Review: “The Uninvited” (2009)

Not much to see here, folks.

Director: Charles & Thomas Guard

Cast: Emily Browning, Elizabeth banks

Country: USA

“The Uninvited” is an American remake of the grotesque 2003 Korean film “A Tale Of Two Sisters”, and if you have seen the original movie, you might have asked the same question I did when I heard about it’s inevitable American reinterpretation: Huh?

This is because “A Tale Of Two Sisters” was totally different from all of the creepy Asian girl-laden horror movies that have been adaptated over on this side of the planet since the success of “The Ring” (quite possibly the only decent remake, in my opinion). To me, “Sisters” really had nothing I could see American audiences finding any interest in as it was more of a complex psychological thriller than it was a ghost story. Sure, it had it’s share of ugly little kid ghosts but that’s not what made “Sisters” stand out amongst a flock of movies about haunted electronics.

I read in a review long ago that the best way to describe “Sisters” was to call it a “fright poem”. It didn’t follow conventional story-telling or time chronology and it’s intricate yet complex plot required multiple viewings in order to fully “get it”. It was a movie that forced it’s viewers to draw it’s own conclusions after a plethora of plot-twists and mind-fucks: that was the fun of it.

What the Guard brothers do with “The Uninvited”, however, is completely dumb it down to it’s bare bones for it’s English audience, fill it full of drunk and horny high school kids, and strip it of all it’s artistic integrity. It only appeals to the most vanilla of horror fans with it’s PG-13 rating and the plot twist is seen, even if you haven’t viewed the source material, coming a mile away.

Like “Sisters”. “The Uninvited” is about a girl, Anna, who returns home from her stay at a psycho ward, to the behest of the worst psychiatrist on film ever(!), to find that her father has married a significantly younger woman who helped nurse her mother who was gravely ill (with what, they don’t explain). While her mother was alive, the family kept her in a shed (I think this is new to the original story, and why they keep her there, I don’t know) in the front yard when it accidentally burns down with her mother inside. When Anna and her sister/best friend see that their new stepmother is acting quite peculiar, they suspect that their bitchy new house-guest (played perfectly by mega-babe Elizabeth Banks) is behind their mother’s death.

While the plot stays essentially the same if not more accessible for Western audience (lord knows we don’t like to be challenged), the acting and the script are cringe-inducing where the original was superb in both aspects, even for a non-Korean speaker. It’s full of cheap thrills and brutal teen-drama-type acting (which seems to be viral in these Asian horror remakes) and whole lot of dumb decisions made my protagonist Anna which had me yelling at the television (like “What the fuck are you thinking, you dumb bitch?!”).

Why I keep putting myself through hours upon hours of bad Asian-to-America adaptations, I’ll never know. Perhaps I’m waiting for another “The Ring” to come along and surpass my expectations and renew my faith in Hollywood (yeah right). I guess since I’ve seen “A Tale Of Two Sisters” long before I decided to torture myself with “The Uninvited” I’m slightly biased and it’s “shocking” conclusion never really shook me, so maybe if the “Sisters” concept is new to you, you might want to take a look if only to steer you into renting the source material and away from Asian horror rebuilds.