The Uninvited: My Facebook Phantom and How He Incessantly Messaged Me

As some of you may be aware, the new horror film The Uninvited (2009) does not have the additional subtitle and has nothing to do with that Alanis Morissette song that was unfortunately attached to the crap remake of Wings of Desire (1987), City of Angels (1998) -- you know, that one starring that scion of acting, Nicolas Cage? But if you observe the nifty poster art, you'll see the personification of the creepy feeling I'd get if some icky person I didn't like requested that I add them as a facebook friend. And then I'd have to say yes because, chances are, I'd have to see said person/people in public and they'd be all awkward because I'd be all awkward and all because they technically aren't my friend and shouldn't have that distinguished title on my facebook profile. That said, I don't have a facebook profile if just to avoid being another shiny cog in that super happening internet social scene. I, personally, am wont to believe that friends are generally a bit tiered in one's life. Your parents, your significant other, your close ones--they all know who your closest friends are. Online is bit different--you can't really give your facebook friends a weighted number, even though they probably have one, or at least a 'level.' Everyone wants to feel special, it seems. But does that homely little man you were polite to at the bar deserve to be your friend in any sense of what that term indicates? Facebook, myspace, etc, have made the word friend into one of those contextual words, like love. You can't really use either of those words that freely or they lose their meaning.

Meanwhile, in movie land, 2009's next mainstream horror movie, The Uninvited is to the horror film genre what 'friends' are on facebook. In plainspeak, someone just may mistake it as something authentic. But my little friends and readers, this little trish-trash is about as horrific and thrilling as a new Britney album. You know what I mean. Funny. Unintentionally funny--If you seek attention. The poster, among other things, is eerily similar to the poster for that 2007 horror film, The Invisible, which I have included for your viewing pleasure. I haven't seen it, but from the preview it looks like that film is at least aptly titled. No one is invited to any sort of integral plot function in The Uninvited. So I don't really understand who or what was un-invited or denied invitation. I mean, to un-invite something implies that you changed your mind. Can you do that on facebook? If so, I would love to fuck around with that function. But much like the travesty of this year's The Unborn, where nothing was born or denied birth, this film's 'handle' would have been better used as a sequel to The Wedding Planner (2001). Or like online chatting with someone named supercutehottieboi69 and 69 is their age.

Now, I've wasted SOO much time bitching about the basics, but since the film is utterly lacking in substance, it's a bit difficult. The plot revolves around a young girl as she is released from a psych ward because several months earlier she had slit her wrists due to a mysterious fire that engulfed her sickly mother. Again, this is one of those films in which the family is so wealthy that you have a hard time feeling any pity for the plight of these dull, flat people with their mansion-cabin and oodles of free time. Emily Browning and her wide face plays Anna, the main character. Nabokov describes a character in Lolita as having polyp lips, and instantly I thought of not only Angelina Jolie but also Emily Browning. You may recognize Emily from the Lemony Snicket film (2004) or another horror classic, Darkness Falls (2003), of which the additional title could have been "On Her Career." Well poor, virginal Anna quite dislikes her new step-mother, who used to be her mother's nurse. What sounds like a nice homage to the Joan Crawford classic, Possession (1947), is anything but. The film's main high-light, however, is Elizabeth Banks, who is so radiantly blue-eyed bitchy I smelled shades of Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992). And I love how the family pictures try to portray Banks looking 'nursey.' However, the imbalance in obvious talent is so great that when Banks gets all revved up, there's nothing to counteract her aggression in order to give her reason to really act the way she does. This is even more painfully obvious after the film's schlock ending that borrows a bit from a now iconic 1999 horror film. I don't need to be cruel and give it away so easily. Because of the twist, everything that has come before doesn't add up to a whole lot of sense. Which wasn't surprising. The film so deliberately misleads you because it knows it has no substance and is on a rickety railway to the shit-can from the opening credits---and not in that awesomely fun High Tension (2003) way. The supernatural elements in this film are so hokey and out of place they could have been cutting room floor footage from any number of other films. The ghost children that keep popping up and looking strangely Amish are particularly ridiculous. The film also, sadly, stars David Strathairn, who I'm guessing needed work before the strike or maybe he skimmed the script. But if you enjoy a campy bitch performance, rent the DVD and skip to scenes with Banks. Directed by the Guard Brothers, who have nothing else to their credit for the time being, the film will be another of those extremely forgettable horror films from the 2000s. The film is definitely unenchanting and unhorrific.