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The Uninvited
Metascore
43 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 24 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 24
  3. Negative: 5 out of 24
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    Emily Browning's face helps The Uninvited work so well...She makes you fear for her, and that's half the battle. Yet she's so fresh she's ready for a Jane Austen role.
  2. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Hartlaub
    75
    Won't make anyone forget "The Shining," but it's a nice throwback to the days when scary movies featured pretty good actors, a plot that holds together and a couple of creepy-looking ghost kids.
  3. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    75
    The Uninvited is a flawed production, but gratifying in the way it delivers. The interesting and unique elements of the movie effectively compensate for the formulaic way in which the plot develops.
  4. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Chuck Wilson
    70
    A remake of the 2003 Korean horror film "A Tale of Two Sisters," The Uninvited is a Hand That Rocks the Cradle–type thriller that's been dressed up as a horror movie.
  5. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    63
    The actors are strong, however, and Banks in particular shows some skill and wiles in keeping her rascally stepmother stereotype lively.
  6. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    63
    With visual nods to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and a fairly faithful adherence to the tenor and tone of the Korean scare genre, The Uninvited doesn't startle and shock so much as it lulls you into a series of unsettling, hallucinogenic set pieces.
  7. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    63
    Don't be too quick to turn down The Uninvited. A stylish horror thriller in the vein of "The Ring," it's well-acted, frightening and handsomely produced
  8. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Mike Mayo
    60
    Experienced horror fans will probably stay one step ahead of the game, but it's still a nice ride.
  9. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Stephen Farber
    50
    The film is still cheesy rather than deliciously scary. It never really generates sustained suspense.
  10. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    50
    The first Hollywood horror flick I've seen that seems like it was made specifically for 12-year-olds.
  11. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    50
    The horror flick The Uninvited is not unclever - but it is unoriginal.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    50
    The main problem with The Uninvited lies in its refusal to decide just what movie it wants to be a commercial for. It certainly doesn't have much in common with "A Tale of Two Sisters," the creepy Korean horror film of which it is supposedly a remake.
  13. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    50
    The result is a middling Frankenstein-like hybrid of spectral mayhem and murder mystery, constructed entirely out of borrowed parts.
  14. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    40
    Yeah, this is pretty much your classic been-there, done-that scenario: evil stepmother, clueless father, imperiled teen.
  15. Empire
    Reviewed by: Kim Newman
    40
    Poor remake of the Korean thriller.
  16. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    40
    Once spoiled by the gossamer disquietude of Kim Jee-woon's original Tale, it's difficult to view this Americanized version in anything but the blandest light.
  17. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    40
    As is generally the case with Hollywood movies that use Asian horror films as their inspiration, the Guard brothers seem to have glanced at the original, borrowed a few images and then made the movie according to some preconceived template of what makes audiences jump -- instead of burrowing into the stuff that haunts our dreams.
  18. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    40
    Weak even by the standard of uninspired recent Asian-horror remakes, The Uninvited is more likely to induce snickers and yawns than shudders and yelps.
  19. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    40
    The plot borrows as freely from Hitchcock and Henry James as from the Bard of Avon, and doesn't make scrupulous sense, though I'd have to see the film again, which I won't do, to make sure it doesn't cheat.
  20. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Richard Chester
    38
    The climax is the only thing for which the rest of this flick exists.
  21. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Glenn Whipp
    30
    Without dwelling on the limited abilities of novice British filmmakers Tom and Charles Guard (a.k.a. the Guard Brothers) -- who seem to have divvied up duties here by having one sibling focus exclusively on close-up shots of doorknobs and the other oversee everything else -- the movie's fatal flaw is the undeveloped relationship between the two sisters.
  22. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Jeremy Wheeler
    25
    It's best to line The Uninvited right up on the soon-to-be-forgotten shelves next to the now third-generation Asian remakes and wait for the next effective foreign genre fare for Hollywood to butcher and rehash.
  23. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    25
    A brutally inane movie.
  24. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Adam Markovitz
    16
    Horror standbys like mangled corpses and stone-faced children pop up regularly, but sibling directors Charles and Thomas Guard haven't quite nailed the genre's rhythms.
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 33 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 20
  3. Negative: 2 out of 20
  1. jimmytancredi
    5
    The movie is not a horror movie, is an interesting thriller that hooks you until the end, it won't give you fear, at most a fright, but it's still very good. The crowd likes movies much worse saying that is great. The big problem with this movie was playing guess in the face of the viewer all the time that her stepmother was bad, I can not remember if but... manipulate our thought. That thing to bet the killer, you know? The problem is that the film always pointed in the same direction, so the movie can give you a big surprise ending, which I guessed at parts, the other part that I didn't serve was really shocking... It's a great film, which suffers a lot yes, but worth being seen. I've watched this movie so many times coz I love it so much!… Full Review »
  2. MetalMan95
    3
    This movie was... ok? I didnt really like it. Everybody pitched in decent performances but this is trying so hard to be horror but it fails epicly. It shouldve been left as a murder mystery/thriller. It shoved in supernatural aspects but it came across as mediocre and gimmicky. Then when the twist came at the end, it makes no sense. Once i hit the twist I asked myself "what was the point of watching this then?" The twist was awful, but it gets points for being unexpected.… Full Review »
  3. shlugalug
    7
    What is it about this film that I really liked? Was it Emily Browning, whose portrayal was focused and memorizing playing a girl who has been released out of a mental hospital as she was traumatized by the death of her mother? Was it Elizabeth Banks, who played the stepmother that surprisingly charms and seduces the screen? Was it Christopher Young, who compose a score so beautifully for a horror movie? It certainly wasn't the rubbish special effects and child actors. But The Uninvited leaves you satisfied and never goes blatantly over the top. Some have said the ending was predictable, I didn't feel that at all.… Full Review »
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