10 Lame Movie Twists That Ruined Great Endings

For the first two thirds of its runtime, Orphan is an outright terrifying thriller movie. It tells the story of a family who, after the stillborn birth of their third child, decide to adopt a girl named Esther to try and fill the whole the tragedy has left in their lives. However, no sooner than Esther moves in with them, bizarre accidents begin to happen that result in the death or injury of people connected with the family.

It's initially a very clever story and, even when it's confirmed that Esther is in fact a vicious sociopath, it's still scary because the villain is a child, the most vulnerable and innately innocent kind of human being. The idea of letting one into a trusting home only for them to wreck malicious havoc on their adopted family's lives is a haunting notion that can change how children were seen in horror movies.

But then, at the start of the third act, the mother, Kate, receives an almost random call from a European scientist who informs her that Esther, who has at that point divided the family, is actually a deranged woman in her thirties with a medical condition that gives her a childlike appearance. This weird twist effectively kills Esther's scare factor and robs the action-packed concluding act of any real stakes.