Uninvited, The (2009) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

A grieving teenager discovers upon her release from a mental hospital that her father plans to marry the nurse who took care of his now-deceased wife. Soon, the girl begins to receive foreboding warnings from her mother's ghost.

From the producers of The Ring and Disturbia comes a nail-biting thriller, The Uninvited. Following the suspicious death of their mother, sisters Anna and Alex become entangled in a deadly battle of wills when their father becomes engaged to Rachel, their mother's former caretaker. As the two sisters investigate Rachel's questionable past, they are confronted with ghostly visions, terrifying nightmares and deadly consequences. All leading to an ending so shocking it "will send chills down your spine!"

Storyline: After the death of her ill mother in a fire, the young teenager Anna tries to commit suicide and is sent to a mental institution for treatment. Ten months later, Anna still cannot remember what had happened on the night her mother died. Her psychiatric Dr. Silberling, however, discharges her telling that she has resolved her issues. Her father and successful writer, Steven, brings her back home in an isolated mansion nearby the coast. Anna finds that her mother's former nurse, Rachel Summers, is her stepmother now. Anna meets her beloved sister, Alex, swimming in the sea. She discovers that Steven has not delivered the letters and CDs that Alex had sent to her. As time moves on, Anna is haunted by ghosts and she believes that Rachel killed her mother. Alex and Anna decide to look for evidences to prove that Rachel is the murderer and Anna discovers the truth about the fire in the boat house. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, April 29, 2009 Don't go home.

The Horror genre seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place, many of the latest releases returning to and re-imagining the brutal, unrelenting gore and iconic hardcore killers of the 1980s while most of the other offerings play to tamed formula, offering recycled plots from superior Asian pictures. The Uninvited falls squarely into the latter camp, the film a remake of the 2003 South Korean picture A Tale of Two Sisters. Not too scary, not too violent, not too atmospheric, and not too captivating, The Uninvited is about as generic as they come, but despite an experience that is almost completely forgettable, the film rises a step above some of its contemporaries and turns out to be an oddly watchable movie that moves briskly, get the audience involved in the plight of the characters, and throws a few twists into the last few minutes, some of which work, some of which do not. It's something of an odd experience, but as the film wears on it becomes clear that The Uninvited is its own worst enemy.

Anna (Emily Browning) has been traumatized by the untimely death of her invalid mother, continually dreaming of the incident, and for the past months committed to a psychiatric hospital and under the care of a compassionate doctor. When she is released from the hospital, she finds her home a far different place than she left it. Her father (David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) is in a serious relationship with his deceased wife's caregiver, the much younger Rachel (Elizabeth Banks, Invincible). Although discharged from the hospital, Anna continues to have visions of her mother, and finally deduces that her mother is pointing out her killer -- Rachel. Anna and her cooperative older sister, Alex (Arielle Kebbel), begin to piece together the clues that lead them to believe that Rachel is not only the killer, but is deceiving their father, too. The girls enter into a dangerous game where they must regain the confidence of their infatuated father and stop Rachel before, if the girls are to be believed, she has a chance to tear their family apart from within.

The primary problem with The Uninvited stems not from the casting or the crux of the story, but rather the integration of Horror elements into the picture. The Uninvited falls victim to the tired and bland contemporary Horror tactic of populating the film with disfigured, oddly-moving and jerky characters that scurry about in the shadows. This adds virtually nothing to the overall feel of the film, which would have worked better sans cheap scares and instead playing as a straight Thriller. In the sense that it is a Horror picture, it's something more akin to a poor man's M. Night Shyamalan film, playing with elements that offer to the film a somewhat creepy atmosphere and a few hair-raising shocks. At the end of the day, though, much like The Sixth Sense (a film that also plays heavily in psychological overtones), for example, The Uninvited plays out as more of a Thriller with Dramatic overtones, but unlike The Sixth Sense, this film doesn't incorporate the scares into the story all that well. The Uninvited tells not necessarily a good story, but an intriguing one, although the impact of the story seems lessened by the seemingly unnecessary insertion of a few scenes meant to scare audiences out of their seats. The Uninvited would have been better served had it spent less time on watered-down, been-there-done-that PG-13 Horror and more time developing its characters, their psychology, and their stories -- because there is a very good one here waiting only on some spit and polish to shine.

Technically, The Uninvited is nothing to sneeze at. From an acting perspective, Hollywood veteran and one of the best in the business, David Strathairn, lends instant credibility to the film. Unfortunately, his character is little more than a prop, a necessary addition to allow the Anna-Alex-Rachel trio to dominate the film, but rightly so in the context of the story. Young Emily Browning manages to captivate for the entire film, and if nothing else, she provides a breath of fresh air to the movie and to the Horror genre in general. Far superior to most of the typical damsels-in-distress that so often populate these sorts of films, Browning delivers an honest performance as she searches for the answers surrounding the untimely death of her mother. Co-directors Charles and Thomas Guard lend to the film steady, interesting direction, at once both atmospheric and comforting. The film's less intense sequences offer a homely, warm feel while the more intense, darker, and disturbing sequences seem more kinetic and alive. The brothers do all they can with what is, as it stands, fairly average material, and it is their direction and the fine acting -- particularly from Browning, Strathairn, and Banks -- that makes the movie worth watching.

The Uninvited wallows in current-trend formula Horror and Thriller clichés but does so in the midst of a decent story that could have been more, though it is supported by strong acting and steady direction. The film is also well-paced, occasionally captivating, though it never truly escapes form the clutches of mediocrity. Still, it's one of the better of the Asian Horror remakes, all things considered, and it's been given a decent Blu-ray treatment courtesy of DreamWorks. The disc boasts strong video and audio presentations but severely lacks in bonus materials. All told, The Uninvited is definitely worth a rental.

[CSW] -2.3- Rent it first.
[V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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