![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Invitation (Spoiler Free)
Jan. 25th, 2021 01:19 amI took a break for some television (I'm watching through The Boys, but slowly) and a break for some actual holiday movies, not just the scary ones, I'm back on my scary movie bullshit. I've rebuilt my list in Notion, to track what I've watched and when because I watch a lot of video essays about movies on YouTube and sometimes I forget that it's already on my list or that I've already watched it so I mark it down a second time... I've got some shorter reviews coming sometime soon. But first I wanted to talk about this movie, The Invitation.
I've watched this twice now in the same year now (I think). I'm not sure it classifies as horror, though it definitely is a horrifying concept. I had to watch it twice because the first time I didn't retain any information of what happened in the movie but I'd recently seen like three different people talking about this weird movie from 2015 and how good it was. So I thought I'd try again and pay better attention this time around. It is worth noting that Michiel Huisman is in it, whom I love and completely didn't remember being in it, which says a lot for how little I remembered about this.
The movie centers around a couple, who are attending a dinner party being held by the man's ex-wife and new husband. And bless this black girlfriend for attending this party of absolute white-nonsense. The man, Will, is clearly uncomfortable by the whole gathering of his friends, friends he and his ex-wife shared several years prior before something happened to split them up. Will early on suspects there's something weird about this party.
The couple are welcoming, they have a couple of people with them, strangers to the rest of the friend group and something is DEFINITELY happening between the four of these people that's just plain off. Turns out the four of them are part of this cult-like group that operates in Mexico and that's where the ex and her husband have been for the last two years. It's something called "The Invitation". They pull out a laptop and show the group a disturbing video of a woman dying, but seemingly surrounded by this group of friends from the group. And it's a little reminiscent of in Midsommar, as the people collectively gather around to share in someone's grief.
People feel weird about it (obviously) a woman gets up and leaves the house, under protest from others in the group. Then this group of adults plays a game that's a little like truth or dare... which also makes some people uncomfortable. No one leaves though, and eventually the group all gather for dinner to sort of calm down the general tension that's building.
From there, things get even weirder.
When I built my new movie tracker in Notion, I started adding Genre or Category notes for films to help me remember exactly what KIND of horror movie I'd watched. I've recently added a category for "rich people". As in, this is some kind of bullshit that only a bunch of rich white people would do. Movies like Get Out, Truth or Dare, Sorry to Bother You, Nasty Piece of Work, 13 Sins... all kind of fall in that category. I think this movie also belongs in that group. It's not about the cult they belonged to, it's about the kind of people that would think it's okay to bring their friends together for a fancy dinner party where this stuff takes place. I feel like I need to also make like a 'dinner party' tag too, because that's a regular plot point in movies and it'd be interesting to put them up against each other at some point.
Overall The Invitation not a great movie, but it is tense and well-paced. I don't think anything really hits you by surprise once you get into it though. And there is an amount of time you have to kind of figure out what you think is going on with Will, if you buy that Will isn't just throwing a tantrum or is there really something is off about his ex and the house she's still living in. Because the first half-hour or so makes it very much feel like maybe he's just being a baby about it.
Now I'm not sure it's a great movie, at least not as good as I've heard people say it is. I'm giving it a 4/5 on my list. You do have to pay attention, I zoned out a lot of the party chatter the first time and just was generally distracted so I didn't remember most of what happened on my first viewing. Also, I just have a hard time remembering things long-term if I don't make notes about them, which also likely contributed to me feeling like I was watching this again for the first time.
If you want to watch it, content warnings for self-harm, alcohol, mentions of child death and a slasher movie's amount of blood and violence.
I've watched this twice now in the same year now (I think). I'm not sure it classifies as horror, though it definitely is a horrifying concept. I had to watch it twice because the first time I didn't retain any information of what happened in the movie but I'd recently seen like three different people talking about this weird movie from 2015 and how good it was. So I thought I'd try again and pay better attention this time around. It is worth noting that Michiel Huisman is in it, whom I love and completely didn't remember being in it, which says a lot for how little I remembered about this.
The movie centers around a couple, who are attending a dinner party being held by the man's ex-wife and new husband. And bless this black girlfriend for attending this party of absolute white-nonsense. The man, Will, is clearly uncomfortable by the whole gathering of his friends, friends he and his ex-wife shared several years prior before something happened to split them up. Will early on suspects there's something weird about this party.
The couple are welcoming, they have a couple of people with them, strangers to the rest of the friend group and something is DEFINITELY happening between the four of these people that's just plain off. Turns out the four of them are part of this cult-like group that operates in Mexico and that's where the ex and her husband have been for the last two years. It's something called "The Invitation". They pull out a laptop and show the group a disturbing video of a woman dying, but seemingly surrounded by this group of friends from the group. And it's a little reminiscent of in Midsommar, as the people collectively gather around to share in someone's grief.
People feel weird about it (obviously) a woman gets up and leaves the house, under protest from others in the group. Then this group of adults plays a game that's a little like truth or dare... which also makes some people uncomfortable. No one leaves though, and eventually the group all gather for dinner to sort of calm down the general tension that's building.
From there, things get even weirder.
When I built my new movie tracker in Notion, I started adding Genre or Category notes for films to help me remember exactly what KIND of horror movie I'd watched. I've recently added a category for "rich people". As in, this is some kind of bullshit that only a bunch of rich white people would do. Movies like Get Out, Truth or Dare, Sorry to Bother You, Nasty Piece of Work, 13 Sins... all kind of fall in that category. I think this movie also belongs in that group. It's not about the cult they belonged to, it's about the kind of people that would think it's okay to bring their friends together for a fancy dinner party where this stuff takes place. I feel like I need to also make like a 'dinner party' tag too, because that's a regular plot point in movies and it'd be interesting to put them up against each other at some point.
Overall The Invitation not a great movie, but it is tense and well-paced. I don't think anything really hits you by surprise once you get into it though. And there is an amount of time you have to kind of figure out what you think is going on with Will, if you buy that Will isn't just throwing a tantrum or is there really something is off about his ex and the house she's still living in. Because the first half-hour or so makes it very much feel like maybe he's just being a baby about it.
Now I'm not sure it's a great movie, at least not as good as I've heard people say it is. I'm giving it a 4/5 on my list. You do have to pay attention, I zoned out a lot of the party chatter the first time and just was generally distracted so I didn't remember most of what happened on my first viewing. Also, I just have a hard time remembering things long-term if I don't make notes about them, which also likely contributed to me feeling like I was watching this again for the first time.
If you want to watch it, content warnings for self-harm, alcohol, mentions of child death and a slasher movie's amount of blood and violence.
