'The Uninvited'

I have mentioned in the past that Americans suffer from a sort of trauma or syndrome which makes them unable to enjoy a decent movie unless it is spoken in their own language. After dwelling a while on this, I think there's a little more to this trauma (other than money, of course. Money is present in every instance). I think Americans must have some sort of problem with the Axis producing movies out of more or less original ideas when they've been adapting comics and cartoons into film for years now. As such, as soon as someone from that part of the world makes a decent, high-grossing movie, America is quick to do the same, or take the same concept and remake it. Envy does kill: the deformed incubus of this process is a lousy, unfinished-looking movie, with its corners cut so that one concept can easily be absorbed by the minds of a completely different culture from the one that spawned it. If not, take a look: Honogurai mizu no soko kara (2002) became Dark Waters (2005), Ju-On (2002) turned into The Grudge (2004), Chakushin ari (2003) was sent to the West as One Missed Call (2008), Ringu (1998) went The Ring (2002) and I'm only mentioning a few. And of the aforementioned, I only liked The Ring, both as standalone movie and remake.

Following in this tradition, The Uninvited, having dropped on my lap this very year, is a remake of a Korean movie called Tale of Two Sisters, which won several awards in Fantasporto 2003. I came to watch it when everyone else did, about two or three years later. I enjoyed Tale of Two Sisters, but it wasn't an epiphany. It's not like the first time I watched Ju-On and spent a week with nothing else in my head. It's not like being twelve, watching The Exorcist for the first time and instinctively knowing this is one of the movies that revolutionized the industry. But it was an interesting movie, with an ending twist I did not completely guess. It kept me amused and I'd sit through it again happily. If this had made my top 20 favorite movies, I might be angry as a crow at the idea of a remake. But as it is, I can't help but simply feel nauseated and annoyed.

So, much like Tale of Two Sisters, The Uninvited tells you the story of a teenage girl who has just returned home from a mental hospital after being convicted over grief for the death of her mother and attempted suicide. She comes home to her father, her sister and their evil stepmother, who used to be Mum's nurse. The problem is, our heroine can't remember the circumstances of her mother's death, and little by little it starts dawning on her, as the ghost of her mother keeps haunting her, that the stepmother might have had a little bit to do with that. Then you have a pretty shitty twist ending. Charles and Thomas Guard did this, their first theatrical movie (which is always a good bloody sign), with Emily Browning as Anna (psycho teenage haunting victim, and you also know her from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events), Arielle Kebbel as Alex (her feisty sister who does a lousy job keeping up with her Korean counterpart, previously seen in The Grudge 2) and Elizabeth Banks as the stepmother Rachel Summers (seen very often in romantic comedies, which is also a good fuckin' sign!) I should warn you at this point that SPOILERS will haunt you if you keep reading from here on, so if you're yet to watch this and you don't like them, you know what to do.

(I also want to leave you a note that this movie should't be confused with 4 Inyong shiktak, a 2003 Korean flick which also came to the West under the name The Uninvited. What I'm reviewing here is the 2009 American version of Tale of Two Sisters, just so we're clear.)

First of all, the concept of hauntings is common to both Western and Eastern cultures. It may change slightly, but it's common (in Japan ghosts walk funny and make odd noises, and in Indonesia you have pocong which comes wrapped in its own shroud, we at this side of the globe seem to like unseen ghosts better - the poltergeist, for instance). I was sort of glad that The Uninvited decided to keep cultural visions of ghosts separate: in this, every ghost you see looks Western, no ladies in white crawling and doing odd noises for us. So, from here on, all we need is to transplant the concept and we're done, okay?

