2009 has already seen a great supply of horror films, with The Unborn and My Bloody Valentine headlining the bunch. Enter 'The Uninvited', an original thriller with some mildly scary moments that is not a horrible way to spend 2 hours. The film borrows from a few other films while forging a decent identity of its own, thus making it somewhat memorable and by no means terrible.
The film deals with a girl (the beautiful Emily Browning) who is released from a psychiatric facility months after being involved in a terrible tragedy. When she returns to find her father (David Strathairn) in the arms of a new woman (Elizabeth Banks), she begins to doubt her family, her life, but never her sanity as she looks to find something against her future step mother.
The biggest allure of this film is that it has a massive plot twist in the end that really excuses the film from the somewhat weird performance of Elizabeth Banks. The film is a great psychological exercise, and the twist really makes her performance much better once you understand why her character was so weirdly over the top at moments. I felt Browning did an excellent job of making us side with her character, while making her just mysterious enough to doubt her. It really kept me on my toes. David Strathairn is going through the motions in a role that almost any decent actor could play. His only job in the film is to pretend to be in love with Elizabeth Banks, and we all know how hard that is.
Really, there isn't too much going on here with 'The Uninvited'. It does nothing new, but a lot of things right. Hell, the twist will remind you of a couple of other thrillers that seem supernatural, as the film is. I did enjoy the film's score a lot, and I appreciated that the film didn't take the general cliché route. In the modern (slightly) horror/thriller, it becomes all to easy to just borrow way too much from other films, become the 'Eagle Eye' of the genre, and become laughable in the end. Fortunately, in my theater of about 25 people, the film got just one mild and feeble laugh, and a lot more yelps of surprise.
In the end, 'The Uninvited' is worth a look if you have some time on your hands, and is the exception, not the rule, to the long standing beliefs about films released in January. I should also mention that every main character is very easy on the eyes, especially Browning, who is simply stunning in every scene. Yes, even the one where she...well, you should see it to find out for yourself.
The film deals with a girl (the beautiful Emily Browning) who is released from a psychiatric facility months after being involved in a terrible tragedy. When she returns to find her father (David Strathairn) in the arms of a new woman (Elizabeth Banks), she begins to doubt her family, her life, but never her sanity as she looks to find something against her future step mother.
The biggest allure of this film is that it has a massive plot twist in the end that really excuses the film from the somewhat weird performance of Elizabeth Banks. The film is a great psychological exercise, and the twist really makes her performance much better once you understand why her character was so weirdly over the top at moments. I felt Browning did an excellent job of making us side with her character, while making her just mysterious enough to doubt her. It really kept me on my toes. David Strathairn is going through the motions in a role that almost any decent actor could play. His only job in the film is to pretend to be in love with Elizabeth Banks, and we all know how hard that is.
Really, there isn't too much going on here with 'The Uninvited'. It does nothing new, but a lot of things right. Hell, the twist will remind you of a couple of other thrillers that seem supernatural, as the film is. I did enjoy the film's score a lot, and I appreciated that the film didn't take the general cliché route. In the modern (slightly) horror/thriller, it becomes all to easy to just borrow way too much from other films, become the 'Eagle Eye' of the genre, and become laughable in the end. Fortunately, in my theater of about 25 people, the film got just one mild and feeble laugh, and a lot more yelps of surprise.
In the end, 'The Uninvited' is worth a look if you have some time on your hands, and is the exception, not the rule, to the long standing beliefs about films released in January. I should also mention that every main character is very easy on the eyes, especially Browning, who is simply stunning in every scene. Yes, even the one where she...well, you should see it to find out for yourself.