Invito all'inferno

Invitation to Hell (1984)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A scientist (Robert Urich) moves his wife (Joanna Cassidy) and their two children to a new town where he's going to create a new high-tech spacesuit. Right from the start he realizes that the entire town is expected to be like one another and this includes joining a health club ran by Jessica Jones (Susan Lucci). Soon the scientist begins to realize that something is off and it might all lead back to the club.

INVITATION FROM HELL is a pretty boring, bland and predictable made-for-TV movie that even director Wes Craven seems bored by. I say this because there's very little energy or style in his director and it really does seem as if he's stuck in the TV limitations and can never overcome them. It certainly doesn't help that the screenplay is basically a predictable re-working of THE STEPFORD WIVES and in the end there's really very little entertainment to be found.

One of the biggest problems is that it's very easy to figure out what's going on yet the lead character just keeps walking around like an idiot and never being able to figure it out. While the viewer waits for him to figure things out, you grow more and more tired with everything you're watching. There are a few twists thrown in but they're all rather predictable. Another thing that doesn't help is the fact that the lead character is just a bore as are the supporting ones. If you don't care for a family then you're really not going to care if they live or die. There's no one to really root for or against in the picture.

Urich is a fine actor but he's just too bland here to draw any attention to the character. Cassidy is good in her supporting part and I also thought Lucci was good in her role. Kevin McCarthy also shows up in a brief bit and it was nice seeing him. INVITATION TO HELL really has very little going for it. Craven certainly doesn't bring any energy to the material and seems to have been a project done more money more than love.

Robert Urich was a fine actor, and he makes this TV movie believable. I remember watching this film when I was 15, and when seeing it a second time my opinion stays the same. People lose who they were when enter this exclusive club, in a computer rich Californian town. Urich try's to figure out what is wrong with his family, and I love the Halloween space suit idea, brilliant. This film is about the battle of one's sprit. TV quality, that exceeds, the big budget, Gangs of New York. I wonder if Robert Urich was the compassionate man he portrayed in many of his movie? I hope so! 6 or 7 out of 10.

Better than the typical made-for-TV movie, INVITATION TO HELL is blessed with excellent casting (Urich, Lucci, Cassidy, McCarthy, pre-Murphy Brown Joe Regalbuto, Soleil Moon-Frye) and a high concept update to the familiar Faustian plot. Urich is likable as always and Lucci is particularly fetching and devilishly over the top in the mother of all femme fatale roles. Definitely a product of the 80s from Lucci's occasionally too big hair to the synth-heavy soundtrack to the pre-internet boxy computers. Kind of a hybrid version of STEPFORD WIVES and THEY LIVE, the movie commits early to its apocalyptic Miltonesque vision and horror fans will likely not have many complaints until the soppy, maudlin denouement. 7/10

A man (Robert Urich) get a promotion and moves his family to an isolated community. Here there are a different way of doing things, and a local country club dominates the lives of the citizens... with more going on than meets the eye.

Although this film is entertaining to a point, its made-for-TV origins limit the fun Craven could have had with sex and blood... this film is quite tame, and completely bizarre. Don't ask too many questions about how the plot works, or you'll go crazy.

Mike Mayo nails it on the head when he says, "A capable cast can't compete with goofy plot revelations", and laments that the film "lacks the subversive excesses of his early films". It's true. Maybe this is a swipe at exclusive clubs or yuppies, but it's just toothless. And the biggest plot revelation is revealed in the first minute of the film...

Michael Berryman has a small cameo, and Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster) has some memorable lines and moments, including one with a bunny. If you're waiting for a creepy scene, the closest you come is during a sleepover. And Susan Lucci? The DVD box calls her a "sexy director"... I guess "sexy" meant something else in 1984.

This film could be ranked as Wes Craven's oddest film, and makes a good drinking picture for you and some friends. I suspect most people have never heard of it, and I doubt that Craven really tries to get people to notice.

In the opening scene, a chauffeur is distracted by two women in bikinis and runs over Susan Lucci's character Jessica. She pops back up and fries him.

A family with a young boy and girl move to a new neighborhood. The father has developed a sensor of some kind which his new employer wants for a Venusian spacesuit. The suit can already withstand blasts of flame, as well as shoot lasers and flames. His old fraternity buddy recommended him for the job.

The fraternity buddy gets initiated with his family into a local "club," called Steaming Springs, run by Jessica. They, and practically all the other characters want the new family to join too, but the father is very resistant. He grows more resistant the more insistent and strange the others become. People who belong exhibit sometimes strange behavior, like a boy at a sleepover who is found watching violent stuff on TV late at night, and who becomes hostile when it is shut off.

Not surprisingly, the spa contains a gate to hell, the door code of which starts off with 666.

It's a somewhat entertaining movie with lots of familiar character actors in it. Despite being directed by Wes Craven, there wasn't anything about it that really bore his hand, to my eye.