The Critic Watch: The Uninvited

The Uninvited is a remake of a Korean horror film named A Tale of Two Sisters. This movie was directed by Charles and Thomas Guard and stars Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks, and David Strathaim.  Anna, played by Emily Browning, has been in a psychiatric hospital since her mother was killed and her doctor believes she is ready to go home. When she arrives home she finds the nurse who used to take care of her terminally-ill mother is dating her father. Anna and her sister Alex believe the nurse had killed her mother. This film received an overall rating of 43, so it was not heavily favored by critics. The movie did have some very good ratings, but these were outweighed by negative reviews. 

Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Times gave the movie a 30 out of a 100. He says the movie has a weak story development and really is just filled with the normal cliches of horror films. The twist at the end of the movie seems more like a gimmick than anything else because the filmmakers did not make enough build up. Whipp believes that the Guard brothers' major flaw was not having more focus on the sisters' relationship, which was central to the theme in A Tale of Two Sisters.

Elizabeth Weitzmann of the New York Daily News was also not especially impressed with this film, giving it a 40 out of 100. This is just like every other horror flick; filled with cliches and has the elements of so many other easily-forgotten horror films. This is a "classic been-there, done-that scenario: evil stepmother, clueless father, imperiled teen." The Guard brothers' only follow the basic story-line from the original film and then just throws in some cheap scares and lots of cliches. The only positive thing said about this movie was a complement on Browning's good performance. Ultimately the filmmakers should have stuck more to the original story-line and plot.

The writer for the New York Times, A. O. Scott did not give it a much better rating than the previous two critics. He gave the film a 50 and had a few positive things to say about the movie. Again this critic felt it had too many cheap scares and horror-film cliches. It did have good camera work combined with sound FX that added a scary element to the fright scenes, but camera angles and sound FX don't make a movie. The movie was not really very frightening and the twist at the end was not very effective. It did not have much in common with the movie it was apparently a remake of.

Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer felt the movie deserved a 63, which is not too bad for this film. The positives of the film include the great FX and camera work as well as the acting of Emily Browning. Beyond that the movie was extremely dull and did not do much to keep the attention of the critic.

Roger Ebert, a very well-known movie critic, writes for the Chicago Sun-Times and had a much different opinion of this movie than most critics. The cinematography was found to have the classy horror-movie look and did an excellent job of keeping the audience on the edge of their seat. The plot was very good and had an unexpected twist at the end. The casting for the movie was excellent and pretty much seals the deal for this horror film. 

This film received good and bad ratings just like any other film, but almost every critic felt that it was an easily-forgotten horror flick and did not really have anything special to add to the screen. More than anything, when being compared to the Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters, it really had a great deal to live up to and it honestly just showed that Hollywood needs to stop trying to remake Korean horror films. They create great scary movies and Hollywood steals their ideas and just totally butchers them. This film seems like it has a decent story line and has a good cast, but it isn't something that would really capture an audience's attention.