Brace yourselves - here comes another one of those 'orrible 'uns! With some notable exceptions (Unforgiven, The Untouchables, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being), movies sporting the prefix 'un' in their titles are frequently hostages to fortune. On the one hand, they're more interesting-sounding than, say 'The Born', 'The Faithful' or 'The Canny' (and somewhere in a parallel universe there exists a John Wayne western called 'The Defeated'). On the other hand, the very application of those negative prefixes can ironically hasten the film's undoing. Which is unfortunate. And obviously undesirable.
Such is the fate of The Uninvited, another all-too inevitable K-horror remake. Here, young Anna (Australian actress Emily Browning) returns home after a year's spell in a psychiatric clinic, following the devastating death of her invalid mother in a housefire. Along with her elder, spunkier sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) she's soon warring with her frosty-knickered stepmother, and mom's former live-in nurse, Rachael (a miscast Elizabeth Banks, in Hand That Rocks The Cradle mode).
In a scenario that would have Sigmund Freud jumping up and down and furiously pulling his beard, Anna becomes convinced that Rachael did away with her ailing charge and is plotting to kill the daughters next, the better to have dad (David Strathairn) all to her self. Meanwhile, a creeping dread pervades their New England coastal home - ghostly children, the old hands-round-the-edge-of-the-bedcovers routine and charred manifestations of mum, all seeming to point to Rachael's culpability. Is Anna actually onto something? Or did somebody sign the wrong release form? Like Identity, The Sixth Sense or Secret Window, this is one of those two-for-one deals necessitating, so producers hope, an immediate return visit once the pleasantly deceived audience has, or thinks it has, 'got it'. Unlike most of these Hollywood riddle-me-rees however, there's little that was formulaic or pat about 2003's powerful and poignant A Tale Of Two Sisters (aka Janghwa, Hongryeon).
We actually cared about put-upon sisters Su-Mi and Su-Yeon, so that the pleasing 'aha!' moment, when it arrived, was severely tempered by an almost unbearable sense of grief. Much of this came down to the quality of the acting, in particular a pair of performances of astonishing subtlety and maturity from the young leads. And perhaps uniquely, among this era's crop of South-East Asian horrors, it managed to Tazer the nerves while gently breaking your heart.
The Guard brothers' remake, by contrast, is the usual exercise in jump-scares and PG-13 thrills, more concerned with getting to the twist as swiftly as possible, like a conjuror who remembers he's left the iron on the moment he takes the stage. Depth and characterisation suffer accordingly - though the waifish Browning impresses; a tiny pink flower with fraying petals turned in on themselves. She has an unusual, interesting face, and an assured future, at least, in playing damaged poppets. Hopefully, she'll soon put such bland fare behind her; although Banks and Srathairn should frankly be sent to bed without any supper. At the film's pre-release press screening, the final reveal elicited a single, irritated 'Tch!' from some anonymous critic in the dark. That little noise pretty much sums up this entire production.
Such is the fate of The Uninvited, another all-too inevitable K-horror remake. Here, young Anna (Australian actress Emily Browning) returns home after a year's spell in a psychiatric clinic, following the devastating death of her invalid mother in a housefire. Along with her elder, spunkier sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) she's soon warring with her frosty-knickered stepmother, and mom's former live-in nurse, Rachael (a miscast Elizabeth Banks, in Hand That Rocks The Cradle mode).
In a scenario that would have Sigmund Freud jumping up and down and furiously pulling his beard, Anna becomes convinced that Rachael did away with her ailing charge and is plotting to kill the daughters next, the better to have dad (David Strathairn) all to her self. Meanwhile, a creeping dread pervades their New England coastal home - ghostly children, the old hands-round-the-edge-of-the-bedcovers routine and charred manifestations of mum, all seeming to point to Rachael's culpability. Is Anna actually onto something? Or did somebody sign the wrong release form? Like Identity, The Sixth Sense or Secret Window, this is one of those two-for-one deals necessitating, so producers hope, an immediate return visit once the pleasantly deceived audience has, or thinks it has, 'got it'. Unlike most of these Hollywood riddle-me-rees however, there's little that was formulaic or pat about 2003's powerful and poignant A Tale Of Two Sisters (aka Janghwa, Hongryeon).
We actually cared about put-upon sisters Su-Mi and Su-Yeon, so that the pleasing 'aha!' moment, when it arrived, was severely tempered by an almost unbearable sense of grief. Much of this came down to the quality of the acting, in particular a pair of performances of astonishing subtlety and maturity from the young leads. And perhaps uniquely, among this era's crop of South-East Asian horrors, it managed to Tazer the nerves while gently breaking your heart.
The Guard brothers' remake, by contrast, is the usual exercise in jump-scares and PG-13 thrills, more concerned with getting to the twist as swiftly as possible, like a conjuror who remembers he's left the iron on the moment he takes the stage. Depth and characterisation suffer accordingly - though the waifish Browning impresses; a tiny pink flower with fraying petals turned in on themselves. She has an unusual, interesting face, and an assured future, at least, in playing damaged poppets. Hopefully, she'll soon put such bland fare behind her; although Banks and Srathairn should frankly be sent to bed without any supper. At the film's pre-release press screening, the final reveal elicited a single, irritated 'Tch!' from some anonymous critic in the dark. That little noise pretty much sums up this entire production.