Disc Type

I must confess that I missed the boat on the original film, so going into this film I had reservations regarding my ability to properly review this film given that I haven’t seen the original. These concerns were made irrelevant by the revelation that this film, Orphan: First Kill, is actual a prequel to the first film. In this film, we get to see the events that led Leena Klammer to become what several people in the film call her: a monster. In 2007, Klammer is a 31-year-old psychiatric patient with a rare hormonal disorder called hypopituitarism that gives her the appearance of a 10-year-old child. After orchestrating an escape from the Saarne Instituute in which she manages to kill at least two people, Leena researches missing American girls and finds that she bears a resemblance to a girl named Esther Albright, and hatches a diabolic plan. However, it is not long before she realizes that in this seeming ordinary role that she has managed to slither into that she is not the only one with blood on her hands.

The predator becoming a prey was the thing that I most enjoyed about this film. Based on what I put together about the previous installment, Isabelle Fuhrman’s Leena Klammer was the thing that went bump in the night. Granted, she is still not to be underestimated here, especially given the things that she does in order to keep her cover. She even goes as far as to destroy an object of affection in order to keep her secret. That being said, she is hardly the worst person in the film in my opinion, as there is another killer willing to go to any lengths to ensure that their secret does not come out. To that end, I was treated to a cat-and-mouse game between these two, as they both attempt to gain the upper hand and rid themselves of the other without exposing their own dark secrets. This was mutually assured destruction personified.

"I realize that much of your extravagant behavior is done purely for effect. You're an artist. The public expects you to be different. But you're no longer an ascetic young poet just down from Oxford. You're a highly successful playwright at the peak of your career. You dine with royalty. You mix in the highest social circles. You're walking along a precipice. Just as long as you continue to play court jester, society will accept it. But tax their tolerance too far and they'll send you crashing from the heights to the depths of obscurity. A halo doesn't have to fall very far to become a noose."

That's the kind of advice we might expect to go out to some of our more, shall we say, eccentric celebrities of the day. In modern society we still revel in the odd choices and actions of our actors, musicians, and athletes. But sometimes they cross a line, and there's a backlash. Just take a look at the careers of Ezra Miller or Armie Hammer. There are still sacred cows, and they often change from year to year, decade to decade, and century to century. In the times of iconic playwright Oscar Wilde, it was homosexuality. In fact it took the United Kingdom to the 1960's to reverse laws prohibiting the lifestyle. But even in Oscar Wilde's time there was a certain ability to look the other way when one was so entertaining. But Wilde made the mistake of having his cake while eating it too, and it led to the downfall of one of the best playwrights in modern history.

"We came up here to get lucky."

What do you get when you combine Predator with The Twilight Zone and throw in an 80's television star and do a movie of the week? You get High Desert Kill and a preview of the kind of thing that would start appearing on Sy-Fy in a few decades. Universal was actually the king of these kinds of films throughout the late 70's and 80's, and director Harry Falk was one of television’s steady directors of the time. There's real experience here that allows this film to at times rise above its limited budget and offer a few compelling moments. There was actually a time the film was considered for theatrical release and did find a few box office dates in Europe. That was the dilemma in the 80's. Made-for-television would eventually give way to direct-to-video, and today, of course, it is streaming that provides the same kind of outlet. Thanks to Kino-Lorber you get a chance to decide for yourself as High Desert Kill arrives on Blu-ray, albeit with no real restoration. It's pretty much as it was when it was released on television in 1989.

So this is not a movie that I would say aged well with time. However, if you could put yourself in the mindset of the time period of its release (1987), I could see the appeal. Lori Singer of Footloose fame and Anthony Edwards of ER fame star as married couple Roxy and Aaron Walston, whose life and relationship becomes strained in rural North Carolina in the post-depression late 1930s, when a young drifter named Jack Ruffin (Bruce Abbott, Re-Animator) comes to their tobacco farm to be a farmhand. Roxy, a shelter girl who married young and had a child is unable to resist the temptation that is Jack Ruffin. As expected, things do not end well. Based on a 1984 novel, Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail, the film shows the tragic results of the affair, which in this modern setting may appear cliché, but during that time likely would be engaging.

Singer narrates sections of the film, which I found to be a great addition and to provide context that would have been lost otherwise. Additionally, it strengthened its connection to the source material, as the novel from my understanding is from the perspective of Roxy. During these narrations, she speaks to her feelings about her life and towards Jack Ruffin. Their initial encounter is quite abrasive, as Roxy, who is very young and impressionable, seems intimidated by Ruffin, while he comes off as somewhat brash. In their first meeting, he just appears and offers her a drag on his cigarette while she is hanging clothes in the yard. Roxy visibly displays her discomfort regarding his presence by attempting to put space in between them. Despite this, Ruffin doesn’t hesitate to reach in and snatch a clothespin from off her robe to help her hang something on the clothesline. This set a good stage for what was to come, as it showed that for much of what would occur between them, Ruffin would be leading the charge.