Case 39

Name: Case 39
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror
Released: October 1, 2010
Duration: 109 min
Rating: 25
Cast: Ian McShane, Jodelle Ferland, Renée Zellweger

2010

METASCORE

Generally unfavorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 113 Ratings

See All

6.6

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6.6	Your Score
6.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 113 Ratings

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Play Sound

Please enter your birth date to watch this video:

You are not allowed to view this material at this time.

Case 39

Now Playing: Case 39

Movie Details & Credits

Paramount Pictures | Release Date: October 1, 2010 | R

Starring: Ian McShane, Jodelle Ferland, Renée Zellweger

Summary: In Case 39, family services social worker Emily Jenkins thinks she has seen it all... until she meets 10-year old Lilith Sullivan and the child's cruel and dangerous parents. Her worst fears are confirmed when the parents try to harm Lily, their only daughter. Frightened for her life, Emily enlists the help of Detective Mike Barron andIn Case 39, family services social worker Emily Jenkins thinks she has seen it all... until she meets 10-year old Lilith Sullivan and the child's cruel and dangerous parents. Her worst fears are confirmed when the parents try to harm Lily, their only daughter. Frightened for her life, Emily enlists the help of Detective Mike Barron and takes Lily in while she continues the search for the perfect foster family. Just as it seems as though Lily is on her way to a more loving home, under the guidance of Emily and psychiatrist, dark forces surrounding this young girl come to light and, little do they know, their attempts to protect her will only bring on greater horror. (Paramount Vantage)… Expand

Director: Christian Alvart

Genre(s): Mystery, Thriller, Horror

Rating: R

Runtime: 109 min

See All Details and Credits

Watch Now

Stream On

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Movieline Michelle Orange

There is enough lurid, ludicrous subtext in the material to keep fans of such things happy. As trash, this is top of the line. Read full review

Jeannette Catsoulis

Radiating a distinctly retro vibe, this throwaway thriller from the German director Christian Alvart tosses a bone to Renée Zellweger, who chews it to a nub as Emily Jenkins, a harried social worker. Read full review

Empire Ian Nathan

Manages to be both very silly and highly forgettable. Only for those who collect killer-children films. Read full review

Chuck Wilson

Has there ever been a more inept trio of big-city caseworkers? Go ahead, Lilith. Unleash the hounds. Read full review

Robert Abele

One can't help experiencing the same dread about the exhausting flood of lackluster horror films that swamp our screens and, as Case 39 unfolds, realizing we're enduring one more. Read full review

Frank Scheck

Director Christian Alvart ("Pandorum") is unable to invest much stylization into the proceedings, and Ray Wright's by-the-book screenplay only serves as a reminder of the innumerable demon-child movies that have preceded this one. Read full review

Leigh Paatsch

This movie is so self- combustingly bad it could never be good. But it's damn great fun to watch the thing go up in flames anyway. Read full review

SEE ALL 15 REVIEWS

Write a Review

User Reviews

giniscanlan

Jan 26, 2011

We've watched a few stinkers lately but this one is a great movie. The plot had enough twists and turns to keep you guessing and I think we all know a kid with the potential...

3 of 5 users found this helpful32

AgentJohnson

Jan 16, 2011

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I found Case 39 to be a very interesting and compelling movie. Pardon me if I don't spend half of my review hyper-focusing on the pea eating scene and aggressively trying to fabricate a series of sexual metaphors from it. It was simply a marker, a fastidiousness that might, normally, seem perfectly natural for a child but was conveyed, through the use of careful camera work, as yet another manifestation of control by the child, of the tempo of even an ordinary dinner.
The most remarkable scene was when the child/demon, after battering down the blocked door and slamming a screwdriver hilt-deep into the floor, slowly crawled to within a few feet of where Emily was hiding and entreated in a silky voice charged with menace: "You don't want me to crawl in there and pull you out, do you?"
I find the negative reviews of this movie to be short on detail and vague. Fails on all levels? We've seen it all before? I disagree. In a genre stuffed with prior efforts, there will be similar elements. What I expect from a movie such as this is to keep me along for the ride and make it interesting and compelling. Case 39 certainly manages it and doesn't set up the kind of glaring contradictions and indecipherable twists of, say, After Life.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

roaldkaspers

Nov 18, 2015

Case 39 is not scary but has a great Story which will definitely keep you hooked. The acting is great, especially Renee Zellweger has done a great Job but Case 39 isn't better then other Horror Movies out there. If you are looking for a good Horror Movie you should pass but otherwise... ICase 39 is not scary but has a great Story which will definitely keep you hooked. The acting is great, especially Renee Zellweger has done a great Job but Case 39 isn't better then other Horror Movies out there. If you are looking for a good Horror Movie you should pass but otherwise... I really recommend this one.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

Meth-dude

Jun 18, 2016

The acting was good enough to seem realistic even though the plot and the CGI effects were pretty unbelievable and the movie was interesting enough to keep the viewer watching the movie entertained.It wasn't a bad movie but, it wasn't a masterpiece either.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Mad_Hatter91

