Though not in the top of psychological horror movies, “The Uninvited” is a well-paced flick and offers enough twists to keep the audience stuck to their seats. The DreamWorks release is filled with spooky moments able to turn into a big event the film’s opening on Friday, the 30th of January 30, but it may not be around for long.
“The Uninvited” is adapted from another picture directed and written by Kim Jee-woon, released in 2003, called “Changhwa Hongryon” (“A Tale of Two Sisters”), which was a respectably horror film, even though it occasionally got confusing.
This prosaic American version was directed by the British brothers Charles and Thomas Guard, who on this occasion made their feature-film debut. They accepted the collaboration of Craig Rosenberg, who scripted “After the Sunset,” Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard (“The Great Raid”).
The movie’s events are effectively ambiguous. Anna, a fragile teenage girl, played by Emily Browning is finally coming home after spending some time in a mental institution. She was put there after trying to kill herself when her mother died in a fire. Anna’s mother was ill and requested to stay in the guest house on the family’s huge New England coastal estate, so that she would not be too much trouble for anybody. Anna also has an older sister, Alex embodied by Arielle Kebbel who initially feels betrayed that Anna left her alone, but soon comes around. Their father, Steven played by David Strathairn, is a famous novelist who loves his daughters very much but who gets emotionally involved with his late wife’s beautiful and young nurse, Rachel, played by Elizabeth Banks.
Nothing scary so far, but things change as soon as Anna begins having visions of, alternately, her dead mother and a strange little girl. Everything turns into a nightmare for her, as she gets confused for not knowing how to interpret the situation. She does not know whether her visions, which indicate the nice nurse killing her mother, are dangerous to her or they come like a warning for the danger she is in at present. The question arises: are Anna’s visions reliable specters or are they the result of her twisted imagination?
Either way, the two sisters are sure that Rachel is not what she seems, as Banks plays the part of the usual manipulative interloper.She is assertive and splendidly ambiguous as Rachel, doing everything in such way that it can be read in many different ways As for Strathairn, well he embodies a man who actually wants to be a good father but does not necessarily know how to do it.
The film makes good use of the setting. Most of the drama takes place in an isolated, lakeside home, an ideal haunted mansion. In fact, all of the production values are solid, but in spite of that, the film never really generates sustained suspense.
It is kind of difficult to say too much about the plot without revealing the movie's surprises. Even though the suspense and the scary moments are not original, they manage to be exciting and interesting, almost like in a puzzle where each piece is carefully laid out. The ending might not be able to make much sense turning everything we thought we had clear until that moment upside down. “The Uninvited” is not the kind of movie to blow us away, but in spite of that, it may earn appreciation both by teens and older viewers.
