Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Uninvited

(2009)

A young woman, Anna (played by a young Australian actress named Emily Browning, who was Violet in the Lemony Snicket movie) witnesses her invalid mother killed in an explosion, tries to commit suicide, and spends some time on a mental ward. When she comes home she and her sister begin to suspect that Daddy’s new girlfriend, who used to be Mommy’s nurse, might have murdered their mother.

… and that’s as far as I can go, since this is a surprise ending movie, and the surprise is good enough that I won’t reveal it. This is a re-make of the most successful horror movie ever made in Korea. Doing English versions of foreign films is usually a mistake, and I haven’t seen the original, but this one is not bad. It keeps the cheap GOTCHA!! scares to a minimum, and the revelation of the ending … well, it’s a complex situation and I’d have to see it again to check whether it stayed honest, but as far as I can recall, it did. When you know what is really happening, it does make sense. It’s a little slow, and by no means a must-see … but with that faint praise, I have to say it’s not a waste of your time.