| The Uninvited | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | The Guard Brothers |
| Produced by | Michael Grillo Ivan Reitman Tom Pollock Walter F. Parkes Laurie MacDonald Riyoko Tanaka |
| Screenplay by | Craig Rosenberg Doug Miro Carlo Bernard |
| Based on | A Tale of Two Sisters by Kim Jee-Woon |
| Starring | Emily Browning Arielle Kebbel Elizabeth Banks David Strathairn Jesse Moss |
| Music by | Christopher Young |
| Cinematography | Daniel Landin |
| Editing by | Jim Page Christian Wagner |
| Studio | Vertigo Entertainment The Montecito Picture Company Goldcrest Pictures |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks |
| Release date(s) | January 30, 2009 (United States/Canada) May 28, 2009 (Germany) |
| Running time | 87 minutes |
| Country | United States Canada Germany |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $40,563,148 |
The Uninvited is a 2009 American remake of the 2003 South Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters. It is unrelated to another 2003 Korean horror film and a 1944 American film, both of which have the same name.
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Anna (Emily Browning) has been in a psychiatric institution for ten months, following her suicide attempt after her terminally-ill mother died in a boathouse fire. Now she is being discharged and has no memory of the actual fire, although she is frequently plagued by nightmares from the night. While packing, Anna is startled by a talkative patient who asks, "Now who will I tell my stories to?". Shortly after, she leaves with her father, Steven (David Strathairn).
At home, Anna reunites with her older sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel). The sisters are very close, and they are united against Steven's girlfriend Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), who had been their mother's live-in nurse. Alex criticizes Steven for sleeping with Rachel while the girls' mother was still alive, but her comments fall on deaf ears. Anna describes to Alex how scenes from her dreams have started happening while she is awake. The sisters become convinced that the dreams and hallucinations are messages from their mother, telling them that she had been murdered by Rachel.
Anna catches up with her old boyfriend Matt (Jesse Moss),who tells her that he saw what happened the night of her mother's death. The two secretly plan to meet, but he inexplicably fails to show up. Later, Anna she awakens to find him climbing into her window. He says she needs to know the truth: that he had a warning from her mother. Suddenly, his body grotesquely warps, his back breaking. Anna runs from the room in fear. The next morning, Matt's dead body is pulled out of the water, his back broken just the way Anna saw it.
After the sisters are unable to find a record of Rachel with the State Nursing Association, they conclude she is actually Mildred Kemp, a nanny who killed the three children she was paid to care for because she had an obsession with their widowed father. They try to warn their father, but he brushes off their concerns and leaves for work. In desperation, the girls try to gather evidence against Rachel to show the police but Rachel catches them and drugs Alex using the sedatives from her nursing job. Anna manages to escape and goes to the police station, but they are disbelieving of her claims and call Rachel to take her home.
After Rachel puts Anna in bed, Anna sees Alex, no longer sedated, in the doorway with a knife, and passes out. Anna wakes shortly after to find that Alex has killed Rachel, and thrown her body in the dumpster. Relieved, the girls comfort each other. When their father drives up, horrified at the scene, Anna explains that Rachel tried to murder them but Alex saved them by killing Rachel. Confused, Steven tells Anna that Alex died in the fire. Anna looks down to find that she is not holding her sister's hand, but the bloody knife used to kill Rachel.
It's then that Anna finally remembers the fire: After catching her father and Rachel together, Anna filled a watering can from a large gasoline tank in the boathouse and carried it toward the house, intending to burn it down. However, she spilled a trail of gasoline that ignited when a candle fell over. Her mother was killed in the resulting explosion, as was Alex, who was also in the boathouse. She also remembers that Matt really did show up as planned, but she killed him by letting him fall into the water and break his back. Alex was actually never there, only being a figment of Anna's imagination.
The police are called to arrest Anna for murder, and when Steven is questioned, he reveals that Rachel changed her last name years ago to escape an abusive boyfriend, explaining why her name was not found on file when Anna called the State Nursing Association. The police ask why Anna would make up the Mildred story, but Steven remains speechless.
At the mental institution, Anna is welcomed back by the patient that scared her earlier, whose name plate on the door says "Mildred Kemp," implying that Anna's delusion came from actually knowing the real Mildred Kemp.
