Review #153: The Uninvited (2009)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Charles Guard & Thomas Guard (Directors)

Emily Browning (Anna): Ghost Ship (2002), Darkness Falls (2003), Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

Arielle Kebbel (Alex): The Grudge 2

Elizabeth Banks (Rachel Summers): Slither

David Strathairn (Steven): Eight Men Out (1988), Sneakers (1992), A League of Their Own, The Firm (1993), Dolores Claiborne (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997), Simon Birch (1998), We Are Marshall (2006), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

Maya Massar (Mom): The Cabin in the Woods (2010)

Kevin McNulty (Sheriff Emery): Ernest Goes to School (1994), Timecop (1994), Fantastic Four (2005) & 2 (2007), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Watchmen (2009)

Jesse Moss (Matt): Ginger Snaps (2000), Final Destination 3 (2006)

Dean Paul Gibson (Dr. Silberling): Hollow Man 2 (2006)

Don S. Davis (Mr. Henson): Look Who’s Talking 1 (1989) & 2 (1990), Omen 4 (1991), Hook (1991), Kuffs (1992) Hero (1992), A League of Their Own (1992), Cliffhanger (1993), Needful Things (1993), Con Air (1997), The 6th Day (2000), Miracle (2004), Twin Peaks & Stargate: SG-1 T.V. series

Heather Doerksen (Mildred): Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), Stargate: Atlantis, BSG, Smallville T.V. series

Trailer:

Plot:

After witnessing her ill mother tragically die in a lakehouse fire, a teenager, Anna, is institutionalized to help her overcome with her mental and emotional stress. Anna makes it through her journey and her doctor thinks that it is time for her to be released and start a new phase in getting over it. Some would call it "being crazy", but I would like to look at it as a "mental vacation".

Anna is released and her writer father, Stephen picks her up and takes her back to their isolated lake estate. When they get home, Anna comes to learn that her mother’s nurse, Rachel, has moved into the house and is helping dad “cope” in more ways than one. I bet that involves a little bed side manner.

Anna hooks up with her older sister Alex and the two rekindle their sisterly love relationship. The two of them despise their evil stepmother nanny turned mother, but everything else seems to be going well for Anna…until the dreams and visions set in.

Anna starts having weird ghostly dreams of her mother, the accident and three strange children while she sleeps and sometimes when she’s awake. It seems as if someone from beyond is trying to tell her something. The visions tend to point towards the mysterious stepmother.

Anna shares these dreams with Alex and the two of them start to investigate the past life of Rachel. More and more clues and dreams indicate that Rachel may have been the culprit to stage an accidental death of their ill mother. Meanwhile, Rachel becomes aware that the two are digging a little too deep into her past. Now Anna and Alex must discover the truth behind their mother’s death before someone else gets to them first.

Villain:

Elizabeth Banks (Pictured below) playing the evil stepmother Rachel Summers, can she be the bad girl? Can money, love and lust be motive for killing Anna and Alex’s mother to snug up to dad? Never. Women would never pull such a stunt.

Cast:

The cast of the Uninvited focuses on three key members, Rachel, Anna and Alex. Everyone else is relatively minor…including the dad. Emily Browning (Pictured below) plays the lead character of Anna. Anna is a troubled young teenager who is trying to piece together her life after the tragedy of her mother’s death.

Anna is the quiet, polite and reserve type of youngling that parents would love to have…except for the whole “screwed up in the head” thing. Anna returns home to have psychic visions from the grave as her mother tries to help her piece together her death. Anna is flipping between the dream and real world causing her to freak out at times. Others look upon her as if she’s lost it. I guess that’s understandable.

Anna’s older sister, Alex is played by the lovely Arielle Kebbel. Alex is the wild one of the sisters. You go girl! She’s the rebel who defies the adults in the film and plays the typical rebellious teenager role. Alex shares a special bond with Anna and tries to help her solve the death of their mother, flush out and implicate the evil stepmother.

SFX/Gore:

There weren’t too many deaths in the Uninvited and the film didn’t have a whole lot of gore; hence the PG-13 rating. I hate that rating. Typically these films tend to set me off, because the studios seem to only care about attracting that extra teenage audience by luring them to some crap fest with a lesser rating. However the rating seemed to work with the Uninvited. There wasn’t a lot of room to make the film totally bloody and gory.

TNA:

Continuing on the PG-13 rating, here’s another category that suffers. The male audience gets token eye candy out of the three female stars of the film. There’s a female for each age demographic. For the ones who like ‘em young, there’s Emily Browning as Anna. She may look like she's 14 and she may have the body of a 14 year old, but she's actually 21. Go figure.

The elder and more mature audience has the lovely Elizabeth Banks to slobber over. And in between looking for the exotic twenty something piece of candy is Arielle Kebbel who is showing off her tummy (Pictured left).

Kebbel and Browning support scenes of wearing skimpy bathing suits…and that’s about it. Female audiences…well you don’t get much…except for Jesse Moss as Anna’s boyfriend Matt.

T.Gun’s Take:

The Uninvited is another Asian remake packaged for the American audience. It’s based off the Korean horror film, A Tale of Two Sisters, which is more of an artsy type of film. I saw both films and actually liked The Uninvited a little bit better. To be fair, I wasn’t really in the mood to see a suspenseful thriller when I watched A Tale of Two Sisters. The Korean film (BHA!) was pretty tough to watch and follow which made it easier to gulp the American version.

Unlike most of the Asian to American remakes, there is quite a big twist at the end of the film. It wasn’t totally some type of spiritual/ghostly type of explanation, but it was a little different. I don’t want to spoil much for you just in case you plan on watching it.

For being a PG-13 movie, I didn’t have that much of a problem with it but it doesn’t mean that I totally loved it. Of course I always will lean towards the side of gore and nudity, but in this case, the rating seemed to fit.

The Uninvited was targeted for the broad scale of audiences and was nothing more than a low grade horror film made to appeal to the younger audience than the older. There were very little suspense or on the edge of your seat moments in the film and overall it seemed to be just a watered down thriller.

Overall I wasn’t “wowed” by the film nor was I “pissed”. It was a tolerable time spent watching the flick, and if it wasn’t for the clever twist ending, I probably would have filed this film under the “I was better off watching the Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer for the ump-teenth time” category.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on January 30, 2009 and made $28.5 million at the Box Office ($10.3 million opening weekend)
-Don S. Davis final film; Died June 29, 2008
-Based off the Korean Horror Film: “A Tale of Two Sisters” or “Janghwa, Hongryeon” & the American 1944 film of the same name
-Film shot in Vancouver, British Columbia