Case 39 Finally Released, Story and Review

I watched Case 39 last night despite my dislike of horror films and having seen the film, I watched its trailer in youtube. I was very surprised when I saw that the trailer was completely different from the film itself! The trailer is actually misleading. In the film, the antagonist, is actually the girl and in the trailer, she does not appear so. This fact made me curious making me read more information related to the film. Reading further, I discovered that the film has been released much later than expected, with lots of postpones. I think this is where the difference came, there were revisions that happened between the times. Before I dwell on that, I would like to say that main casts are great, Emily Jenkins being Renée Zellweger and Lillith Sullivan being Jodelle Ferland acted very good. Yes, the film was not that commercially successful but they did not incur losses either. Very thin margin though but not bad.

From reading more about Case 39's case, of multiple release dates, I found out that the film had indeed many planned release dates, since it first began production back in 2006. Yes, production was as early as 2006! Many years ago indeed. Case 39's initial planned release in the United States was in February 8, 2008, which was postponed to three weeks later, February 22, 2008. One more time, the release date was changed to August 22, 2008, and then that did not happen successfully again. Another changed of release date ws planned for Case 39 release and this time it's April 10, 2009. The same story, April was no good and it got pushed back to a January 1, 2010, and even further when the official US release date was confirmed to be October 1, 2010.

Case 39 Main Casts / Characters
Emily Jenkins - Renée Zellweger
Lillith Sullivan - Jodelle Ferland
Detective Mike Barron - Ian McShane
Douglas J. Ames - Bradley Cooper
Edward Sullivan - Callum Keith Rennie
Margaret Sullivan- Kerry O'Malley

Case 39 Summary or Brief Plot and Synopsis

Very devoted social worker Emily Jenkins, played by Academy Award Winner Renée Zellweger, is assigned to investigate the family of 10-year-old Lillith Sullivan (played by Jodelle Ferland), as she's sleeping in school while her grades have declined and an emotional rift with her parents has been suspected. Emily suspects that Lillith's parents have been abusing her, and proposes to her department to take the child away from her parents' custody. Emily fails at first but she gave her telephone number to Lillith so that she can contact Emily when she needs to. The call from Lillith came and Emily's fears are confirmed when Lillith's parents try to kill her by roasting her in the oven at their home. Emily, rushes to Lillith's house, and eventually rescues Lillith with the help of Detective Mike Barron (Ian McShane).

Lillith is originally sent to a children's home but she begs Emily to adopt or take her toEmily's home instead. With the approval of the correct body, and with the procedures followed, Emily is assigned to take care of Lillith until a suitable foster family comes along. In the meantime, Lillith's parents, Edward and Margaret (Callum Keith Rennie and Kerry O'Malley), are placed in a mental institution. It puzzles Emily how such a rich family, evidenced by their huge residence, reduced to such ruthless, crazy and lifeless individual s such as Lillith's parents. It was later found out that all these are caused by Lillith herself.

Within a few weeks that Lillith moves in with Emily, strange things begin to happen around Emily. Two weeks later, another of Emily's cases, a boy named Diego (Alexander Conti), suddenly murders his parents, and Barron informs Emily that somebody phoned Diego from her house the night before the crime. As she is suspected of involvement in the incident, Lillith undergoes a psychiatric evaluation by Emily's best friend, Douglas J. Ames (Bradley Cooper). During one of the sessions, however, Lillith turns the evaluation around, and successfully learns what is Doug's fear. The same night while studying, Doug receives a strange phone call in his apartment, then Doug has hornets all over him and all over his bathroom. He eventuallypanicked by the sight of a mass of hornets coming out of his body and kills himself in his bathroom by snapping his own neck. It was seen by the authorities as accident.

With the chain of events, Emily becomes fearful of having Lillith in her home, so she heads to the mental asylum for answers from Lillith's parents. Lillith knows this without Emily having to tell her. Lillith's parents tell Emily that the girl is not a simple 10-year old child, but a demon who feeds on feelings, and that they tried to kill her in an attempt to save themselves. Lillith's father tells Emily that the only way to kill Lillith is to get her to sleep.

Lillith's parents shortly die after Emily leaves the asylum, and they both die in unusual circumstances. Lillith's mother is imaginatively fatally burnt and her father is stabbed in the eye with a fork. Barron initially thinks Emily should seek psychiatric help, but is later convinced when he receives a strange phone call in his home from Emily's cellphone, which is being used by Lillith. He arms himself at the police precinct to aid Emily in handling Lillith. However, he inadvertently shoots himself in the head with a shotgun when Lillith makes him imagine he is being attacked by a dog or wolf. Emily tried to give Lillith a camomille drink mixed with good amount of sedative. While Lillith is asleep, Emily sets fire to her house, hoping to get rid of her but Lillith escapes unharmed from the burning house and turned the joke to Emily.

As Emily is following the police car escorting them to a temporary place after the fire, she suddenly takes a different route and drives her car at a high speed, hoping to bring fear to Lillith. Emily succeeds on this as Lillith forces Emily to relive her childhood memory of her mother driving fast in a rainstorm. Emily fights through the memory, telling herself that it is not real. The image fades and Emily asks Lillith if she is afraid. Lillith now appears afraid as she knows that Emily is no longer afraid and she herself fears high speed. Emily then drives the car very fast and eventually off a pier. Lillith could not work her power as she herself is afraid and having lost the weapon of fear she has over Emily. As the car sinks, Emily struggles to lock Lillith (now in demon form) in the trunk by folding the rear seats against the girl. Emily finally exits the car, struggled to go up the depth of the water, but as she swims away, Lillith grabs her leg after punching a hole through the car's left tail light section. Emily struggles to break free until she succeeds in doing so and Lillith finally lets go as the car continues to sink. She climbs back ashore, relieved to be rid of Lillith. The ending implies Lillith sinks with the car... but who knows? Demons rarely die!