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Uninvited, The
EMAILPRINTDreamWorks Pictures (Paramount)

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 21 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Horror | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Craig Rosenberg
Doug Miro
Carlo Bernard
Directed by:
Thomas Guard
Charles Guard
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 30, 2009
DVD: April 28, 2009
Running Time: 87 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for violent and disturbing images, thematic material, sexual content, language and teen drinking
Starring Elizabeth Banks, Emily Browning, Arielle Kebbel, and David Strathairn
In the suspense thriller The Uninvited, based on the 2003 Korean motion picture "Changhwa, Hongryon" written and directed by Kim Jee-woon, Anna returns home after spending time in a psychiatric facility following her mother's tragic death and discovers that her mother's former nurse, Rachel, has moved into their house and become engaged to her father, Steven. Soon after she learns this shocking news, Anna is visited by her mother's ghost, who warns her that Rachel has evil intentions. Together, Anna and her sister must convince their father that his new fiancee is not who she pretends to be, and what should have been a happy family reunion becomes a lethal battle of wills between stepdaughters and stepmother. (Paramount)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
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.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
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.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
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.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
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.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
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.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
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
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The actors are strong, however, and Banks in particular shows some skill and wiles in keeping her rascally stepmother stereotype lively.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Mike Mayo
Experienced horror fans will probably stay one step ahead of the game, but it's still a nice ride.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The result is a middling Frankenstein-like hybrid of spectral mayhem and murder mystery, constructed entirely out of borrowed parts.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
The film is still cheesy rather than deliciously scary. It never really generates sustained suspense.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The first Hollywood horror flick I've seen that seems like it was made specifically for 12-year-olds.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
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.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
The horror flick The Uninvited is not unclever - but it is unoriginal.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
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.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
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.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
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.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Yeah, this is pretty much your classic been-there, done-that scenario: evil stepmother, clueless father, imperiled teen.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
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.
Read Full Review >Premiere Richard Chester
The climax is the only thing for which the rest of this flick exists.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Glenn Whipp
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.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Jeremy Wheeler
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.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Adam Markovitz
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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 21 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mike H. gave it a10:
bunch of 'scary' movie cliches strung together, and hence not frightening at all... but as a movie it was fantastic! great acting by the australian girl from 'the series of unfortunate events', and a surprising (at least to me it was...) twist at the end. very underrated movie, with scores from the stupid 'professional' movie critics that are much lower than it deserves.
Enzo P. gave it a5:
Overall the movie was pretty fun to watch it kept me entertained throughout the whole movie. The ending I didn't like to much, I was expecting a better ending. So that backfired a lot for my rating. It was just way to much of a twist ending.
Sam M. gave it an8:
Genuinely enjoyable film even when you guess whoo dunit. i was still impressed.
xLAWx gave it a4:
Not much of a twist ending, too trying hard to impress the horror fans.
Nick O gave it a0:
I kinda... well... hated the ending sooo good till the end...(i realy wanted the older sister to live) i just preaty much hated the end i mean you cant make that stuff up in your head.
chris k gave it a5:
Hard to follow after the strange ending.
Ryan M. gave it a4:
Not nearly as good as the original Korean. Lacked the moodiness, creepiness, and ambiguity of the original. By making the plot clearer and simpler, it took away too much and all of the things that made the Tale of Two Sisters great. See the original.
