The adolescent Anna leaves the psychiatric hospital where she was interned after attempting suicide following the violent shock of her mother's death. Returning home, the girl realizes that her father is now about to marry her mother's former nurse, and the latter's accommodating behavior seems quite suspicious, as confirmed by Alex, Anna's older sister, who harbors a deep antipathy for the woman. Furthermore, Anna begins to receive terrifying visits from the ghost of her deceased mother and a mysterious and unsettling red-haired girl who try to warn her of an imminent danger.
Long-awaited and significantly delayed, the remake of "Two Sisters," a Korean ghost story directed by Ji-woon Kim and belonging to the golden age of Eastern horror, finally arrives.
It is rare for an American remake of a product from the Land of the Rising Sun to be qualitatively valid; usually, these are films made in haste, directed without personality, and acted by the first TV star available between the break of one series season and the next. With "The Uninvited," one can breathe a sigh of relief because the result is far superior to the average of similar productions. In fact, this ghost story can be comfortably considered a great film in its own right, independent of its declared commercial nature and comparisons with the original film.
At the helm of direction are the almost debutant Guard brothers, who demonstrate great talent. The entire film is indeed directed with great skill and maturity rarely seen in debut works: the camera moves fluidly and elegantly and effectively underscores the rare but well-executed scary scenes. And it is the "scary factor" that is a winning point of "The Uninvited," as some somewhat predictable scenes (such as the ghost in the kitchen) are interspersed with others truly well-conceived that do not make one miss the already terrifying "appearances" of the Korean film. The ghost of the mother, with her wrinkled and cadaverous face, foreshadowed by the ring attached to her wrist, is a fine example of a well-executed boogeyman (woman, in this case), finally distant from the Asian "ghostly" iconography that the film could have inevitably drawn from, with a completely reformulated look for the occasion. These and other factors manage to give "The Uninvited" its own personality, a specificity that, once in a while, is capable of justifying the creation of a remake of a recent film that goes beyond the now predictable cultural adaptation.
What "The Uninvited" unfortunately lacks is a true quid that can make the film long remembered by the public. The excellent packaging and the presence of rather successful scenes are not enough to bring forth a story that is not particularly original (independent of the remake factor), certainly well-written but which in practice does not add much to the genre to which it belongs. Furthermore, there is the aggravating circumstance for those who have already seen "Two Sisters" of knowing how the film evolves, including the plot twist, even though the Guard brothers have worked with a file and polisher to make the narrative more fluid, charge the final climax with greater emphasis, and add an engaging investigative subplot that in some aspects may recall the story told in the thriller "The Stepfather – Il Patrigno" (by the way, an imminent remake is also coming for the latter!).
A positive note also regarding the cast led by the young Emily Browning ("Ghost Ship"; "Lemony Snicket – A Series of Unfortunate Events") in the role of the protagonist Anna, an interesting face definitely suited for the part, supported by Arielle Kebbel ("Reeker – Between Life and Death"; "The Grudge 2") in the role of the sister Alex and by Elizabeth Banks ("Slither") as the ambiguous stepmother.
"The Uninvited" is therefore an interesting product, inexplicably overlooked by Italian distribution, which probably has the flaw of not really leaving a mark but carves out an honorable place among the best remakes of Eastern horror films made in the post-"The Ring" era.
Worth watching.
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