Just when we thought we were safe from the trendy onslaught of rehashed Asian horror films, “The Uninvited” strides along — a bit late — to capitalize on the now-dying craze. Based on the 2004 Korean film “A Tale of Two Sisters,” the new iteration strays from the original’s subtle tension and imagery, instead collapsing under shoddy development and direction by novice filmmakers The Guard Brothers.
With a formulaic story, “The Uninvited” is in the dirt from the beginning. The film opens with Anna (Emily Browning, “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”) returning to her family from the mental institution after an attempted suicide prompted by the freak death of her mother, only to find that her mother’s former caretaker has seduced the father and usurped the role of matriarch.
Anna, compelled by her suspicions of the succubus stepmother Rachel (Elizabeth Banks, “W.”), begins sleuthing around with her sister, Alex, to reveal the harlot’s evil past to their father. Thanks to Banks’ eerie intensity, this tension alone would have sufficed to make a nervy thriller. But of course it just wouldn’t be a J/K-horror film without ghosts of creepy children, even if they’re completely superfluous, unexplained for most of the film and irrelevant even when they are.
A major flaw in “The Uninvited” is that it simply doesn’t know what kind of film it is trying to be. Given the inexperience of the directors, the film moves like a lost puppy wandering in and out of genres without ever really nailing any of them. The Frankenstein amalgamation starts off as a quiet thriller but abruptly switches to a ghost horror film, only to take a break for the Nancy Drew detective hour and then wraps up in a cheap twist-ending climax on which the entire film is contingent.
In fact, nothing significant happens until the last third of the 87-minute film, which is barely long enough to be considered feature-length. Take, for example, the first hour of the film, which establishes only that the stepmother is sinister and everyone thinks Anna went off the deep end.
Slow build-ups very often work to the advantage of successful horror movies, as they lull the viewer while tension and creepiness almost imperceptibly augment, yet “The Uninvited” neither succeeds at creating tension due to its waywardness nor ever pays out on the sluggish exposition with any chills. Furthermore, the “twist” is so predictable that it makes getting to the end all the slower and more painful process.
Certainly the saddest part of this cinematic catastrophe is that it constantly reminds it had the potential to be so much better. The overall strong performances — especially of Banks showing she can do ominous — is as refreshing as it is rare for the horror genre, yet without a script that effective displays the cast’s talent, they may as well be unknowns. The script further falters by failing to develop a relationship between Anna and the other sister, Alex, who despite being in the title role of the original version, is in no more than a handful of scenes in this remake. Thus, when the twist comes, those who didn’t foresee it remain unaffected since they haven’t been cued to be involved enough.
Despite a lack of originality, the plot could have been workable if The Guard Brother’s had made more appropriate use of the material. As J/K-horror remake films go, this one isn’t the worst, but not by much. Far from unnerving, “The Uninvited” is just unsubstantial, uninteresting and unworthy of anyone’s time.
2 stars out of 5.
