The Uninvited Review by Dave White
Your man at the multiplex.

The Uninvited

Movie Info and Showtimes Posted on: Jan. 30, 2009 Release Date: Jan. 30, 2009

The Uninvited Grade: D-

Who's In It: Emily Browning, Arielle Kebbel, Elizabeth Banks, David Strathairn

The Basics: A teenage girl with a mysteriously dead mom thinks that mom's foxy nurse did it so that she could steal away ol' Dad. And it looks like that's exactly what's going on here. Not helping matters is the less-than-nice attitude of the former nurse/Dad's trophy girlfriend, a disposition that could be called borderline homicidal. And Dad's no help, taking foxy nurse's side over his own psychologically fragile child. So the now-paranoid daughter enlists the help of her frequently inebriated older sister in a plan to expose foxy nurse's intentions and maybe kill her first before they get drugged and stabbed to death themselves.

What's The Deal: One problem. This is one of those "gotcha!" movies where nothing you see can be believed. I won't spoil what little fun exists here by telling you what's real and what's not. But know that every single plot detail is stolen from earlier, better thrillers and that you should be paying very close attention to who's saying what to whom in this movie because that's the only way you'll be able to piece it back together when it all falls apart in the last five minutes. I don't mind being sucker-punched by a film that's smart enough to really fake me out. I just want that punch to sting like a bee instead of a butterfly.

Who Makes This Trash Watchable: Elizabeth Banks as the foxy nurse. She studied up with The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Single White Female. Or at least that's how she comes off. But again, the movie cuts her off at the knees, makes her character completely irrelevant, lies to the audience and goes in this whole other stupid failure direction instead of letting her evil fully bloom.

Other "Un" Movie That's Way More Entertaining: The idiotically awesome The Unborn that came out earlier this month, the one about the miscarried ghost-twin from the Holocaust that decides to haunt a college girl. It never presumes to be smarter than it is.

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