The Uninvitedsounds like the name of a generic horror movie, which is more or less what it is. But when you stop to think about it, the title is actually a clue to the picture’s lameness. Words beginning with “un” do have a certain scary resonance — intimations of the unknown, the undead, the uncontrollable and the unholy — but “uninvited”? As in “not on the guest list”? Only in Hollywood could such a notion be a source of terror.
By the time the credits rolled (“directed by the Guard Brothers”), I wished that the title had referred to me. But invited I was, along with a few hundred other restless souls, for whose company on a wintry Tuesday night I was profoundly grateful.
Two gentlemen behind me kept up a lively, derisive banter — the kind of thing that would ordinarily drive me mad with rage but that in this case saved me a bit of work. Just at the moment when the kindly local sheriff left the heroine alone in a dark room, assuring her that no one else would get hurt — spoiler alert! he was wrong! — one fellow asked his friend: “Is this a commercial break? Because I need to go to the bathroom.”
“And,” his companion said, “I need to see a commercial for a better movie.”
Come to think of it, nearly any random minute of “The Uninvited” (and there are only 87 of them) could serve as just such an advertisement. The movie doesn’t look bad. It includes some picturesque shots of a handsomely rugged coastline and elegant camerawork that would be more effective if the Guards did not shamelessly telegraph every jolt and scare with obvious close-ups, low-angle shots and premature sound cues. Don’t open that garbage can! Don’t look under that stove! Don’t fall in that grave!
The cast includes a worried-looking David Strathairn, and also Elizabeth Banks, gamely exploring the evil-stepmom potential latent in her fresh-faced charm. Emily Browning and Arielle Kebbel play two sisters, one spooky (that’s Anna, played by Ms. Browning), one wild (Alex, Ms. Kebbel), who fret and bicker and shriek and occasionally walk around in bathing suits.
The main problem with “The Uninvited” lies in its refusal to decide just what movie it wants to be a commercial for. It certainly doesn’t have much in common with “A Tale of Two Sisters,” the creepy Korean horror film of which it is supposedly a remake.
Instead it rummages around in familiar domestic genres looking for a reason to exist. Is it a melancholy, I-see-dead-people ghost story? The tale of a teenage girl whose quasi-supernatural gifts are obvious metaphors for sexual anxiety? A serial-killer-in-the-house thriller in the tradition of “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”?
Yes, all of those, though to specify in what order might give away the ridiculous climactic plot twist. And if I did that, I might never get another invitation.
“The Uninvited” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some killing. Some swearing.
