Invited

I couldn't help myself. I raced to write a review about this piece of garbage. The acting is horrible. I think high school drama students could've done a better job than this group of so-called actors. Family members are attending a wedding ceremony of their daughter via a zoom call. All the family members are in the United States but the wedding is taking place in Russia. Things go horribly wrong during the wedding ceremony and the reaction of the family members is so over the top it's laughable. The storyline is laughable. How in the world do movies this bad actually get made? I wanted to turn it off after the first 10 to 15 minutes but I stuck it out throughout the whole thing just to prove my point at what a piece of garbage this movie is. Do not waste your time. This is worse than a junior high school film project. If I could rate it as a zero, I would.

INVITED is a "Found Footage" horror film about a family watching a Zoom wedding, only to slowly realize that something very wrong is happening. At first, it seems like everything is alright, aside from the typical family squabbling. The bride's mother, Linda (Martina Schabron) is battling alcoholism, and trying to get past the damage she has done. Nothing could prepare her for what is about to unfold on her computer screen!

Because we are watching a Zoom event, we might wonder how it could possibly contain any real thrills or chills. Well, wonder no more! As the family begins questioning just what it is that their loved one is marrying into, it all grows more ominous, until the truly jaw-dropping, absolutely berserk, final third!

Now, while not perfect, this movie does pack a wallop, and makes the best of its lower budget and limited sets.

A worthy entry in its subgenre...

INVITED is a movie which plays out entirely on a computer screen, most of it showing a zoom meeting. For those not familiar with this format, movies like THE DEN (2013), UNFRIENDED (2014) and THE HOST (2020), which also used it, demonstrated how impressively far it can be taken to tell a horror story effectively.

In a clever prologue, we learn about the protagonist that she is a recovering alcoholic who has lost both her nursing and driver's licenses, having caused a car accident which left a lasting injury to her son and her relationship with her children, parents and ex-husband in tatters. She logs on to attend together with them an on-line elopement of her estranged daughter, but soon things take a horrific turn...

Although the film starts out quietly, this is one of the more intense works in the found footage genre (a term I use to refer to any movie which extensively uses formats such as purported footage being played, fake documentaries being presented, a computer screen showing events, and even everything being shown from a first-person view perspective). The intensity picks up gradually until in the last half hour or so, everything is in a frenzy.

I enjoy high intensity found footage movies, so this was welcome to me. Another positive was that there is a definite message here about how a weakening of the bonds in a family can lead to some of its members seeking those elsewhere, to the great detriment of everybody involved. There are also a few reasonablyvstaged graphic scenes, and the end credits provide the real-life historical basis for the events shown, accompanied by beautiful dreamy music.

On the negative side, some of the hostility against the mother by family members, especially her own father, seemed a little too contrived; stupid character syndrome reared its ugly head here multiple times; there was definitely a need for make-up for tears and sweat, and inexplicably, in a few scenes, the perspective abruptly changed to a different camera, taking me right out of the movie. A more skillful director would have led the change in perspective required to show us what is going on in a continuous fashion. Also, the movie is sort of open-ended, which some people may not like.

Still, I think most fans of found footage horror films will like this. I know of several other found footage movies which feature cults, but only one them serves as an explicit warning about them, namely THE SACRAMENT (2018), which I liked a tad better than this, but that is not to say that I would not recommend it.

To say this movie is completely nonsensical is giving it too much credit. It takes forever to get going and, when it does, you'll just beg it to stop. The acting is amateur (although I didn't mind the lead actress and actually felt a little bad for her, hence the 1 star). The rest of the cast is embarrassing to passable. And, i understand why the characters are meant to keep her at arms length, but her father was over the top mean. And why the pregnant character does what she does just makes no earthly sense at all. Stupid people doing stupid things just to move the plot along. I hope this didn't cost much to throw together. Because it won't make a dime.