The film tells the story of Anna (Emily Browning), a teenage girl who has just returned home from time spent in a mental facility.,"”The Uninvited," a remake of Ji-woon Kim's 2003 Korean thriller, "A Tale of Two Sisters," is the typical, horror movie, scary at times but eventually leaving the viewer with the same old clichéd scenarios.
The film tells the story of Anna (Emily Browning), a teenage girl who has just returned home from time spent in a mental facility. All she wants to do upon her return is hang out with her sister, Alex (Arielle Kebbel), and try to get over the incident that landed her in the facility in the first place: the tragic death of her ill mother in a fire.
What Anna is unaware of, however, is the fact that her mother's former nurse, Rachael (Elizabeth Banks), is now romantically involved with Anna's father (David Strathairn). As Anna readjusts to her life at home, she has to deal with her confusingly distant sister, her father's less-than-sweet new fiancé and the terrifying dreams that left her hospitalized in the first place.
It is not long before Anna realizes that there is a presence in her home that seems to be trying to tell her something. The two sisters soon become convinced that their mother's untimely death was not accidental and that Rachael must have had something to do with it.
The film is rife with horror film clichés (scaly hands reaching from under the bed, ghosts that no one else can see) but few moments are actually scary.
The plot unfolds in a large, eerie house along a lake somewhere in New England, and the girls repeatedly find themselves in situations that leave viewers uncomfortable and nervous. That's fairly standard for horror films, too: the "why would you put yourself in that situation?" feeling.
The suspense and feelings of unease come from not quite knowing what is happening — is Anna's house really haunted? Would a nurse really go so far as to kill a client to get with the client's husband? And what about those ghostly children who keep hanging around, and the article that the sisters found online that details the murders of three children by a jealous nanny? Could they be trying to convey a message?
The performances offered by Browning and Kebbel are believable. Browning lends a natural sort of guilelessness to the role of Anna, and Kebbel's Alex is nearly perfect. The script for "The Uninvited" leaves something to be desired, but all the principle actors do the best they can with what they're given.
The film's resolution may not necessarily come as a surprise to audiences. What is surprising is the extent to which the plot entanglements change dramatically to arrive at the conclusion. Directors Charles and Thomas Guard have crafted a psychological thriller that, while perhaps not truly scary, is full of moments that will make audiences jump and cause goose bumps.
“