7MS #183: OFFTOPIC-The Invitation

Brian Johnson -

A movie review of The Invitation. Rotten Tomatoes reviewers loved it! I thought it was decent, but have some gripes. I think in general, these ensemble suspense thrillers - where apparently only one dude is suspicious of the people acting funny around him - could be fixed by:

  • Creating characters we actually care about.

  • Not making the lone dude the only one suspicious of weird things going on.

  • If you're casting mostly unknowns, don't cast a characters actor known to do creepy stuff or he's automatically a suspect!

  • Don't do cheap computer "discovery" scenes where one of a few things happen:

  • Character comes across computer with no password.

  • Character comes across computer with no password and an important file he needs is the only one on the desktop - or better yet, already open.