Director Thomas Guard not only gives you the plate of food, but also spoon-feeds it to you. Based on the previews of this horror movie, one knows the plot, so the movie gets so predictable that the horror scenes are not surprising. The ending is unexpected, but confusion arises about the beginning and middle of the movie after the truth is revealed in the climax.
The horror film “The Uninvited,” starring Elizabeth Banks and Emily Browning has a good plot of an evil stepmother who feels uninvited by the daughters of Steven (David Strathairn), a book writer who starts dating Rachel (Banks), the nurse of his ill wife who dies in a tragic fire, helplessly in bed in the guest house. The daughters, Anna (Browning) and Alex (Arielle Kebbel) suspect Rachel of murdering their mother.
The movie starts off with Anna talking to her psychiatrist in a mental hospital, where she was placed after a huge break down when her mother died. The doctor gives her the news of finally being able to go home and “finish what she started.” Again, this movie is so predictable, one can guess that this phrase is so awkward, the writers Craig Rosenberg and Carlo Bernard, would not let it stand alone. This phrase is brought up again later on in the movie, which answers the question of the real reason why Anna was placed in the mental hospital.
Even though the movie is very obvious, Browning saves the movie and steals attention. She does a good job in playing her role as the girl who gets dreams and experiences deja vus of Rachel’s so called victims who are trying to tell her something. Browning is very convincing in expressing the hard time she is going through with her mother’s death and her father dating the evil woman.
The relationship between the two sisters is very strong. Anna and Alex are really close even though they have different personalities. Alex is the rebel teenager who goes to parties, gets drunk and is very flirty with the guys. Anna is the emotional one, but seems to go more insane throughout the movie.
Banks performance is poorly applauded. It is hard to picture her as a scary character after seeing her performance in the comedy “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” with Seth Rogen as Zack’s (Rogen) best friend. Banks also has a more sophisticated, serious role in the film “W.” with Josh Brolin where Banks plays Laura Bush, George W. Bush‘s wife.
In “The Uninvited,” Banks gives unblinking stares and short pauses after every few awkward sentences that slowly become irritating after a while, causing the film to lose its role of a horror movie.
So, if you weren’t invited to watch this movie, you would want to remain uninvited. This “want to be horror film” is definitely not a movie anyone would want to see twice.
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