Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Excellent, a Must See

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This film is labeled as a horror/thriller, and the audience could be easily fooled into thinking it is because of the Ouija board concept. Alas, The Invited is little more than a romantic love story between husband/wife wrapping itself around a convoluted horror plot. Along with the muddied plot and love aspect is an overwhelming use of religious subtext. This movie literally makes mention about how important faith is throughout and degrades the aesthetics characters as being the ruin of mankind. So, just to get this straight, horror fans ARE NOT INTO romance or having a religious agenda shoved down their throat. That's why we watch horror-strictly to avoid said things. As for the ending, it made absolutely no sense. It was a sad attempt at a twist. It didn't work. This is not a psychological thriller. Why did you bother?

The problems with this movie are three: 1. It is too muddled. It is impossible to know what is real, what is a dream, what is a hallucination, what is a flashback etc.. The attempts to do it more interesting by turning the camera around and taking shots from "interesting" angles also just made it more confusing. The ending was strange and unsatisfying.2. There is simply too much of everything. Ghosts, demons, snakes, an Ouija board, a portal to another world, the magic circle, the doll, the old lady, the medium... yes even the Devil himself. Did I forget something..? One gets used to it, tires, and stops reacting by shock/surprise very early on. It is much better to chose only one or a couple of those ingredients, and concentrate on that.3. There is too much blood and gore and mutilated bodies here. This does not make the movie more scary in any positive sense - but only unpleasant.The only thing that redeems this movie a little are the very good actors - considering what they had to work with!

This movie is not for wimps. Its many plot twists and surprises will have you on the edge of your seat, if not hiding under it. Ladies, be sure to have your man beside you when you go to see this film. It is far better to have someone you know whose arm you can grab, rather than to scare some poor, strange guy next to you. Veteran actress Ellen Dow was great as Natalie Shaw, as was newcomer Rhett McKinney as Roger, and the setting of the foothills of the Sierras was beautiful. Mr. McKinney artfully told his story within the time and budget constraints of an indie film. Although a basic story line, the plot had plenty of depth for thinkers.I viewed this film in the vintage Crest Theatre in Sacramento. I look forward to seeing its release in modern venues where theatergoers will benefit from up-to-date sound and projection equipment. Northern California is fortunate to have Ryan McKinney at the helm in promoting the movie industry in the Sacramento area. His passion, drive, and ethics are inspirational. I cannot wait to see where he takes us next.

No one looks forward to writing a scathing review of a movie. I think most would say that one always looks to be genuinely entertained when spending one's money on a ticket. Who WANTS to be disappointed going into a flick? No one. Which is the attitude I went in with when seeing this movie at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento last month. OH MY GOD. This ninety-some-odd-minute painful excuse of a film was, hands down, the worst movie I have ever viewed in my 30 years of watching movies. I do not mean this to be cruel to the filmmaker or the cast; I mean it literally. Absolute drivel from start to finish with some of the most melodramatic, cliché and predictable dialogue ever put to paper. I love a good horror flick as much as anyone, but there was nothing, not one single thing, in this movie that was scary or even admirable where horror film-making is concerned. Why? Because the filmmaker apparently decided to employ every and any "scary" device or trick or sound effect he'd ever heard or seen before in a horror movie and it therefore backfired as unrelenting silly moments of predictable cliché. By the way, what's with Pam Grier showing up at the house with this bizarre "slave accent", only to have that same silly accent disappear once they're all up in the attic? I took additional offense to this movie once I learned that the director is an acting coach in Sacramento. I repeat. OH MY GOD. Like Simon Cowell chewing out horrible singers when he learns that some of them are "singing teachers" back in their hometown, he should have this director standing before him; he'd have a field day with McKinney. The acting in The Invited is so bad - Lou Diamond Phillips being the worst of the lot - that the filmmaker might find it prudent to switch his credit to an Allen Smithee film. No joke. This movie could literally kill his business as an acting coach. Then again, would that be so bad? A famous director once said, "With such easy access nowadays to digital film-making cameras and editing tools, virtually anyone can be a filmmaker. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY NECESSARILY SHOULD. If The Invited is representative of the quality and caliber of film-making in the Sacramento region, then Sacramento film-making is indeed in deep s--t.