The Uninvited (2009 film)

The Uninvited

Theatrical release poster
Directed by The Guard Brothers
Produced by Walter F. Parkes
Laurie MacDonald
Roy Lee
Tom Hanks
Screenplay by Craig Rosenberg
Doug Miro
Carlo Bernard
Based on A Tale of Two Sisters
by Kim Jee-woon
Starring Emily Browning
Elizabeth Banks
Arielle Kebbel
David Strathairn
Music by Christopher Young
Cinematography Daniel Landin
Edited by Jim Page
Christian Wagner
Production
company
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release dates
  • January 30, 2009 (2009-01-30) (United States/Canada)
  • May 28, 2009 (2009-05-28) (Germany)
Running time
 87 minutes
Country United States
Canada
Germany
Language English
Box office $41,624,046

The Uninvited is a 2009 American psychological horror film directed by the Guard Brothers, and starring Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks, Arielle Kebbel and David Strathairn. It is a remake of the 2003 South Korean K-Horror film A Tale of Two Sisters, which is in turn one of several film adaptations of the Korean folk tale Janghwa Hongryeon jeon. The film received mixed to negative reviews.

Plot

Anna (Emily Browning) has been in a psychiatric institution for ten months, following her suicide attempt after her terminally ill mother died in a boathouse fire. Upon her discharge, she has no memory of the event but frequently suffers related nightmares. While packing, Anna is startled by a disturbing, talkative patient from the room across the hall. Shortly after, she leaves with her father, Steven (David Strathairn), a writer who has dedicated his latest book to Anna and her sister.

At home, Anna reunites with her sister, Alex (Arielle Kebbel), with whom she is very close. The sisters stand against Steven's girlfriend Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), who had been their mother's live-in nurse. Alex criticizes Steven for sleeping with Rachel while the girls' mother was still alive and sick in bed but he does not respond. Anna describes to Alex how scenes from her dreams have started happening while she is awake. The sisters become convinced that the hallucinations are messages from their mother, telling them that she was murdered by Rachel.

Anna catches up with her old boyfriend, Matt (Jesse Moss), who tells her that he saw what happened the night of the fire. They secretly plan to meet that night, but Matt fails to show up and Anna returns home. In her room, Anna awakens to find him climbing into her window, saying that she needs to know the truth and that he had a warning from her mother. They kiss but then Anna notices Matt's body suddenly warping and his back breaking. Anna flees from the room in fear but when she opens the door, he is gone. The next morning, Matt's dead body is pulled out of the water, his back broken just the way Anna saw it. The police assume he fell and drowned.

The sisters are unable to find a record of Rachel with the State Nursing Association and conclude she is actually Mildred Kemp, a nanny who killed the three children she looked after because she had an obsession with their widowed father. They try to warn their father, but he ignores their concerns and leaves for work. The girls try to gather evidence against Rachel to show the police but Rachel catches them and sedates Alex. Anna escapes and goes to the local police station, but they do not believe her claims and call Rachel, who sedates Anna and takes her home.

As Rachel puts a disoriented Anna in bed, Anna sees Alex in the doorway with a knife and then passes out. She wakes to find that Alex has killed Rachel and thrown her body in the dumpster. Relieved, the girls comfort each other. Their father drives up, horrified at the scene. Anna explains that Rachel tried to murder her and her sister but Alex saved their lives by killing Rachel. Confused, Steven says that Alex had died in the fire along with their mother. When Anna looks down, she finds that she is not holding her sister's hand, but the bloody knife used to murder Rachel.

Anna finally remembers what happened on the night of the fire. After catching her father and Rachel having sex, Anna became enraged and filled a watering can from a large gasoline tank in the boathouse, intending to set them and the house on fire. She didn't close the tap carefully, as a result of which a trail of gasoline spilled from it, which was then ignited by a falling candle. Her mother and Alex were killed in the resulting explosion. Flashbacks reveal that Anna had been hallucinating Alex since she left the institution. She remembers killing Matt—who did show up at their planned meeting—by letting him fall and break his back. She also remembers killing Rachel.

The police are called to arrest Anna for murder. When Steven is questioned, he reveals that Rachel changed her last name years ago to escape an abusive boyfriend, which explains why Anna couldn't find Rachel's record, and the Mildred Kemp story she came up with was false, implying Anna is mentally sick.

At the institution, Anna is welcomed back by the patient across the hall that scared her earlier in the film, whose name plate on the door reads "Mildred Kemp".

Cast

Development

In 2002, producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald produced the hit horror film, The Ring, a remake of the Japanese film Ring. They subsequently produced the film's successful sequel The Ring Two in 2005. Since first starting this new cycle of Asian horror film adaptations, Parkes and MacDonald searched for a project they felt was as ingeniously conceived and executed as The Ring, and finally found it when producer Roy Lee brought the Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters to their attention.

When A Tale of Two Sisters played in US theaters, directors Tom and Charlie Guard had acquired the English language remake rights. The Guard Brothers had previously directed commercials and short films, and wanted to expand into feature films.

