The Uninvited

The Uninvited is the directors Charles and Thomas Guard's remake of the 2003 Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters. But really, it could have been a remake of any horror movie ever made. It has all the predictable elements: beautiful, vulnerable teenagers, recurring nightmares, ghosts of children murdered in the past and plenty of dark and stormy nights, all set against the backdrop of an old mansion in a lush but forbidding forest (Vancouver posing as Maine). Released after a 10-month stint in a mental hospital after the death of her mother, Anna Rydell returns home to find that the woman who was once her mother's nurse, Rachel Summers, is now her father's girlfriend. While she is happy to be reunited with her older sister, Alex, Anna is disappointed by what she sees as her father's having moved on too quickly. The sisters' relationship with Rachel quickly becomes antagonistic, and, after learning the nurse's real name is not Rachel Summers, the sisters decide that she is responsible for killing their mother. There are certain requirements for every horror movie, and the twist at the end is no exception. The Uninvited's plot is predictable, and its twist, though right on cue, is just as unimaginative as the rest of the film. It all seemed so familiar that I kept thinking I had seen the movie before.