The Uninvited (2009)

Directed by: Charles Guard, Thomas Guard | 87 minutes | drama, horror, thriller | Actors: Emily Browning, Arielle Kebbel, David Strathairn, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Massar, Kevin McNulty, Jesse Moss, Dean Paul Gibson, Don S. Davis, Lex Burnham, Matthew Bristol, Danny Bristol, Heather Doerksen, Alfred E. Humphreys, Ryan Cowie, Troy Rudolph, John Prowse

‘The Uninvited’ is a fair rarity in the universe of American remakes of Japanese horror films. For once it is not an uninspired, practical one-on-one copy of the original, but a film that is true to the ideas and main plot points of the source material and then manages to mold it into an original form that shows its own character. For example, ‘The Uninvited’ has become a horror adaptation that has a right to exist, although showing some creativity does not immediately mean that there is nothing to criticize about the film. ‘The Uninvited’ introduces some new negatives with its additions, but at the same time it is also an effective genre piece that has become a more intelligent and interesting type of film than similar horror stories due to its dramatic layer.

Fortunately, the Guard brothers directing have largely moved away from the iconic, clichéd image of the slow-moving girl with long black hair in front of her eyes that terrorizes the characters. This concept, which still sent shivers down the spine in ‘Ringu’ (‘The Ring’), has now been so exhausted that such a black-haired girl will mainly result in frowning eyebrows and tired looks. Fortunately, much has remained intact, albeit in slightly modified form.

Here too, on the first night with her father and stepmother, Anna’s bedroom door opens slowly and creaks, and suddenly a hand appears above the edge of the bed and grabs her sheets. This time also a nerve-racking scene. The scary moments in the film are less mysterious here and more clearly related to the overarching story. The trauma associated with the death of Anna’s mother immediately gives rise to visions and frights, when Anna sees, for example, in one scene an apparition of her mother trying to tell her something, as in the best ‘Sixth Sense’ tradition.

The horror fans who love real heartbreaking scares are in the right place with this film. Right during the opening of the film, when Anna walks in a forest towards some suspicious-looking garbage bags and slowly opens them, the viewer can prepare for shivers and hair standing on end. Not that the moment in question is very surprising, but this might just be the “problem”. As a viewer you know that something is going to happen and because of this you hardly dare to look when Anna agonizingly slowly moves towards her goal. But the scare itself always comes unexpectedly and misses nothing of its effect. Another nerve-racking scene takes place when something rolls under the oven in the kitchen and Anna has to get on her knees to fish it out from underneath. Viewers familiar with the original know they’ll fly to the ceiling in shock, but everyone will instinctively feel that they’d better peek through the slits of their eyes to hopefully lessen the impact.

On the pure horror level, the film does its job well, although moments like this are relatively rare. Often, tension has to be generated by portraying the stepmother Rachael (Elizabeth Banks) as Evil in the film. Practically from the start, she doesn’t seem to be completely clean on the bone, despite her perfect “all American girl” look. The viewer is pressed in a certain direction a bit too blatantly, which can actually no longer be the right one if there is still room for a surprising twist, which seems to be the rule in recent years. For example, Anna finds all kinds of apparent evidence for the theory that Rachael intends evil and has murder and manslaughter on her plate. But who knows, Rachael is indeed not to be trusted completely and she does have something to do with Anna’s dark past. It certainly won’t surprise anyone that it doesn’t end exactly as Anna thinks.

Despite the somewhat simple development of the film, which takes on the form of a whodunnit a bit too much, the ending is indeed shocking and tragic. The psychological layer that the whole film gets – in reconsideration – is somewhat reminiscent of that in ‘Memento’, where the capriciousness and unreliability of the memory also had major consequences for the plot. It is a pity that the viewer only really gets a strong, empathetic bond with Anna in these final minutes, while this was more the case with the original during the film itself due to a better elaboration of the relationship between the two sisters, in which the eldest was a great support to the youngest and together they formed a nice front against the stepmother. ‘The Uninvited’ has become a valuable adaptation of the Japanese original. One that remains faithful to the original theme and most important scenes, but has also managed to provide its own interpretation.

The film is a bit more explicit and less mysterious and symbolic than the original, and has less visual power than its Japanese predecessor, but in itself is certainly a success, with (eventually) good drama, decent acting, and some blood-curdling horror moments. ‘The Uninvited’ can therefore be viewed as a Western equivalent of ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’. Like the other side of the same fascinating coin.