In this middling gothic horror film, Nathalie Emmanuel plays the unknowing belle of an English estate who is clueless to the blood-red flags waving around.
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The majority of "The Invitation," a brittle, monotonous foray into gothic horror, occurs at a manor in the English countryside. The location is acceptable, if unimaginative: the estate's outside looks like it was made of Playmobil, while its dismal interior is covered in cobwebs and most nearly resembles a dungeon.
Outside of the theatre, a guest would be scrambling for the door after receiving an invitation to such a residence. That isn't the case for Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), a jaded New York ceramicist who unintentionally ends up becoming the belle of the ball when her long-lost cousin Oliver (Hugh Skinner) invites her to a wedding taking place on the property. Evie, an only child whose mother suddenly passed away, is thrilled by the idea of having extended family, despite the fact that the stuffy clan is all white and dangerously eager to have her company.
However, Oliver and his numerous blond siblings and uncles quickly become almost irrelevant. Evie falls in love with Walter (Thomas Doherty), the land's master, as soon as she sets foot on the property. Walter is a smiling bachelor who exudes money and vampiric good looks.
What follows is a progression of creaky-freaky jump scares intermingled with the sounds of Walter and Evie's developing romance. The pair kiss and drink champagne while surrounded by pyrotechnics while dressed to the nines. The estate's maids are drawn into a terrifying series of set pieces at the same time, and they always end with shrieks projected over a black screen.
If each scenario weren't so monotonous, the juxtaposition of these events may be thrilling or even slyly humorous. Even the easiest startlers (I count myself among them) quickly develop an immunity to the scare patterns in this fright-fest due to the excessive amount of monotonous conversation and repetition of the scare patterns.
"The Invitation," directed by Jessica M. Thompson, makes token attempts to address problems of class and race, but its efforts are as nebulous as the spooky spectres stalking Walter's land. For her part, Emmanuel makes an admirable effort to give Evie wit and sass, but since she is restricted to a narrative that prevents her from seeing the blood-red flags waving at every turn, her tenacious heroine is difficult to root for. The movie could have stood a chance of surviving if it had developed into a more frisky game of "eat the rich." It's mediocre, morbid pap instead.
The Invitation
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