Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Uninvited (movie #12)

I think I mentioned before that while I enjoy remakes most of the time, they do make me nervous because they're so easy to fuck up. In the case of "A Tale of Two Sisters," though, it's the kind of movie that screams for a remake. I think it's brilliant and frightening, but I have friends who can't stand it because of the way it jumps and jumbles around. What seems surreal and nightmarish to me is just confusing and boring to them, and so I'm glad to see this movie take a stab at a linear re-imagining of the events in that film.

The cast here is likable enough. I enjoyed the teen daughters; they seem to banter and fight like real sisters. The dad seems caring and devastated and concerned. Elizabeth Banks does a great job with her role. I knew there was a reason I liked her. My only real problem with the movie is that a lot of things seem to happen simply for the convenience of furthering the plot. For instance, a few characters act psychotic because it helps us believe they're crazy, and then it's like the movie yells "psyche! fooled you" and that pisses me off because then there's no explanation for their behavior. Plus the characters do that stupid thing where they don't communicate with each other and they talk around issues instead of talking through them (if the daughter had been able to spit out what was bothering her at the beginning of the movie, a lot of mess could have been avoided). Otherwise, this was an enjoyable movie. Heavy on the jump scares, but it didn't really get under my skin the way the original did and I figured out the main twist hours before it was revealed.

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