DVD Review: The Uninvited

PARAMOUNT
Street: April 28
Prebook: March 17
> Remake of Asian horror film starts slow but builds to jolting climax.

The Uninvited remakes a 2003 Korean effort but also lifts ideas and gimmicks from a few of our homegrown horror films. Emily Browning stars as recently released mental patient Anna, now back home with her widowed father (David Strathairn), who’s keeping company with her dead mother’s former nurse, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks). When Anna and older sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) learn that the erstwhile caregiver has a few skeletons in her closet, the girls set out to break up the relationship, but with deadly results. The supernatural element is introduced when Anna gets regular visits from the ghosts of her mom and three children, who might be linked to Rachel’s past. There’s the usual quota of unexpected loud noises and so on, but things don’t really rev up until the last 20 minutes.

Shelf Talk: You can cross-promote Uninvited with the early chillers of M. Night Shyamalan and other American remakes of Asian horror films (The Ring, The Grudge). Also play up the cast: promising starlets Browning and Kebbel and the oddly cast Banks, who seems to be everywhere these days.