May 8, 2013

This film will not be remembered as a great film, but is doing very well! At the end of a good thriller fate that, despite some errors, succeeds in its intent. I love how he was treated the theme of fear in the film. This is one of my favorite topics. And then there's also the value ofThis film will not be remembered as a great film, but is doing very well! At the end of a good thriller fate that, despite some errors, succeeds in its intent. I love how he was treated the theme of fear in the film. This is one of my favorite topics. And then there's also the value of child-devil, even if outside it looks like a good person, innocent and pretty, is evil inside. Do not trust appearances. This argument, however, has already been seen countless times and is a disadvantage in point of the film. Jodelle Ferland is an actress who absolutely need to watch out because he is demonstrating a skill that few have.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Shiira

Oct 3, 2010

The masturbation scene from William Freidkin's "The Exorcist" will always be shocking. In a sense, the saying, "Now I've seen it all," should have been retired after 1973 when twelve-year-old Regan MacNeil(Linda Blair) jammed a crucifix in her vagina, while burning moviegoers' ears with aThe masturbation scene from William Freidkin's "The Exorcist" will always be shocking. In a sense, the saying, "Now I've seen it all," should have been retired after 1973 when twelve-year-old Regan MacNeil(Linda Blair) jammed a crucifix in her vagina, while burning moviegoers' ears with a scatological mix of sex and religion that not even Prince would ever dare approach. The projectile vomiting, however, so often parodied, and more importantly, smiled upon, since the bodily function plays a big part in the modern comedy aesthetic, as a result, seems to have lost a lot of its initial shock value because moviegoers don't see the devil's bile anymore, they see pea soup. Lilith Sullivan(Jodele Ferland) eats peas, but that's as far as it goes; she masticates and digests; she holds her vegetables down. In "Case 39", it's harder to see the devil inside. As Lilith methodically cuts each pea with a knife and fork, Emily Jenkins(Renee Zelwegger), her foster mother, thinks nothing of it, chalking up the girl's idiosyncratic eating habits as a symptom of her abused past. The devil inside Lilith also knows how to keep its sexual appetite in check; the devil keeps things discreet. Adorning those walls of the girl's old house, the domicile where Lilith was almost cooked alive, trapped inside the oven, put there by her parents, as if the whole family were characters out of a modern-day Brothers Grimm fairytale, are crucifixes, that, as Sheena Easton would put it, never "spend[s] a night in [her] sugar walls," but nevertheless, carries a certain sexual latency, being that the devil would distort the Christian relic's holy significance the first chance he'd get. Naturally, the carefully sliced peas has nothing to do with persnicketiness; it's a warning sign, unbeknownst to Emily, that her charge, the devil incarnate, perceives Doug(Bradley Cooper), a child psychiatrist, as a rival for the dim-witted woman's attention(but to be fair, all horror movie heroines are programmed this way), and an affront to the foster parent's boyfriend's prowess as a satisfactory lover, in which the peas denote small balls, and its smashing, denotes further that small balls is no match for big balls. Not only does Doug die, but the girl's father, Edward Sullivan(Callum Keith Rennie), too, whom the girl's mother, Margaret(Kerry O'Malley) chose over Lilith/the devil after she rejects her/his overture to, perhaps, engender devil spawn. The audience gets to see this scenario play out for themselves. When Emily, finally, at long last, realizes the mess she's in, the devil turns on the charm, utilizing its proxy to play the lolita, by tweaking the girl's feminine voice to flirtatious and persuasive heights, as a means to coax her guardian from under the bed. Since this is the devil we're talking about, Lilith probably wants to do more than talk.… Expand

2 of 4 users found this helpful22

sailoraide

Jan 9, 2011

It should come as an immediate indictment of Case 39 that I have begun writing this review before it even ends. The reason? The film just isn't that interesting.

As far as demonic child horror flicks go, this is probably one of the worst. I have thought hard and cannot seem to find anyIt should come as an immediate indictment of Case 39 that I have begun writing this review before it even ends. The reason? The film just isn't that interesting.

As far as demonic child horror flicks go, this is probably one of the worst. I have thought hard and cannot seem to find any redeemable qualities. The two biggest scares of the movie: a dog barking and an alarm clock going off. Wow. Scary stuff right there. Except, it isn't. Instead Case 39 offers up cheap thrills, horribly melodramatic acting and a storyline so cliche that you'll swear you've seen this somewhere before. Not to give away too much (in case you're just bored enough to actually watch this) but when a possibly-demonic child in the film is named Lilith, it kind of tips the hand.

Now the film has ended so I can say with complete confidence, it never gets any better. It takes a pretty lame psychological horror thriller to make me laugh more than jump, but that's exactly what Case 39 does. I'm so excited that it is over, I may very well go celebrate. I can think of 39 reasons you shouldn't watch this film. If you choose to anyway, you were warned, and don't blame me.… Expand

0 of 3 users found this helpful03

SEE ALL 25 REVIEWS