The Invitation (2016)

Running Time: 1hr 40min

Release Date: April 8, 2016

Review by: Stacey

I'm going to get this out of the way right now, this is a movie everyone needs to go and see ASAP.  I mean, if you want to.  I'm not going to tell you that you'd be missing out on a movie that's sure to be on a lot of folks' "favorites of 2016" list, but y'know...
I had been looking forward to Karyn Kusama's (Girlfight, Jennifer's Body) thriller The Invitation for several months now, and while on the outside it looks like your typical "dinner party from Hell" movie- what you end up getting is so much more than that.

 

After having not seen his ex-wife, Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband, David (Michiel Huisman) in over 2 years, Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and his girlfriend Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi) are invited to their home in the Hollywood Hills for a dinner party with friends.  Once they arrive though, Will slowly begins to notice that Eden and David are acting strangely and starts to suspect that the couple's intentions for the gathering are actually far more malevolent.



  I seriously just want to give y'all all the spoilers right now but since it came out only a few days ago (in limited theaters and on VOD now!), I must zip my lip and just tell you how much I loved the movie and how goddamn good it is.  The Invitation is a wonderfully shot thriller that crawls along (in a good way, mind you) and gradually amps up the tension until it all explodes in a fit of crazy in the final act.  From the opening scene to the final shot, you're aware of this lingering sense of unease and dread because you KNOW something fucked up is going to happen, but you just don't know what.



The characters themselves were perfectly played.  You're taken on this ride through the eyes of Will (Marshall-Green giving us some major Tom Hardy vibes), but at some point you're forced to step back and consider that his perspective might not exactly be the most rational.  Eden and David are just downright creepy; David being the most subtle about it, which is typically the most dangerous.  Something is just off about them from the moment you meet them and you just want to scream at your tv for the guests to get out and fast.  While they're the main leads of the film, every one else gets their time to shine (I'm lookin' at you, John Carroll Lynch) equally and allows us to form a connection with each person in some small way.

The score, by Theodore Shapiro, is just another checkmark on the list of things that make The Invitation such an unsettling film.



If I can find anything that people will gripe about concerning the film, it'll probably be the fact that it is a bit easy to figure out from fairly early on.  That said, the movie will take the fact that you think you've got it worked out and pile a load of crazy on top of it.  Either way, I think people are going to have a hard time finding reasons to dislike it.
   
5/5


Check out the trailer!