Imagine adopting a little girl, and it turns out that the child is actually a psychopathic, murderous adult who disguises herself as a child to lower her victim’s guards. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that was the plot of the 2009 psychological horror movie Orphan, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
Orphan tells the story of the Coleman family and their newly adopted Russian daughter, Esther, who tries to kill the family. In the film, Esther is a 33-year-old Estonian woman named Leena Klammer, a violent serial killer who was born with a hormonal disorder that stunted her growth and caused what is described as “proportional dwarfism”.
The film is, of course, a work of fiction, which is why it stunned the country when it suddenly crossed into reality with the case of an Eastern European child with dwarfism, Natalia Grace, who it was claimed was an adult who was trying to kill her family. Natalia claims she is a child, but who is telling the truth?