In 2002, producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald produced the hit horror/thriller, The Ring, a remake of the Japanese film Ringu. They subsequently produced the film’s successful sequel The Ring Two in 2005. Since first starting this new cycle of Asian horror film adaptations, Parkes and MacDonald searched for a project they felt was as ingeniously conceived and executed as The Ring, and finally found it when producer Roy Lee brought the original Korean hit movie on which The Uninvited is based to their attention.
As A Tale of Two Sisters was playing in US theaters, directors Tom and Charlie Guard acquired the English language remake rights. The Guard Brothers studied at Cambridge before launching careers as commercial and short film directors for such clients as Nokia, Euro Disney, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. The Korean remake is their first feature film. In June 2006, DreamWorks announced that a deal had been set up for the US version, A Tale of Two Sisters (advance press materials drop the “A” from the English title). The new film is a presentation of DreamWorks and Cold Spring Pictures (Disturbia), and is produced by Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald (The Ring, The Ring Two) and Roy Lee. The screenplay was written by Craig Rosenberg (After the Sunset, Lost), Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard (The Great Raid).[1]
In early 2008, the title needed to be changed. The working title was originally A Tale of Two Sisters like its predecessor, but the final title was confirmed to be The Uninvited in an announcement made in March.[2]
The film was released in North American and Canadian theaters on January 30, 2009.
The film was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. Most of the film was shot at one location, a waterfront property on British Columbia's Bowen Island, a short ferry ride west from mainland Vancouver."' 'Eighty percent of the story takes place at the house, so we couldn't make the movie without the right one,' said Walter F. Parkes. It couldn't have been more important.' 'We Scouted Louisiana, an environment which both beautiful and slightly threatening. We had two houses which were terrible compromises, but both of them fell through. We had a difficult time finding anything that had both the connection to the story and the right logistical possibilities.'"
"'But then we were lucky to find in Canada a place that seemed as if it had been built for our movie,'" he continues. "'It was perfectly evocative and suggestive of a family that is both welcoming and forbidding. The fact that the house was within 30 miles of Vancouver was a greater plus than the minus of having to get everyone on boats to get them over there; water taxis and ferries are a way of life up there. In fact, I don’t remember ever having a more pleasant time on a location. Getting onto a boat and having a cup of coffee and then going up the little pier and the stairs we built, it focused us. We were isolated with one thing on our minds, which was making this movie. It was great.'"[3] However, the film's location is set in Maine.
It is reported that a two-story boathouse in the film was built on the property overlooking the water just for several scenes. The cold water is rough and unappealing; it is a greenish-gray that crashes constantly and does not invite swimming.[4]
Filming took place on Bowen Island.[5] The house was for sale and recently sold for $6,950,000.[6]
Emily Browning was hired to portray the lead Anna Ivers. She had originally auditioned for the role of Alex. The film is rated PG-13, and is less visually gory and bloody than the original film.[4] Elizabeth Banks plays a new character, Rachel.[7] Banks based her character Rachel on Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.[8] "It was very important to me that every line reading I gave could be interpreted two ways," says Banks of her role, "So that when you go back through the movie you can see that."[8] David Strathairn plays the concerned father of the two girls.[9] Arielle Kebbel plays Anna's older sister, Alex Ivers.[10]
The original score for the film was composed by Christopher Young, who recorded it with a 78-piece orchestra and 20-person choir. His score features a glass harmonica, and the Yale Women's Slavic Chorus.[11]
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 28, 2009 in the U.S., and July 23, 2009 in Australia.
The film received generally mixed to negative reviews from critics; Rotten Tomatoes reported that 31% of critics (39 out of 124) gave favorable reviews, with the average score of 4.5/10, with the consensus "The Uninvited is moody and reasonably involving, but suffers from predictable plot twists."[12] Metacritic also score the film of 44/100 (mixed or average) from 22 reviews.[13] Bloody Disgusting gave the film 6/10[14] while on Yahoo! Movies Critical Response, the average professional critical rating was a C according to 11 reviews.[15]
On its opening day, the film grossed $4,335,000 and ranked #2 in the box office.[16] However, it finally got $10,512,000 for its opening weekend, set on the third place, opened in 2,344 theaters with an average $4,485 per theatre.[17] The film spent nine weeks in U.S. cinemas, and finished with a total gross of $28,596,818. It did fairly moderate for a horror film in the US markets.[18] The film was released on March 26, 2009 in Australia, and the film opened at the fifth position, averaging $3,998 at 121 sites, for a gross of A$483,714. The second week it dipped 29%.
The story has been adapted to film a number of times including: