Should a horror film be able to redeem its own idiocy with a switcheroo ending? The Uninvited, a Hollywood remake of a Korean production, certainly hopes so. Up until its last 10 minutes, The Uninvited is increasingly ludicrous and frustrating. The movie opens as high-schooler Anna (Emily Browning) is being released from a psychiatric hospital, where she was sent after attempting suicide in the wake of her mother’s mysterious death. At home, Anna discovers that her father has a new girlfriend, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), who Anna begins to suspect of foul play. The movie belongs to the Asian horror tradition of family traumas being avenged from beyond the grave, but unlike The Grudge, say, or The Ring, The Uninvited doesn’t bother to tease us with any sense of mystery. We pretty much know the deal long before Rachel stabs a roast she’s cooked with unusual gusto. At least we think we know the deal. The ending of The Uninvited flips that and nearly every other scene in the film on its head. And while the finale justifies much of what we saw before – at least in narrative terms – it doesn’t click together as satisfactorily as something like The Sixth Sense did.
