The Uninvited (2009) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: After returning home from a mental institution, a girl believes her mother's ghost is trying to warn her of danger.

Review: Realizing how late in the game they were with these shitty Asian horror remakes, they decided to pull a fast one and rename this movie. Nice try. So, yes, this is the "A Tale of Two Sisters" Hollywood remake. I'll give them a little credit--they did try to change enough up to make it different, but those changes were utterly pathetic. Instead of trying to improve upon AToTS, they opted to follow cookie-cutter tactics that have stopped working years ago. The only true positives you might notice are a more polished production value, the gravitas of having Christopher Young as the composer, and the atmosphere did start off well enough. Plus, that lakeside mansion, man. Must be nice. I guess you could, maybe, consider Emily Browning a positive. I don't know, I just like to call her little Babydoll (you have to say the "little" part) which is what I will refer to her as here.

Unlike AToTS, this film emphasizes the influence of the mental institution with one of the dumbest contrivances that will make (no) sense by the end. Our little Babydoll is released as they believe she is cured...from being suicidal...I guess; hell if I know. When little Babydoll gets home we get more aspects from AToTS as we see the nurse/stepmother (though she's not a stepmother yet) and meet the sister, Alex. This is big departure as AToTS made us believe the sisters were institutionalized together. Dude, if you can't figure out Alex is dead all along, return your horror credentials now. "The Sixth Sense" was masterful in their attempts to hide the revelation--which I still guessed--but this film pretty much begs you to notice. Alex dives under water at one point and never comes up. Is she a fucking whale? Little Babydoll begins to see her mother's ghost which she thinks is trying to warn her about the stepmother. This film plays up the confusion of little Babydoll's memories compared to AToTS as the sick mother was blown up in this incarnation. Again, it doesn't take much to put these pieces together to realize little Babydoll was responsible, hence, the suicide attempts. The two sisters become convinced the stepmother is secretly a murderer hiding her identity, and they want to expose her. Of course shenanigans ensue in the vaguest of ways so that it will be such a startling revelation that Alex is dead and little Babydoll is truly crazy. If they wanted to actually trick the audience, this entire moronic plot should have just been another book the father was writing; they changed his occupation this time around. By the end, little Babydoll ends up back in the mental institution after killing the stepmother, her dumb boyfriend-ish guy, and remembering that she was the one who blew up her mother and Alex. In the worst final twist, we learn that little Babydoll's "friend" at the mental institution was telling little Babydoll her stories which somehow mixed up little Babydoll's memories even further. Yeaaah...surrrre. Did this movie really need a red herring subplot?

In all fairness, this movie starts off well enough and had the potential to do something different with AToTS' material. However, it doesn't take long for whatever momentum was building to taper off quickly. The ghosts look stupid and are completely irrelevant by the end. Little Babydoll actually being somewhat evil doesn't fit the established themes of the film nor does it fit AToTS' emphasis on guilt. The boyfriend-ish guy was painfully stupid and served as serious padding for an already short film. Honestly, this felt like a slightly edgier episode of "Goosebumps" or something. It should go without saying, but, obviously, "A Tale of Two Sisters" blows this movie away effortlessly. Although I find this film to be a huge waste of time, I can't deny it is told competently enough to warrant an average rating. Maybe worth a view to some, but I would stick with AToTS if you want substance from this story.

Notable Moment: The pointless inclusion of a vibrator scene. Come on, son. This was already "Goosebumps" levels of scary...you gotta do better than that to up the ante. And what woman would keep a vibrator in the top shelf of the bathroom?! "Hey, do you have any tylenol--uhh, what's this?"

Final Rating: 5/10