The Uninvited (2009)

I watched two films last night and I think I'm gonna start doing that more often. Maybe even watch more. I've got a lot of films to catch up on. I've decide that this whole year is going to be a learning experience for me. I'm going to educate myself more on foreign film. I've always been a fan of them and do own a lot of them but it mostly consists of French, Asian, German, Spanish, and Italian. I would like to see films from more countries and would also like to expand on Asian cinema as well as Italian. I feel like I've seen so many French, German, and Spanish films already.

One of the films I watched last night was "The Uninvited". Of course this is a remake of an asian horror film as is a lot of American horror these days. Do we not have any original horror ideas of our own? I really wanted to like this movie. It had so much promise but I think by the end of it I was confused and a little let down. The film is basically about a young girl who is getting over the death of her sick mom in a fire years earlier. She is released from a psycho ward and back home where her dad has a new girlfriend, the same woman who used to take care of her sick mother. During the course of the movie, she has visions and nightmares of her dead mother and she tries to find out what really happened to her mother. This film had so much promise and I was rooting for it but it just fizzled by the end of it.

Having said that, there are things that I like about the movie. The concept of the film was smart, it just wasn't executed properly. That could probably have something to do with translating the material to accommodate American audiences. The imagery and sound design are indeed very good and that's a very important part of any horror film. When you're doing a horror film, atmospherics are very important and have to be crafted carefully. Take your time with it. Don't be in such a rush to scare your audience because sometimes it's what you don't see that scares you and "Event Horizon" is a great example of that. The film stars Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks, and David Straithairn who has always been a favorite character actor of mine. Loved him in Good Night, and Good Luck and My Blueberry Nights. I felt he was underused here, but still managed to pull in an effective performance nonetheless. He totally worked with the little bit that he had. GENIUS. Emily Browning did a great job as well, really conveying the confusion of her character and not overdoing it during the scare scenes. She was believable. Elizabeth Banks was interesting to me because of what the ending reveals. I'm not going to spoil it but I really feel sympathetic towards her character because she wanted something so badly that she couldn't have and her actions were mistaken for something else. I can't say much more without ruining the ending but you'll see what I'm talking about. That's another thing, the ending was a smart twist and idea but it was executed in a weird way. I understand what happened but the way they explained it was confusing. Ultimately I was let down.

I recommend a rental if you're curious, but a movie like this is only worth watching if you have a home theater to experience the amazing sound design that, in my opinion, makes the movie worth watching for fun.