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When reading the title Adopting Terror, one may think this film is a B movie. Let me assure you, it is far from being a B movie. It earns a score as low as it gets.
A social worker intending to put a baby girl into protective custody knocks on the door of a motel room only to be shot at by the baby’s crazed father (it turns out she wasn’t so abandoned after all). The baby girl gets adopted by a lovely, stable couple played by Sean Astin and Samarie Armstrong. They are all set for Ever After, or so they think. After kissing a government worker, Daddy dearest gets freed from prison, and where there’s a will, there’s a way, and boy does he have the will to escape, so expect to see him tracking his daughter down.
As he searches for answers regarding severed parental rights, birth dad’s menacing stalker tendencies escalate. He pushes all borders of invasion by lurking around suburbia, which is frightening enough. His antics do not actively threaten this new family, but his presence is certainly menacing. The new parents have reasons to worry, precisely regarding the legal opposition that prevents the social worker (played by Monet Mazur) from fully allowing them parental adoption. There are extreme cases like violent men stalking which is bound to amplify stress levels, thus making it quite difficult for potential parents to fully adopt, making the whole situation riskier than it already needs to be.
Anyone who has watched the multiple spin-offs of the cult classic Cape Fear would be familiar with this film having the same thread line. A very mild form of stalking where the aim is meticulously hidden and the intent is to evade law enforcement positions the perpetrator in an unassailable position. This makes them apathetic, as there is nothing they can do. Now the stalked person’s life becomes so devastating that in order to even hope for relief, they resort to extreme measures. What ends up happening is that they start appearing to be crazy individuals in dire need of help from law enforcement. But it is these stalkers, and not the cops, who they need to confront.
Nothing really, except for a twist with the couple’s social worker that is so painfully obvious and cliche, the screenwriter should get a basket full of screenwriting 101 books as a gentle reminder that every trick they think they have up their sleeve is painfully obvious.
This is not a horror movie. It is rather an un-thrilling thriller without any thrills. Regardless, the cast does focus on putting their best foot forward and gives commendable performances. Particularly commendable to me was Samaire Armstrong, who in my opinion, gave a performance of nuanced vulnerable resiliency that was ultimately wasted in a film like this.
Brendan Fehr, for example, is a one-man cast dubbed the “disobedient baby father” who couples descriptor bravado with an actual lackluster performance in this film. Whether he auditioned for this role or simply accepted it as is, his sad portrayal of the character tells me he definitely got knocked out, placed on set and expected to act when he woke up. Maybe he fought back somewhat but relented in the end. In a nutshell, instead of a furious maniac, he is some vague semblance of a lifeless person.
Maybe the lack of performance noted above helped the directors realize their blunder, and so they attempt to show the audience, like children, how scary he is by making clever cinematographic choices, like other characters abruptly remembering he exists while he is watching them from several feet away and showing them his unflinching statue-esque position while eerie music slowly builds.
The music for this movie is like a heavy blanket on the production. It just weighs everything down. Any chance of real emotion being portrayed is ultimately ruined by either music so sickly Hallmark commercial-esque that it’s disgusting, or music so mercilessly and doom-driven that it could give you a migraine.
This baby is not something you want inhabiting your household. I say send it back to the video orphanage- your family will appreciate it.
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