The Invoking (2013)
3/10
FATHER KNOWS BEST
15 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Sam (Trin Miller) inherits a house owned by her aunt. It is one she lived in as a child until five when her parents put her up for adoption. Her memory of the place is worse than a Watergate defendant. Her friends include Mark (Brandon Anthony), her ex-boyfriend who just broke up with his girlfriend. Roman (Josh Truax)is bummed out because Caitlin (Andi Norris) who has all the decent lines is leaving for six months. We really don't know what the heck their relationship is. Eric (D'Angelo Midili) is the caretaker. He remembers Sam, but doesn't give her any important details as why she was put up for adoption at five. All three guys are loosely and sadly based on the creepiness of Norman Bates. Is there a writer in the house?

Things escalate as Sam sees and hears things blending the past with the present. The green monster complicates matters among all the testosterone. At an hour into the film you get your first WTF moment as someone slips out of character...or perhaps into character.

The downfall of the film is that it creates only one decent character, Caitlin. The ending becomes bizarre and doesn't offer up any real closure, except what the audience might surmise. The film for the most part was boring. The ending should have brought the story together and gave meaning to all those boring parts. And what was that abandoned building they stopped at in the beginning? It looked like the dome of a small experimental reactor. A good script would have tied this stuff together, instead we get the sloppiness too often found in indie productions, i.e. let's start shooting and see what looks good afterwards.
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