Orphan, the psychological horror movie a few couple who undertake a psychopathic nine-year-old woman, drew new consideration after the story of Natalia Grace, whose story made headlines in 2023 and was featured within the Investigation Discovery docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. The case raised stunning similarities between the movie and her real-life experiences.
Find out extra concerning the movie and its potential connection to Natalia Grace.
When Did Orphan Come Out?
Orphan was launched in 2009.
Who Is Natalia Grace?
Grace was born in Ukraine to a 24-year-old mom who gave her up for adoption as a consequence of her dwarfism. After spending time in an orphanage and unstable houses, she was dropped at the U.S. by way of worldwide adoption by New Hampshire couple Dyan and Gary Ciccone in 2008, in keeping with courtroom paperwork and PEOPLE. However, they later gave her up, and in 2010, she was adopted by the Barnetts, an Indiana couple with three sons.
Grace was six when she was adopted by Kristine and Michael Barnett. However, the Barnetts grew suspicious of her age once they claimed to have found that she had pubic hair, was menstruating, and had developed many grownup tooth. In 2012, they petitioned the Marion County probate courtroom to legally change Grace’s start 12 months from 2003 to 1989. This course of, generally known as “re-aging,” successfully remodeled their 8-year-old daughter right into a 22-year-old grownup in a single day.
Was Orphan Based on Natalia Grace’s Story?
The film Orphan was launched earlier than Grace was adopted by the Barnetts, so it couldn’t have been primarily based on her story. However, Grace has talked about in Natalia Speaks that she believes the Barnetts’ allegations about her had been immediately impressed by the film Orphan.
“The things that Kristine and Michael have said that I’ve done is a lie. It was all copied off the movie ‘Orphan,’” Grace says within the documentary collection. “Ukrainian girl, Russian girl, check. Orphan, check. All this crazy stuff. Standing at the end of the bed with a knife, check.”
The film Orphan is alleged to be impressed by the story of Barbora Škrlová, a Czech girl in her 30s who posed as a 13-year-old in Norway. Škrlová, who had hypopituitarism — a uncommon situation affecting hormone manufacturing within the pituitary gland — was adopted by Klara Mauerova, a lady later accused of abusing her organic sons whereas Škrlová was in her care. In an try and evade Czech authorities and keep away from testifying in Mauerova’s child-abuse case, Škrlová, then 33 years outdated, escaped to Norway, the place she posed as a 13-year-old boy named Adam.
She was finally captured by authorities in 2008, and her case gained consideration within the Czech Republic in mid-2007.