An attempt to meld gothic romance and horror into one cohesive film falls a little flat in “The Invitation.”
It’s got an infusion of modern pop culture and enough Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’ references for any self-respecting horror fan.
But, it doesn’t do anything amazing to either genre and suffers from such confusion.
Still, it’s got a creepy English manor atmosphere and enough eccentric weirdoes to make it at least semi-entertaining.
The Invitation is a supernatural horror film directed by Jessica M. Thompson, written by Blair Butler, and produced by Emile Gladstone.
The film stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Stephanie Corneliussen, Alana Boden, Courtney Taylor, Hugh Skinner, Sean Pertwee and Virág Bárány.
It’s rated PG-13 for terror, violent content, some strong language, sexual content and partial nudity and clocks in at 104 minutes long.
Originally titled The Bride, the project was under production of Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert’s Ghost House Pictures, with Butler writing the script.
However, Raimi and Tapert exited due to scheduling conflicts.
In New York City, struggling artist Evelyn “Evie” Jackson (Emmanuel) supports herself by waitressing for a catering company.
Evie has struggled with her mother’s death for the past year and is essentially an orphan on her own – save her best friend Grace (Taylor).
After getting a DNA kit at an event she worked at, her loneliness gets the better of her and she sends the kit in.
She soon receives the results that she has extended family in England and is messaged by her cousin, Oliver Alexander (Skinner), who asks to meet while he’s in the city for work.
Evie is quickly charmed by the harmlessly eager Oliver, who tells Evie about the scandal of her great-grandmother, Emmaline Alexander (Barany), who, while engaged to be married, had an affair with a footman and had a secret child.
That secret child was Evie’s grandmother!
Oliver invites Evie to an upcoming family wedding in England so she can meet everyone, and Evie reluctantly agrees.
Evie arrives at a gorgeous estate in the English countryside and is charmed by the handsome lord of the manor, Walter DeVille (Doherty).
Evie is welcomed by her new family with eagerly open arms and made a guest of honor.
During the night, new maids begin to go missing as they are attacked by shadowy figures throughout the house, and Evie has nightmares about Emmaline killing herself.
Evie is invited to take part in pre-wedding activities with the two maids of honor: the condescending and sarcastic Viktoria (Corneliussen), and the bubbly, naive Lucy (Boden).
Viktoria upsets Evie and plants doubts in her mind about Walter, leading Evie to discover Walter had a background check run on Evie before her arrival.
Evie confronts Walter about it and threatens to leave, but the two quickly reconcile and have sex.
Sadly, it doesn’t get better for Evie, who seems to have left her brain and common sense behind in NYC.
Well, until the end, but that’s up for you to decide – so go catch it in theaters or wait for a streaming debut.
Either way, you won’t look at those “23&Me” DNA commercials the same ever again.
