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Hollywood has a pitiful history of remaking Japanese and Korean horror movies (The Grudge, Alone, Dark Water, One Missed Call etc) following the commercial success of one film - The Ring. Unfortunately, here is another wasted effort from the dry well of Asian remakes.
This offering is based on the Korean film A Tale Of Two Sisters and the plot of The Uninvited will sound all too familiar to the regular thriller movie buff.
Troubled teen Anna (Emily Browning) has seen her ill mother die in a fire. We meet her a year later in an institution where she is describing nightmares related to the incident to a psychiatrist.
After months of treatment she is free to go home with her dad (David Strathairn) as the psychiatrist feels she is cured.
However, she continues to see haunting images and is even more traumatised by her dad's new girlfriend - Rachael (Elizabeth Banks), who was her late mother's nurse.
Anna and Alex (Arielle Kebbel), her elder sister, are convinced that Rachael killed their mother in order to gain access to their father's money and will not stop at any cost, even if it means more murders. They must try and stop her.
The Uninvited is stuffed with easy scares, scantily-clad girls climbing spooky stairs, creepy 'don't look into that dustbin' moments and plenty of premature sound cues at crucial points.
Banks' performance is by far too predictable as she makes no attempt to hide her maliciousness from the start.
Interestingly, there is a knockout punch towards the end of the movie which is quite unexpected and probably makes up for all the earlier nonsense.
But, this makes it only slightly better than some of the other movies in the same genre. It would also be unfair to conclude this review without mentioning the shots of beautiful rugged coastlines and a gorgeous lakeside mansion.
If you are a bubble-headed teenager, or a woman with issues, you should probably go see this movie. The rest of you should resist and move on with life.
Showing in: Seef II, Saar Cineplex
