Case 39 (2009)

I don’t normally go for supernatural thrillers very much. I just don’t like mysteries that are explained away by ghosts, demons and those who hang out with them. I like my murdering psychos to be exposed as flesh and blood villains with secret pasts that explain their crimes .You know, like in Scooby-Doo.

Case 39 is very much in the supernatural category, but I picked it up anyway, knowing only it was about a creepy kid, and who can resist a creepy kid movie? Not me, evidently.

Renée Zellweger plays Emily, a dedicated social worker. She has zero social life and is severely overworked. In fact, she has all of 38 open cases, that is, until her boss hands her yet another file. Case 39.

It concerns the Ferlands: mum, dad and 10 year old Lily (Jodelle Ferland). Lily’s teachers say she is displaying signs of abuse so Emily is dispatched to their gloomy old house (is there another kind?) to investigate. The parents sure seem weird but, as Emily’s boss rightly points out, weird does not necessarily a child abuser make. With any lack of evidence, she is forced to drop the case even though her instincts tell her otherwise.

Luckily, she gives the girl her home number just in case, and is able to come to the rescue after Lilly’s parents decide to stuff her in a burning oven one night. Monsters, right?  But how come they have five deadbolts on their bedroom door…on the inside?

With parents in jail, Emily temporarily fosters Lily who is so far all sweetness and innocence. But soon, she starts playing mind games with her psychologist and Emily’s friend, Doug (Bradley Cooper). (“Don’t apologize. You’re a grown-up… it’s embarrassing,” she reprimands him.) And one of Emily’s other young clients commits a horrible crime after apparently receiving a call from Lily.

There is not much good or bad you can say about Case 39. It is a path well traversed and yet, it is not a too bad an example of the genre. It moves along at a really good pace and it delivers just enough thrills (to me, alone in a dark room) to please, without traumatising.

Zellweger is her usual good, squinty self although I am not really sure what she is doing in a B grade horror in the first place. The real standout is a young Ferland, who does a great job in getting you to loathe a pretty, little girl.

For another comme ci, comme ça, creepy kid movie, see my review of Joshua.