It sure does seem like horror season at the multiplex lately. The Uninvited is the latest mainstream fright fest to be released and by and large it exceeds the modest expectations that its recent predecessors have established. It knows how to work around its limitations.
It’s hard to deliver genuine scares when you’re weighed down by a R13 rating. It effectively removes the possibilities for over the top gore. But instead of fighting against this like a lot of previous efforts, the filmmakers have chosen to work around it. Grotesquery is substituted with set pieces that deal in a more hallucinatory tension, a refreshing attempt to breathe new life into a formula fast becoming stale.
Emily Browning and Elizabeth Banks are both well cast in their respective roles, Banks in particular showing a side previously unseen. There is nothing revolutionary about the characters they are playing, but they are convincing portrayals of good and evil.
The more seasoned horror movie viewer might not find The Uninvited all that scary. They should source out the Korean original. The remake will please its target audience of teenage girls.
