The Invitation (2022) Review

 "Everyone's dying to meet you."

-Oliver Alexander

With the recent death of her mother, struggling artist Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) has no remaining family and feels very alone.  That is, until she takes a DNA test and discovers she has distant cousins in England who are extremely wealthy.  They invite her to visit during a large family wedding, where Evie falls for an associate of the family, Walter (Thomas Doherty).  But this family has secrets...

What Works:

This movie works because of Nathalie Emmanuel.  She gives an extremely likable performance.  Evie is very much a fish-out-of-water due to both class and race and that makes her very relatable.  She works as a waitress for a catering company and understands what it's like to have to work for terrible customers.  She takes great sympathy on the maids who work at the mansion.  Plus she's very charming.  She's a character who is very easy to root for and that makes a world of difference in horror movies.

On that note, this movie spends more of its time on the romantic elements rather than the horror.  Shockingly, especially for anyone that knows me, I preferred the romantic elements.  Emmanuel and Doherty have amazing chemistry.  Sure, you know the other shoe is going to drop at any moment, but it works in spite of that.  I probably would have risked everything for a romance with Walter as well, he's that charming.

The horror elements that work don't really show up until the end of the 2nd act.  Once everything is revealed, the movie actually gets really interesting and has some neat ideas.  There are a couple of moments that gave me genuine chills.

Finally, the 3rd act itself is pretty fun.  There isn't a ton of action, but the stuff that is there is solid, with a particularly satisfying final kill that I don't want to spoil.

What Sucks:

As I mentioned, not all of the horror elements work, especially in the early stages of the film.  We get a lot of jump scares and all of them feel very forced and generic.  It's my least favorite trope in horror and this movie is a great example of why.

The 3rd act of this movie has some neat ideas for sure and I wish they had delved into them more.  I would have loved more exploration of the relationship between Walter, Viktoria (Stephanie Corneliussen), and Lucy (Alana Boden).  Just more exploration of Evie's potential fate would have been really nice.  It has some good and creepy ideas, but the movie doesn't go far enough with them.

Finally, the final scene of the movie is bad and feels like a rushed reshoot.  It either should have been cut out completely or shortened significantly.  It doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the film.

Verdict:

The Invitation is a movie I enjoyed and I don't know why the reception has been mostly negative.  The leads gives excellent performances and they have incredible chemistry.  The 3rd act is fun and the movie has some neat ideas, even if it doesn't do enough with them.  There are too many jump scares and I don't like the final scene, but the movie has still mostly got it going on.

 7/10: Good