Orphan Movie: The Shocking True Story Behind the Horror

horror movies based on real events always give audiences chills and the movie Orphan (from 2009) is a terrifying example! It features an adoption that goes wrong! What makes it even more unnerving is that the story was actually inspired by true events.

The Real Story Behind Orphan

The inspiration comes from Barbora Skrlová! This case made international headlines back in 2008 and it's nothing short of shocking! Skrlová, an adult woman who was 33 years old, was found impersonating a young 13-year-old boy named Adam! The character of Esther from the movie is quite closely modeled after this.

Skrlová’s initial crimes took place in the Czech Republic. This event took place in a household of two sisters and the women’s children. Skrlová, due to the psychological situation with one of these sisters who was struggling with her mental health, found a way to work herself into that household and soon enough her manipulative actions began. She convinced the family that Klara’s children were misbehaving. These issues grew out of control. Eventually Skrlová would convince the family to hide Ondrej and Yakub and starve them. After a neighbor alerted the authorities there was some abuse, the women were arrested but Skrlová would evade capture!

This is when her impersonation came into full force! This shockingly smooth manipulation involved convincing an unwitting set of parents that she was actually their missing child.

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A Copycat Crime?

Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther / Leena in Orphan and Orphan: First Kill Image

Nearly a decade after Orphan came out! There was an eerie event that happened to make fans think just maybe, Orphan was prophetic!

An Indiana couple, Kristine and Michael Barnett, adopted a 6-year-old girl named Natalia Grace from Ukraine.

Things looked normal until some time went by! There were claims made that the young girl made scary comments and even tried to pour bleach into her adoptive mother's coffee! What’s creepy is that Natalia seemed older in some of her actions which lead them to get her a different identity! She's an adult posing as a child! She was then put into an apartment by herself. There were suspicions that there might have been a manipulation and possibly a dangerous situation and they moved to Canada!

The Barnetts, then faced accusations of child neglect when Natalia Grace filed a report herself! What happened here made Kristine Barnett refer back to the Orphan movie saying, that this is "exactly what happened"! The Barnetts faced charges and still there is an open discussion about the legal status of changing her birthday! Natalia was said to be only six while Kristine claimed Natalia was 22! All these details are still to this day debated.

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Orphan: First Kill and Parallels With Real Life

Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther and Rossif Sutherland as Allen in Orphan: First Kill Image

There is not much that could top Orphan. But guess what? This was only the beginning. Fans wanted more. To satiate the world's love of Orphan. They would go ahead and make Orphan: First Kill! Released in August 2022, what's exciting about this is that it showed a lot of real life inspiration. Even in that regard it shares striking similarities.

Both in Orphan, and its sequel movie! We see a chilling look into a scary, believable manipulation scheme!

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Isabelle Fuhrman's Remarkable Transformation

Ester stares into the camera from Orphan First Kill Image

How does Isabelle Fuhrman manage to portray the main character of this gripping story? Well, the production team goes out of their way to recreate how these schemes happen. Using mostly practical effects the entire movie manages to pull off the most believable transformations for this main character and does so to such perfection.

Her acting is pretty remarkable too. In an interview with MovieWeb, she discusses how playing Esther was quite a unique acting challenge!

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Other Horror Movies Based on Real Crimes

Isabelle Fuhrman with makeup running down her face in Orphan. Image

Believe it or not, Orphan was actually based on true life stories!

It's not really the first horror movie to be based on the horrifying realities of actual criminal events. The horror genre has tons of Movies, some of which had a little too much real life creepiness.

The Strangers, from 2008, is one of them.
There are the infamous slasher films like Scream and Halloween which took on the same type of inspiration.
Then there's Zodiac, from 2007 which had a straightforward adaption of a true crime story.

What is very notable is that even those films that we all see as being made-up like The Birds from Alfred Hitchcock had inspiration from a real event (1961). There's also even more examples out there! Like supernatural films like The Exorcist (from 1974) had its own real life inspirations and a few more out there such as Poltergeist (1982)!

You would be shocked that some of these scary movies that focus on horror aren't just that fictional after all. What is really shocking is how many classic horror movies have a link to true events, just like Orphan.

For sure, it leaves audiences with many ideas to ponder! The next time you see these really unbelievable storylines in movies based on horror and psychological thrillers make sure you take into consideration that maybe this isn't so made up after all! That makes watching Orphan, and thinking about this film, its legacy, even scarier knowing just how realistic those schemes and horror storylines really were!