Review: The Uninvited
Apr 24 2009 By The Journal
landscape: the uninvited (PA: DO NOT REUSE)
HOLLYWOOD continues to save the planet by recycling successful Asian horror films with this drab English language version of Kim Ji-woon’s 2003 supernatural horror, A Tale Of Two Sisters.
Directors Charles and Thomas Guard graduate awkwardly from award-winning shorts to this debut feature, which lingers on the fringes of reality and nightmare.
A climatic sleight of hand is flagged almost from the start and poorly disguised by the Guard brothers, working from a pedestrian screenplay.
The film opens with Anna Rydell (Emily Browning) and her boyfriend at a beach party.
But she shoots off home to her terminally ill mother who is consigned to the boathouse and has to ring a bell for assistance. Strangely, Lilian has been left alone.
Moments later, the boathouse explodes.
Ten months pass and Anna emerges from a psychiatric facility where she has been recovering from a suicide attempt.
Her father is delighted to welcome her home but the blissful reunion is cut short when he reveals he has a new girlfriend, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), the mother’s former nurse.
Anna bonds with her sister over their shared dislike of the new woman but, no sooner is she back in her childhood home than she experiences disturbing visions of her badly burnt mother trying to communicate something from beyond the grave.
She finally deciphers what her mother is trying to say: the explosion was no accident and the perpetrator is closer than they think.
Determined to expose Rachel as a murderess, the sisters search for clues.
The film is generic horror hokum devoid of scares and originality.
Browning looks suitably perplexed as events unfold around her, while Banks plays against type as the former caregiver, who reacts angrily to Anna’s plans to sabotage her relationship.
The script plods but it’s impossible to discuss the ending or comparisons to a certain spooky movie without ruining the twist, not that there is genuinely much to spoil here.
If The Uninvited requests the pleasure of your company for the night, say you’re washing your hair instead.
