Beyazperde now has reviews in English! If you would like to read our critic Oktay Ege Kozak's review of "The Uninvited" in English, read below. New reviews coming soon!
The Uninvited is yet another entry in the seemingly endless trend of Hollywood remaking contemporary Asian horror films, or "J-Horror", since the genre originates from "J"apan. Any member of the audience who's seen a single example of this genre, original or remake, should already know what's in store for them:
Dirty pissed off ghosts with their faces conveniently covered by their long hair, who move like they suffer from a combination of Parkinson's and a severe case of arthritis. Moody ghost children who look so depressed, even the promise of IMAX tickets to the next Harry Potter movie can't cheer them up.
And of course, excruciatingly long shots that close in on an ominous door, window, shower curtain, garbage bag etc. only to end in a sudden reveal of one of the angry ghosts mentioned above, in order to hopefully scare the crap out of the audience.
If you have seen any of The Ring or The Grudge movies, or actually sat through one of the lesser remakes such as The Eye, One Missed Call and Shutter, you know exactly what's in store. The Uninvited will not offer you anything new.
For those of you who have somehow missed out on this J-Horror remake insanity that, along with torture porn and useless factory remakes of slasher classics, helped murder the credibility of the long and proud legacy of American horror cinema, the film will offer you a competently handled supernatural thriller with a semi-clever twist ending that, I must admit, I did not see coming.
The remake victim this time around is a Korean horror flick named (Are we ready?) Janghwa, Hongryeon. The Hollywood version is about a young girl named Anna (Emily Browning) who is committed into a mental hospital after witnessing her mother's brutal death by an unfortunate accident. After being released from the hospital, Anna finds out his father (David Strathairn) is heavily involved with Rachel, Anna's mother's ex-nurse, played by Elizabeth Banks.
Anna's distaste of the ominous Rachel only becomes stronger by her sister Alex's (Arielle Kebbel) hatred of Rachel. But as Anna receives ghostly visions from her dead mother and (guess what?) a group of ghost children who all try to warn Anna about Rachel's possible murderous past. Soon, Anna finds out she might be Rachel's next victim.
British directors The Guard Brothers actually do a decent job with their first Hollywood feature. They probably didn't have much choice in terms of the kind of project they could direct, since J-Horror remakes always prove to be a stepping-stone for up-and-coming directors. They do their best to create at least a credible mood of dread and suspense with the tired and overused material and manage to come out on the middle, if not on top.
The Uninvited is a proud member of a recent storytelling gimmick, used mostly in horror films, which rely heavily on the big plot twist in the end. This means that we will be subject to many frustrating and baffling scenes where the characters make the dumbest decisions imaginable, like when Anna inexplicably refuses to divulge a vital piece of information to her father that proves Rachel is not who he thinks she is. Of course the only reason the characters make these unrealistic choices is to hide the big plot twist from the audience.
If only the next plot twist in the next J-Horror remake would reveal that J-Horror remakes actually never existed, that is was all a dream, and American horror cinema is still as original, fun, and scary as it was in the 70s.