Aunt Martha (Peggy Feury). Her disciplinarian ways don’t sit well with David, who enjoys hanging out with Akin (Afolabi Ajayi), the African houseguest who was a friend of David’s late father, and spying on the family’s attractive young maid, Mary (Eleanor Stewart). Another of David’s hobbies is wearing women’s clothes, though at one point he’s interrupted while cross-dressing, so he strips off his bustier, shoves it in a toilet, and flushes, thereby causing the toilet to overflow. If you’re thinking that none of this sounds particularly horrific, how about the dream sequence during which David imagines his tongue being ripped from his mouth? Some murders happen in The Orphan, but they’re presented so cryptically that it’s hard to tell which events are meant to be figments of David’s imagination. Nonetheless, someone must have thought that writer/producer/director John Ballard was onto something, seeing as how ace cutter Ralph Rosenblum was brought in as “editorial consultant” and Janis Ian was hired to write and perform a theme song. Ian’s song is pretty, and one assumes Rosenblum helped strengthen a few moments, but the sum effect of The Orphan is bewildering. FYI, The Orphan was occasionally marketed as Friday the 13th: The Orphan, so the producers of Friday the 13th (1980) had to pay the copyright owners of Ballard’s flick for the use of the title.

The Orphan: LAME