Nope. Seemingly, the premise behind the Korean version is also too complicated for American audiences. So they did take the best part of the concept away: trying to figure out when you have hallucinations and when you have ghosts. After my second watch of Tale of Two Sisters, I realized that this was slightly more complicated than it seemed at first. Since I knew what was coming - Soo-yeong has been dead all along and the stepmother might or might not have had an affair with Soo-mi's father, yet she definitely doesn't live in the house - Soo-mi might be hallucinating of her sister and the stepmother, or she might hallucinate about the stepmother and be haunted by her sister's ghost, or she might take up personas of both at different times (in the dinner party scene, Soo-mi obviously took up the persona of her stepmother), it's pretty open to interpretation. The movie does its best to subtly tell us that there are ghosts in the house, namely Soo-yeong and the girls' mother, since people other than Soo-mi see them and they can't all be hallucinating.

On their attempt to tone down the original story (or perhaps trying to complicate it to show some creativity, I'm not sure) screenwriters managed to make a split personality movie. What was the problem with keeping this movie about the four people who actually matter: the two girls, their father, and the stepmother? Instead, you get two misshaped subplots: one about Anna (playing Soo-mi's part) and a would-be boyfriend, which adds absolutely nothing to the situation and seems like an excuse to slide in two or three more spooky scenes that aren't all that spooky; and the huge - nay, humongous subplot about the murderous, identity-changing stepmother. In The Uninvited, the stepmother is pretty much real, and apparently, she does hold an affair with Anna's father, having moved in with him. What may or may not be real is the fact Anna gets haunted by a little girl and two boys who were murdered by her stepmother while she was destroying the life of another family before coming into Anna's. And by the end of the movie, we're hinted towards the "not guilty" - Anna was influenced to believe this by another patient in the mental hospital. So... what for?

One of the cool things in the Korean movie was that Soo-mi hated her stepmother for three reasons: thinking she was taking her mother's rightful place (since the stepmother pressured the father/helped commit the mother to a mental hospital and thus led the mother to commit suicide the very day she was supposed to be taken there) and harming Soo-yeong (since Soo-yeong tried to save her mother when she found her hanging in the closet and ended up suffocating when the closet came crashing down on her) but also transferring her own feelings of guilt (everyone heard the closet crashing and nobody bothered to see what was going on, and Soo-mi attempts to place all the guilt she feels for not checking on Soo-yeong into the stepmother persona). What you end up with is a very subtle and passive-aggressive hatred which, considering none of these people is actually present, sounds even more apeshit if you try to face all dialogs having in mind the only people there are Soo-mi and her father.

In the American version, Anna is the sole responsible for the accident that took her mother and sister's lives. No suicides, and the stepmother was actually having an affair with the father already. She attacks the stepmother all the same, but because of an imagined fear that she might be a murderer. The whole "murderer stepmother" subplot doesn't seem to fit well anywhere! The Uninvited ends up being more confusing and less interesting. Before, you had an easy-to-follow plotline that was highly subjective. Now, you have a pretty objective, one answer only, hard-to-keep-track-of plot!

Let me also sneak this in: what the fuck sort of unimaginative title is this? Oh, it matches the unimaginative poster like ugly shoes to an ugly purse. Right. I'm sorry.

From here on, you already know a movie cannot stand on its own legs if said legs are sound effects, special effects and acting. Especially this sort of sound effects (unimportant. Dramatic chords here and there, it would be just as bad if there was none), special effects (I see decomposed and deformed bodies are in again. Funny, I thought that had gone away with the 70's. Also, blue is the new "realistic", like brown in gaming) and acting. Let's face it: most actors in this are way out of their league. Kebbel is the only one that's ever been in a horror flick before, her part in Grudge 2 was minor, and even if The Uninvited asks for more presence, her part is still very small. Even if she did want to add up to the movie, there aren't many ways in which she could. Browning wasn't all bad, but again: this movie can't stand up on her alone.

Overall, it's a bad counterpart to Tale of Two Sisters. Watch that if you're looking for an hour's worth of entertainment, forget about The Uninvited and don't give a cent to watch this. It's one of those bland, flavorless and American-oriented flicks I find unimaginative and not really worth any money or time. I've lost the time up until now. Don't do the same!