Originality seems to be the only thing truely uninvited into the film The Uninvited.
On paper, this horror flick has promise. Produced by the same people who brought audiences genuine scares with The Ring, and introduced a fair amount of suspense into Disturbia, The Uninvited should keep the audience on the edge of their seats or peeking through the hands covering their eyes. But the film takes too few elements from both, and the result is an unsuccessful combination that is neither all that thrilling nor scary.
Following her mom's tragic death in a house fire, Anna Rydell (Emily Browning) returns home from a mental hospital, only to find her dad dating her mom's former nurse, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks). Anna and her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) become convinced that Rachel is not who she appears to be and is more dangerous than she lets on. Anna is repeatedly haunted by her mother and other ghosts as she struggles to uncover the truth about Rachel, before time runs out.
Try as they might, Browning and Banks can't keep the film from falling into "haven't I seen this before" category. They do the best with limited material, but Banks is constantly reduced to two dimensionality, with every word off her lips easily read as a sinister double meaning. Still, they make the film watchable, and do their best to convince the viewer they should be scared. The story is nothing original, and even a twist at the end can't save the film from seeming a little too reliant on tricks used by horror films in the past decade.
The members of the D.C. audience at AMC Mazza Gallerie were equally unimpressed with the film. The scares were both laughable and minimal, with one of the biggest jumps from the audience coming from the simple screech of hangers. The rest of the time, audience could be heard muttering things like "oh, please" and "c'mon, really?" They knew when scares were expected, and knew enough to expect not to be scared by the time the movie reached the half-way mark. If this audience is any indicator of D.C's propensity for being scared by this PG-13 horror film, The Uninvited is unlikely to inspire any nightmares in the District tonight.
The Uninvited
Starring: Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks, Arielle Kebbel, and David Stathairn.
Rated PG-13
87 minutes
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