The Invitation review: A waste of perfectly good evil vampires

Vampires are cinema’s most malleable monsters. They can sparkle, skateboard, yell “bat”, or do gymnastics, all while fulfilling their bloodsucking duties. Horror movie Invitation, vampires take on their more familiar role as society’s rich and powerful, as an unlucky human guest joins them for the weekend. InvitationJessica M. Thompson is the director.The Light of the MoonIt is based on several popular and well-received horror films about houseguests, such as You must get out Ready or not, InvitationIt never succeeds in frightening people and hides their vampires behind an uninteresting love story.

Invitation follows Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), an unhappy and over-it gig-caterer in New York who’s fed up with her dead-end job, desperate to follow her passion for ceramics, and still reeling from her mother’s recent death. One day, Evie snags a gift bag from a swanky event she’s catering and tries out the included DNA testing kit. This test connects Evie to an unidentified branch of her family, which lives in the top tier of English society. Before Evie knows it, she’s been invited to a mysterious wedding at an English estate, where she meets and quickly falls for the enigmatic Walter (Thomas Doherty), the lord of the manor.

This series of events takes almost all of the movie’s 105-minute run time to play out. That may surprise viewers who’ve seen any of the promotional material for this movie, which is far more focused on the story’s vampiric presence. The bait-and-switch of subbing a dubious romance in for vampire violence wouldn’t be much of a problem if the movie were willing to invest in the Gothic style and foreboding atmosphere that helps make vampire love stories timelessly creepy. Instead, Thompson is content with awkward flirting that’s shot as blandly as a one-season-only Netflix teen series.

Foto by Marcell Piti/Screen Gems

Emmanuel and Doherty don’t have much chemistry aside from being very attractive. The story relies on viewers believing Walter subtly seduces Evie. The stoic, repetitive dialogue is too heavy for any character to find interest. It leaves little room for actors to inject genuine emotion into the complicated romance.

Even stranger, the movie’s script, from Hell Fest Blair Butler is Evie’s co-writer and goes to great lengths convincing viewers that Evie doesn’t have the brains to succumb to old money. As a Black woman who has lived her whole life in the United States and knows what it’s like to be the disrespected server at a rich person’s party (even though she has a killer New York City apartment), Evie constantly sympathizes with the wedding’s ill-fated servants, and swears to her best friend that she’d never fall prey to the trappings of wealth and the luxuries colonialism paid for. She does. She does it immediately. Walter was not convincing and he didn’t have any charm whatsoever. While her sudden susceptibility might suggest something supernatural is at play — something that might have helped sell the romance, and given her a meaningful internal struggle — Invitation never makes any hints that that’s the case.

In fact, Evie’s only reason for thinking Walter is anything other than a rich playboy with a big house is that he apologizes to her for his butler being rude. (Yes, it’s the help’s fault when something goes wrong for Evie. The irony is not acknowledged by the filmmakers. Invitation is desperate to try to replicate the awkward fish-out-of-water terror of Jordan Peele’s You must get outIt is not obvious, but the film has a disturbing element in it that reflects a love-hate relationship that existed between the antagonist and the protagonist long before the movie starts.

It’s a tedious affair. InvitationSometimes, scenes bring the movie closer to the moodiness and horror promised by its vampiric title. Some scenes feature mysterious, unseemly creatures that lurk in shadows and locked rooms. This brief sequence of terror is shot with a very dark camera and blue lighting. It obscures almost all the action. These scenes manage some tension, but they do not provide the same foreboding feeling that the rest.

In the final 25 minutes of its run, InvitationIt becomes the action-movie about vampires that Sony intended for all of the runtime. During a suitably creepy dinner — the movie’s most effective scene, thanks to the dozen or so masked vampire cultists — Walter finally explains his full vampiric machinations to Evie. The movie seems intent on revealing this information as a twist, but considering it not only makes up most of the trailer but is also hinted at in the movie’s prologue, Evie’s shock at the reveal ends up feeling like the most surprising part of the scene, especially given the broad hints at something weird and nefarious happening.

Foto by Marcell Piti/Screen Gems

Once the cat’s out of the bag, Invitation finally transforms into its best self, a vaguely angry movie about a woman who’s fed up with all these vampires and would very much like to kill them. Although the action is almost entirely lackluster and boring, it doesn’t reach the level of giddy violence and entertaining heights. Ready or notThe film InvitationFeels most indebted. At least it’s more exciting than Evie and Walter’s baffling courtship.

A part You must get outOne-third Ready or notToo few parts. Dracula, InvitationThis is just a collection of far better horror stories, which it doesn’t measure up to. It’s possible to make vampires do anything you want in films, but InvitationThe one and only sin that can be forgiven: Making vampires boring.

InvitationThe movie opens in theatres August 26.