The Invitation

Directed by Jessica M. Thompson. Starring Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Stephanie Corneliussen, Alana Boden, Hugh Skinner, Kata Sarbó, Scott Alexander ...

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. The rest of this invitation should be discarded in the trash. Given the creepy statues and paintings (not to mention the pitch-black photography), it’s evident that something is off here. It’s not that The Invitation spends far too much time on this romantic angle that drains it of any life force, but rather how boring and suspense-free it’s executed. Thompson (co-writing alongside Blair Butler), the film centers on working-class woman Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), who, while still grieving her father and the recent loss of her mother, decides to take a DNA test searching for more ancestors. The test results bring up a distant cousin eager to meet up.

The filmmaker talks to WGTC about the gothic supernatural horror.

Yeah, I think there is something to be said for the genre space, opening up open more and more to women. So kind of like this restructuring of the power hierarchy in the world through genre, climate change science fiction film, is basically my big dream, and I would love to come in and just make it tomorrow. There’s a change happening, and horror appears to be one of the genres pushing that forward. That was really fun once we knew the film was like a nightmare, then really leaning into that was a lot of fun. To me, balancing that duality was really important, and kind of having to meet the main theme of the film, which is the rich eating the poor. And so you do all of that well in advance, and you test all that, so that on the day, you don’t have any hiccups. But yeah, there was a three-day shoot, and all that incredible food that’s on the table was genuine was real. That must have been a riot to shoot for yourself, the cast, and the crew? And so, the more that you can do that in advance, and we work with the top. So at least I knew the amount of hours and how to, you know, that was something that I didn’t kind of predict as to how prosthetics work on different skin types, and skin textures. And it was fun to revisit, actually, and realize the things that I remembered from the book are actually quite different. There’s details in the wallpaper, there’s details in ornaments, even down to the little on the badges that they wear on their lapels.

PLOT: After taking a genealogy test, a young woman is invited to a wedding to meet her new family. But things are not as they seem and she may soon regret ...

Especially when you compare it to the tone of the rest of the film. The most important of them all is the master of the house, Walter. [Thomas Doherty](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6015235/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1) does a wonderful job and fits the role of Walter perfectly. They lay it on a little thick but his dickishness sets up the treatment of the other staff well. Most of the other characters seem to occupy generic English stereotypes, but there is a bit of reason for that. She makes little comments about how things are weird, but she just attributes it to rich people being rich and moves on.

New horror movie The Invitation is a fun take on the vampire genre with star Nathalie Emmanuel in the lead.

Much of the credit for the film’s success goes to Emmanuel, who believably conveys Evie’s thirst for the excess in front of her. In theatres on August 26, The Invitation doesn’t exactly reinvent the genre, but with a female director and writers, it certainly gives more agency to Evie than what is typical. A fun end-of-summer watch, this one has plenty to sink your teeth into. As the pre-wedding festivities ramp up, Evie learns that it is she who is to become a vampire bride, thus securing the family’s bloodline in this homage to all things Dracula. They are women who’ve not had a tremendous amount of choice in life and, as a result, are simultaneously punitive and supportive of Evie’s freedom. Thompson who co-writes the script with Blair Butler, The Invitation is a rare, feminist entry into the vampire canon.

We live in a post-"Twilight" world where onscreen bloodsuckers don't really need to be scary to be compelling.

But Day Shift and much of The Invitation are no more distinct in their vampire characterizations than Breaking Dawn, where a single surrender to human-vampire sex leads straight into parenthood. Like The Invitation, Day Shift positions the vampires — or the worst of them, anyway — as part of the one percent, more pointed about their unavoidable aristocracy than the Twilight model of the noblesse-oblige vamps pitted against more conniving factions. If The Invitation is taking up a simplified version of that intrigue, Netflix’s Day Shift has its eye on the action. (He’s actually being pompous, not snarky.) It’s the perfect indicator that The Invitation works better as sincere homage to an older strain of horror, with its shadowy figures glimpsed in the cavernous mansion, or clawed fingers pushing through the covering of a four-poster bed. It makes a kind of sense that the most popular vampire movies in their absence feature the next step in domestication: the parenting-centric, murder-free narrative of the four Hotel Transylvania movies, kid-friendly cartoons where Dracula is happy to subsist on synthetic blood. Now, as summer slowly turns to fall, two high-profile vampire-related movies have arrived; both The Invitation (now in theaters) and Day Shift (now on Netflix) attempt to untame creatures that were virtually defanged by some of the most popular vampire movies ever made.

Cross the tendencies of Jane Austen with those of Bram Stoker, and you have the surprisingly frightening and fun new gothic-horror picture.

The film features a fantastic space battle in the climax as well as the most brutal ground fighting depicted in the Star Wars series. The effects are high quality, but not quite as strong as the digital work used in “Ant-Man” or “Captain America: Civil War” to de-age Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr. 21, the studio is re-releasing “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” in IMAX theaters this weekend, including the Malco Razorback Cinema and IMAX. Director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla and Monsters) details the tragic yet inspiring story in the film. For the record, I like a quality gigantic monster-movie showdown, and on that note, “Godzilla vs. Even without the giveaway, astute moviegoers would have have quickly picked up the vampiric scent as the movie begins to drop a ton of references to Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” and its subsequent film adaptations midway into the first act of the movie. Music and dancing his his thing, but the Rev. “The Invitation” was one of the most surprising and fun trips to the theater for me this summer. Before she knows it the two are in a relationship. However, weird things begin to happen to Evie in and around the mansion, but the charming yet enigmatic Walt allays her fears and comforts her one night. The story opens as a romance but is actually an under-cover vampire flick. Thompson and her cinematographer Autumn Eakin collaborate to create a beautifully staged and shot film that offers what appears to be A-list production values despite the film’s pulpy fare.

