From the outset, Orphan: First Kill doesn’t seem like a likely prequel to the cult and camp classic original. Where the original looks austere and stark in its cinematography and iconography, First Kill looks like a made-for-TV movie. The look of the film seems dredged in vaseline, with a lack of shadows or cinematic depth. It looks like it’s a step removed from soap operas in the way it presents its sets and characters. It somehow looks as if the motion-smoothing TV setting most cinephiles turn off immediately is still on.

The first act also doesn’t present the best foot forward, with its rather pedestrian and typical set up that seems poised to be an inferior remake of the original. First Kill lulls you into a sense of familiarity gone wrong, from the now adult Isabelle Fuhrman returning to the role of Esther; an actor who’s now 25, playing a kid who’s two years younger than she was in the original film.

And yet, through it all, director William Brent Bell is able to recapture some of the magic of the original and make a film that celebrates the camp while dishing out its own twisty narrative.

It begins as Leena (Fuhrman), the-woman-who-would-become-Esther, is imprisoned in the Saarne Institute in Estonia. After a brief setup involving an art teacher, creepy staff and a candy-obsessed inmate, Leena escapes, murders the art teacher and goes on the hunt for a new family to insert herself into. On a website for missing kids, she discovers Esther; a girl who she could conceivably pretend to be. Cut to the wealthy family still mourning their missing daughter.

There’s the absolutely depressed father Allen Albright (Rossif Sutherland), his high profile and ambitious wife Tricia (Julia Stiles) and their son, the fencing and affluenza wannabe Gunnar (Matthew Finlan). When the authorities contact Tricia and Allen, Tricia hopes that reconnecting Esther with the family will mend Allen’s broken heart and get him on the road to recovery. We follow Esther in her attempts to assimilate into the Albright family, navigating psychiatrists and the detective following her abduction case, as well as Tricia who begins to wonder if there’s more to Esther than she’s letting on…

Taken at this brief synopsis, Orphan: First Kill seems poised to recreate the original film, hitting familiar beats and character moments. Part of the fun comes from the knowledge that Esther isn’t a little girl nor is she Esther. The audience gets to see a somewhat uncomfortable and unconfident changeling, as she attempts to scrutinize her situation and learn from her mistakes. And while this is a prequel that provides a few answers to lingering questions from the original film (like Esther’s obsession with black light paint), it manages to avoid the pitfall of exploring why Esther became who she was. Too many times prequels want to humanize the killer and explain “why they are who they are” and First Kill sidesteps that in order to simply tell a story that came before.

What sets this movie apart and makes it the joy it is is because of the direction it takes towards the end. The original film dipped its toes into camp and played with its ridiculous story, but First Kill fulfills the camp promise by going gonzo in the last third. One story twist was easily caught early on in the film, but the way in which the twists unfold left me cackling and gasping at the audacity. Julia Stiles, in particular, manages to indulge in the camp sensibilities but ground her character in a way I didn’t think was possible. She gave a virtuoso performance that reminded me why she was such a rising talent.

The script, written by David Coggeshall but based on a story by the original Orphan writers David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Alex Mace, is smart and uses our understanding of Esther perfectly. Shot by Possessor cinematographer Karim Hussain, First Kill looks, as mentioned above, smudgy and a little cheap (presumably because of the budget), but it also gives the entire film a feeling of artifice that’s enhanced by the adult Fuhrman’s performance. The whole affair has an uncanny valley feel to it which heightens the camp sensibilities and becomes completely unnoticeable by the time the story begins to careen towards fantastic ridiculousness.

William Brent Bell has managed to create a camp masterpiece that feels like the sillier side of Orphan’s austere and cold film. It’s a warmer film that embraces elements of a found family while dissecting, like the original did, the facade of a rich, entitled family. I’m not sure where Orphan: First Kill will ultimately sit in the horror pantheon this year, but it certainly is the most surprising and fantastic surprise of the year so far.