Pointless remake #3847
"The Uninvited" is a remake of the Korean horror film "A Tale of Two Sisters," which I have seen. Fortunately, my memory is not the best when it comes to recalling specifics about films I've seen, so I can't compare this movie too closely to the original. Let me just say that: Obviously, you should watch "Tale of Two Sisters" over this. It looks nicer, the acting is better, the story is more unpredictable, the pacing is more fitting. All of these are areas in which "The Uninvited" does not particularly stand out, at least in a good way, and this failure is heightened if you compare it to the original.
If you're done watching the Korean version, though, there are a couple things about "The Uninvited" that may surprise you. The story is not a point-by-point retelling of the original. This shows that there were at least some ambitions behind the movie beyond just making money out of Americans' unwillingness to read subtitles, and that is to be appreciated.
Most other attempts, though, to make the movie into anything more than a throwaway teen mystery thriller are in vain, sadly. The runtime of this movie is 87 minutes, which is a good length for a slasher flick but not for a movie like this. There is a severe lack of scenes that show the characters interacting in a natural way, as pretty much all of the scenes see our main character investigating the true motives of her creepy step-mother. Giving her more time with her father, or her sister, in the beginning of the film could have gone a long way in making me care for their relationships.
Instead, the movie wastes time with stupid nightmare scenes. Maybe the producers thought they need scenes like that in a horror film, but they have absolutely zero tension or suspense, because we KNOW that they are only nightmares and our heroine will wake up screaming and then the movie will go on as before. If these scenes were only visually interesting or inventive, there might have been some value to them, but most of the time you're just staring at a mostly-black screen and listening to ambient noise and jumpscare music. It's boring. The narrative sense behind the nightmares, of course, is to show that Emily Browning's character is traumatized. As if the rest of her scenes didn't make that obvious already ...
The acting is mostly fine, though Elizabeth Banks is not scary and Arielle Kebbel's character is annoying. If the movie had more depth, I might be able to tell you more about the acting or the characters, but they're all little more than archetypes.
As for the visual side, there is one very clever shot in the film that is a very smart example of foreshadowing (and, as such, telling you what it is might count as a spoiler so I'm not gonna do it). During the other 86 minutes, "The Uninvited" looks like every other American horror movie from the 2000s.
Also, on of the twists is quite predictable. I've seen the original, so that criticism might be unfair, but in the 2003 movie, the way the movie was written, directed, and acted made the reveal less predictable, whereas in this one I might have seen it coming even if I hadn't seen the Korean version before.
I appreciated that the movie has a slightly different story from its original, but they do so little with it that I can't recommend this remake to anyone.
If you're done watching the Korean version, though, there are a couple things about "The Uninvited" that may surprise you. The story is not a point-by-point retelling of the original. This shows that there were at least some ambitions behind the movie beyond just making money out of Americans' unwillingness to read subtitles, and that is to be appreciated.
Most other attempts, though, to make the movie into anything more than a throwaway teen mystery thriller are in vain, sadly. The runtime of this movie is 87 minutes, which is a good length for a slasher flick but not for a movie like this. There is a severe lack of scenes that show the characters interacting in a natural way, as pretty much all of the scenes see our main character investigating the true motives of her creepy step-mother. Giving her more time with her father, or her sister, in the beginning of the film could have gone a long way in making me care for their relationships.
Instead, the movie wastes time with stupid nightmare scenes. Maybe the producers thought they need scenes like that in a horror film, but they have absolutely zero tension or suspense, because we KNOW that they are only nightmares and our heroine will wake up screaming and then the movie will go on as before. If these scenes were only visually interesting or inventive, there might have been some value to them, but most of the time you're just staring at a mostly-black screen and listening to ambient noise and jumpscare music. It's boring. The narrative sense behind the nightmares, of course, is to show that Emily Browning's character is traumatized. As if the rest of her scenes didn't make that obvious already ...
The acting is mostly fine, though Elizabeth Banks is not scary and Arielle Kebbel's character is annoying. If the movie had more depth, I might be able to tell you more about the acting or the characters, but they're all little more than archetypes.
As for the visual side, there is one very clever shot in the film that is a very smart example of foreshadowing (and, as such, telling you what it is might count as a spoiler so I'm not gonna do it). During the other 86 minutes, "The Uninvited" looks like every other American horror movie from the 2000s.
Also, on of the twists is quite predictable. I've seen the original, so that criticism might be unfair, but in the 2003 movie, the way the movie was written, directed, and acted made the reveal less predictable, whereas in this one I might have seen it coming even if I hadn't seen the Korean version before.
I appreciated that the movie has a slightly different story from its original, but they do so little with it that I can't recommend this remake to anyone.
- richardgeuter
- Nov 10, 2018