The Invitation – Film Review

There’s simply no denying that the atmosphere in Jessica M. Thompson‘s The Invitation is a thing of beauty. If you’re a huge fan of gothic horror like me, then you’re definitely going to fall in love with the way this film looks and feels. The cinematography by Autumn Eakin is absolutely gorgeous and the color palette and lighting here has the perfect Halloween movie season vibes.

But while this film is technically brilliant in terms of its visuals, it’s an extremely bad movie overall, thanks in part due to a script by Blair Butler that goes absolutely nowhere and a tonal mashup that doesn’t gel well. This could’ve been a legitimately striking horror film but it ultimately ends up being drastically uninspired and flat.

To be honest with you though, the set-up of the movie is quite nice and interesting. The first act does a good job at making you intrigued while also keeping you on your toes a little bit. You’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next… at least, for a while, that is.

As soon as the second act came around, I had an awful feeling that the film would have no interest in taking things to the next level and sadly, I was right. The entirety of The Invitation feels like a set-up for the last twenty-five minutes because, yes, the first “real” moment of conflict happens an hour and seven minutes in. Keep in mind, this film is an hour and forty minutes long without credits.

The vast majority of this film is just a lot of attractive and rich people enjoying their huge mansion, dancing, throwing parties, and getting drunk. That’s basically the entire movie. Sure, some of the people might act a little weird every so often, but that’s pretty much what this film is.

Heck, I’d argue that you can barely even classify this as a horror movie since those elements don’t even come into play until the final twenty-five minutes. It’s almost as if the director knew this and to cover up how bland the story was, decided to make the film look as picture perfect as possible visually.

The performances here are great, namely from Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Doherty, but they are, unfortunately, saddled in a film that sorely wastes their incredible talents. Stephanie Corneliussen and Alana Boden also do a good job in their respective roles. It’s just a huge shame that the rest of the movie surrounding these people wasn’t as good. They all need to work on a film that is actually deserving of their talents.

The Invitation is a remarkably bland and uninspired horror film with a story that goes absolutely nowhere, despite looking terrific visually and featuring some solid performances.