INTRODUCTION

I really enjoy a good psychological thriller and The Uninvited really did it for me. There have been a number of American remakes in recent years of popular Asian horror movies including The Grudge starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Mirrors starring Kiefer Sutherland. Often the remakes are a bit of a letdown but The Uninvited is fortunately a very credible version of a South Korean movie called A Tale Of Two Sisters.

THE ACTORS

Emily Browning who plays Anna is an Australian actress and model probably best known as Violet Baudelaire in Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2004).

Elizabeth Banks who plays live in nurse Rachel has appeared in the Spiderman movies with Toby Maguire. She has also appeared in Scrubs.

Arielle Kebbel (Anna's sister Alex) has appeared in John Tucker Must Die and The Grudge 2.

THE PLOT

After a boathouse fire kills her terminally ill mother or "mom" as they say in the United States Anna (Emily Browning) is in an psychiatric institution following a suicide attack. Ten months later she is allowed to go home seemingly with no memory of the fire.

Anna is relieved to meet up with her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) but is disappointed to see that her father is now officially an item with his dead wife's former live in nurse Rachel (Elizabeth Banks).

Anna has dreams involving her mother in which she appears to be sending her daughter a message suggesting that Rachel killed her and started the fire on purpose so she could be with Anna's father played by David Strathaim.

Anna bumps into her former boyfriend Matt (Jesse Moss) who claims that he knows everything about the fire. Rachel seems keen to keep them apart.

Anna and Alex are unable to find a record of Rachel with the State Nursing Association. When she confronts Rachel about her apparent deception the former nurse tries to drug her.

Anna has recurring dreams involving 3 dead children. She eventually comes across their graves and after some research on the internet she discovers that the 3 children were murdered by a nanny called Mildrid Kemp who is still on the run. Anna notices in a photograph that Rachel is wearing a necklace identical to the one Mildred Kemp is wearing. She puts 2 and 2 together and goes to tell her father the apparent truth about his new girlfriend.

MY OPINION

The Uninvited is a very enjoyable film with brilliant suspense, fine acting and a good twist at the end. Emily Browning and Elizabeth Banks are particularly impressive, feeding off each other to great effect. You are kept guessing throughout the film, is everything what it seems? It is not particularly gory which is a plus in my book. A lot of directors try to shock just for the sake of it. However the Guard Brothers' prefer to keep the viewer guessing as to what is really going on without including much blood.