In 2009, Orphan was released, telling the story of Kate and John Coleman (played by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), a couple who, after the death of their unborn child, adopt a nine-year-old girl from a local orphanage. However, little Esther is not nearly as innocent as she appears. Orphan is an eerie watch that received mixed reviews from critics but has since become a cult classic and is currently admired as a unique psychological horror film. Isabelle Fuhrman plays Esther, and her performance is a strong point of the film. The 2022 prequel, Orphan: First Kill, takes viewers back to Esther and explores her mysterious past. Fuhrman reprises her role as Esther, and the movie deploys creative techniques to make the 25-year-old actress look like a nine-year-old child again.
Updated March 7th, 2023: Curious about the inspiration behind Orphan and Orphan: First Kill? You'll be pleased to know that we've updated this article with additional content.
What many people might know is that the plot of Orphan is based on a true story. The real-life case of Indeed, Barbora Skrlová inspired the events of the movie, and the real-life case is just as chilling as the movie itself. Additionally, there was a similar case reported after the Orphan’s release. Here are the true stories behind Orphan and Orphan: First Kill.
Barbora Skrlová Case
The case that is widely accepted to be the truth behind the inspiration for the Orphan film is the case of Barbora Skrlová. The story became a national news event that received widespread coverage after a 13-year-old boy named 'Adam', who was adopted from Norway went missing. It was later revealed that he was in fact a 33-year-old Czech woman, known as Skrlová. She suffered from hypopituitarism, the disease that made her look smaller and much younger than she was. Realizing her illness, Skrlová used it in her favor.
The woman was a criminal who had committed crimes in the Czech Republic when she came to live with her two sisters and their two children. Her sister had a significant mental illness which made her a target for Skrlová’s manipulation. Once she realized she could manipulate the family, she began to fabricate stories of the children breaking rules for which she enforced more and more extreme forms of punishment. She eventually managed to convince the family to lock the children in the basement and deprive them of food. Since the situation had gotten so bad, neighbors began to notice and eventually reported the crime.
It was at this point she was able to escape and posed as a 13-year-old boy who had been reported missing. After she ran away, she was able to pose as the boy for a period of time, before being eventually discovered. This ultimately led to her capture. It’s easy to see the parallels between this story and the story in Orphan.
Natalia Grace Case
After Orphan was released in 2009, a unique case came to light, which people have speculated may have been influenced by the events which were shown in the film. In Indiana, a couple named Kristine and Michael Barrett who had already raised several children with special needs became subject to similar kinds of events that were shown on-screen. They adopted a six-year-old girl from Ukraine whose name was Natalia Grace, who had a rare form of dwarfism that made walking difficult for her. She had already been living in the USA for two years before she came into their care, however, the previous family let her go from their care for undisclosed reasons.
Soon after she was in their care, the family began to notice strange behavior from Natalia. It was reported that she would threaten the family — and there was even one incident that involved her trying to pour bleach into their morning coffee. Eventually, Kristine suspected that Natalia was not actually a child, a suspicion fueled by her advanced vocabulary and lack of interest in toys.
They were able to legally change her age to 22 after their claims were backed up by medical reports (however, these were later refuted). The parents were later charged with neglect. After the incident, Kristine still maintains that the child was posing as an adult the whole time, but her husband has admitted that she was a child and that Kristine had convinced him to lie about her age. It’s since widely been speculated that the couple’s actions may have been influenced by the events in Orphan.
Orphan’s Prequel Movie
After the case of Natalia Grace, Orphan star Isabelle Fuhrman began receiving a barrage of text messages about how that situation reminds the plot of the 2009 horror thriller about the psychopathic pretend child. "That whole story that was out in the U.S. about that family that adopted a child that might have been an adult and then left was all over everywhere", Fuhrman told ComicBook. So, the actress contacted David Leslie Johnson, who wrote and produced Orphan, to talk about a sequel to the film.
The case of Natalia Grace could be the new inspiration behind the sequel – but Johnson had already written the script of Orphan’s strong prequel movie by that time. However, the case of Natalia Grace gained widespread media attention to Orphan: First Kill.
Orphan: First Kill focuses on Esther's backstory and explores the events that lead her to get adopted by the Colemans. The story begins as the most dangerous patient in Estonia's psychiatric hospital, 31-year-old Leena Klammer (as Esther's real name turned out to be), escapes and travels to America by posing as the missing American girl named Esther Albright. This is a fictional story – but like 2009’s Orphan, the prequel movie resembles the case of Barbora Skrlová, the 33-year-old woman who also had deceived her adoptive parents, police, and childcare workers into believing she was a child.
Two real-life incidents, the cases of Barbora Skrlová and Natalia Grace, make Orphan and Orphan: First Kill more scary and believable, reminding us that these truly frightening horrors are not just films.