In June 2006, DreamWorks announced that a deal had been set up for the US version of A Tale of Two Sisters. The new film was a presentation of DreamWorks and Cold Spring Pictures (Disturbia), and was produced by Parkes, MacDonald and Lee. The screenplay was written by Craig Rosenberg (After the Sunset, Lost), Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard (The Great Raid).[1]

In early 2008, the film, whose working title had been A Tale of Two Sisters, was renamed to The Uninvited.[2]

The film was released in North American and Canadian theaters on January 30, 2009.

Shooting location

Although the film is set in Maine, it was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. Most of the film was shot at one location, a waterfront property on British Columbia's Bowen Island, a short ferry ride west from mainland Vancouver.

Producer Walter F. Parkes said, of the shooting location:

“ Eighty percent of the story takes place at the house, so we couldn't make the movie without the right one. It couldn't have been more important. We scouted Louisiana, an environment which is both beautiful and slightly threatening. We had two houses which were terrible compromises, but both of them fell through. We had a difficult time finding anything that had both the connection to the story and the right logistical possibilities.

But then we were lucky to find in Canada a place that seemed as if it had been built for our movie. It was perfectly evocative and suggestive of a family that is both welcoming and forbidding. The fact that the house was within 30 miles of Vancouver was a greater plus than the minus of having to get everyone on boats to get them over there; water taxis and ferries are a way of life up there. In fact, I don’t remember ever having a more pleasant time on a location. Getting onto a boat and having a cup of coffee and then going up the little pier and the stairs we built, it focused us. We were isolated with one thing on our minds, which was making this movie. It was great.[3]

 ”

It is reported that a two-story boathouse in the film was built on the property overlooking the water just for several scenes. The cold water is rough and unappealing; it is a greenish-gray that crashes constantly and does not invite swimming.[4]

Casting

Emily Browning was hired to portray the lead Anna Ivers. She had originally auditioned for the role of Alex. The film is rated PG-13, and is visually less gory and bloody than the original film.[4] Elizabeth Banks plays the role of the stepmother, Rachel.[5] Banks based her character Rachel on Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.[6] "It was very important to me that every line reading I gave could be interpreted two ways," says Banks of her role, "So that when you go back through the movie you can see that."[6] David Strathairn plays the concerned father of the two girls.[7] Arielle Kebbel plays Anna's older sister, Alex Ivers.[8]

Music

The original score for the film was composed by Christopher Young, who recorded it with a 78-piece orchestra and 20-person choir. His score features a glass harmonica, and the Yale Women's Slavic Chorus.[9]

Reception

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reported that 32% out of 126 surveyed critics gave favorable reviews, and the average score was 4.5/10. The consensus was "The Uninvited is moody and reasonably involving, but suffers from predictable plot twists."[10] Metacritic assigned a rating of 43/100 from 24 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average" reception.[11] Bloody Disgusting gave the film 6/10[12] while on Yahoo! Movies Critical Response, the average professional critical rating was a C according to 11 reviews.[13]

Box office

On its opening day, the film grossed $4,335,000 and ranked #2 in the box office.[14] However, it finally got $10,512,000 for its opening weekend, set on the third place, opened in 2,344 theaters with an average $4,485 per theatre.[15] The film spent nine weeks in U.S. cinemas, and finished with a total gross of $28,596,818. It did fairly moderately for a horror film in the US markets.[16] The film was released on March 26, 2009 in Australia, and the film opened at the fifth position, averaging $3,998 at 121 sites, for a gross of A$483,714. The second week it dipped 29%.

References

  1. ↑ Scifi Japan(December 26, 2007). Two Brothers remake Two Sisters. Scifijapan.com. Retrieved on January 18, 2009.
  2. ↑ "Announcement of title change". Fangoria.com.
  3. ↑ Scifi Japan (December 26, 2008). "The Perfect House." Scifi Japan. Retrieved on January 18, 2009.
  4. 1 2 Heidi Martinuzzi(January 05, 2009). "An Invitation to the Set of The Uninvited." shocktillyoudrop.com. Retrieved on January 18, 2009.
  5. ↑ Heidi Sam Baltrusisi(January 11, 2009). "Elizabeth Banks gets wicked in 'The Uninvited' ." Loadgun Boston. Retrieved on January 18, 2009.
  6. 1 2 "Elizabeth Banks: The Uninvited". SuicideGirls.com. 30 January 2009. Retrieved January 30, 2009..
  7. ↑ Brad Miska (June 22, 2007). "David Strathairn Stars Opposite Banks in 'Two Sisters' Remake ." Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved on January 18, 2009.
  8. ↑ Arieanna Schweber (December 30, 2008). "Arielle Kebbel in “The Uninvited” ." Gilmore Girl news. Retrieved on January 18, 2009. Archived January 8, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  9. ↑ Goldwasser, Dan (June 3, 2008). "Christopher Young scores the horror film The Uninvited". ScoringSessions.com. Retrieved June 3, 2008.
  10. ↑ "The Uninvited (2009) Movie Reviews, Pictures – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  11. ↑ "Uninvited, The DreamWorks Pictures (Paramount): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  12. ↑ "The Uninvited (A Tale of Two Sisters remake): Review". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  13. ↑ "The Uninvited (2009): Reviews". Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  14. ↑ "Daily Box Office for Friday, January 30, 2009". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  15. ↑ "Weekend Box Office Results from January 30–February 1, 2009". Box Office Mojo. February 2, 2009. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  16. ↑ "The Uninvited (2009) – Daily Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.