Coming at the mythology with a female lens is writer/director Jessica M. Thompson, co-writer Blair Butler and actress Nathalie Emmanuel, who execute some ...

What The Invitation does get right in terms of originality all comes in the last act, as the guests, the Alexanders and Walt’s background get revealed in a baroque sequence that is a dizzying miasma of close-ups and fisheye lenses. Even as Evie is tempted by this life of wealth and connection, Emmanuel dials an awareness into her performance that, aside from the maids, no one else in this place looks like Evie or comes from a background like hers. And as the danger of Evie’s situation becomes more clear, her agency grows so she’s not relegated to the damsel in distress as the genre would have you expect. At the same time, the movie is working overtime to set up the Abbey as a dark place full of shadows and menace. In fact, her acerbic attitude and filterless candor is one of the freshest angles of the script. Of course, sparks fly and Walt is always looming with a smirk and generous gifts that envelop Evie in the fairy tale of the whole experience.

The horror film from director Jessica M. Thompson follows a young woman, Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), on a spontaneous trip to a country wedding in England.

The atmosphere and setting are excellent, and Thompson delights in shadow and fog. That version of “The Invitation” would’ve been more memorable and bold, though I’ll readily admit it would’ve infuriated viewers; audiences generally hate being served a dish they didn’t order. For the most part, though, it’s the story of Evie meeting and falling for the home’s dashing young lord (Thomas Doherty).

The Invitation was sold to audiences as a vampire action movie about rich, aristocratic bloodsuckers, but it's more of a dull flirty romance that waits far ...

One part Get Out, one part Ready or Not, and too few parts Dracula, The Invitation is a pastiche of infinitely better horror stories that it never measures up to. Once the cat’s out of the bag, The Invitation finally transforms into its best self, a vaguely angry movie about a woman who’s fed up with all these vampires and would very much like to kill them. Finally, in its last 25 minutes, The Invitation turns into the vampire-slaying action movie Sony wanted audiences to believe it is for the whole run time. But they at least manage tension for a few seconds at a time, and they provide a bit of the foreboding atmosphere that the rest of the movie is sorely lacking. The bait-and-switch of subbing a dubious romance in for vampire violence wouldn’t be much of a problem if the movie were willing to invest in the Gothic style and foreboding atmosphere that helps make vampire love stories timelessly creepy. As a Black woman who has lived her whole life in the United States and knows what it’s like to be the disrespected server at a rich person’s party (even though she has a killer New York City apartment), Evie constantly sympathizes with the wedding’s ill-fated servants, and swears to her best friend that she’d never fall prey to the trappings of wealth and the luxuries colonialism paid for. These brief horror scenes are shot in an overly dark manner, with tacky blue lighting that obscures almost all of the action. While her sudden susceptibility might suggest something supernatural is at play — something that might have helped sell the romance, and given her a meaningful internal struggle — The Invitation never makes any hints that that’s the case. In fact, Evie’s only reason for thinking Walter is anything other than a rich playboy with a big house is that he apologizes to her for his butler being rude. The Invitation follows Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), an unhappy and over-it gig-caterer in New York who’s fed up with her dead-end job, desperate to follow her passion for ceramics, and still reeling from her mother’s recent death. That may surprise viewers who’ve seen any of the They can [sparkle](https://www.polygon.com/2021/7/20/22585012/twilight-movies-netflix-streaming), [skateboard](https://www.polygon.com/22702474/best-halloween-movies-tv-to-watch-stream), [yell “bat”](https://www.polygon.com/23268562/what-we-do-in-the-shadows-laszlo-bat-matt-berry), or [do gymnastics](https://www.polygon.com/23301720/day-shift-vampires-netflix-contortionists-jamie-foxx-jj-perry), all while fulfilling their bloodsucking duties.

Exclusive: The Invitation star Thomas Doherty reveals the inspirations for his charming vampire character, including Tom Cruise's Lestat.

The Invitation’s Doherty certainly seems to think that Cruise nailed something in Interview With the Vampire, given that he used the performance as at least partial inspiration for his own work. But though Cruise was to some degree panned for his performance in that movie initially, it seems that over the years his work has grown in reputation and is now regarded as one of the more memorable on-screen vampire performances. [Cruise’s portrayal of Lestat in 1994’s Interview With the Vampire](https://screenrant.com/interview-vampire-anne-rice-tom-cruise-lestat-casting-hate/) is certainly much more in line with a character who is based at least in part on the classic bloodsucker Count Dracula.

Beyond one somewhat gory scene, Jessica M. Thompson delivers little to nothing to genuinely shock or awe.

As Eve tries to enjoy a spa day with the other women attending the wedding, she argues with the insufferable Viktoria (Stephanie Corneliussen), one of the maids of honor. Molding what Butler put on the page to her advantage, Emmanuel creates a compelling heroine that entices us to follow her even as she approaches the story’s bland conclusion. But beyond one somewhat gory scene of a throat being slit (which is in the trailer), there’s little in the form of shocking or rather terrifying sequences. A few remarks land strongly via Emmanuel, but in general the themes stay just on the surface. Yearning for any semblance of family, after her mother’s recent passing, she eagerly accepts his generous invitation to attend an upcoming family wedding back in the old country all expenses paid. It’s here that its efforts to misdirect the audience about the type of supernatural entity we are dealing with begin.

During these last, lazy days of summer, there isn't a whole lot to do. Still, you're probably going to want to RSVP “no” to “The Invitation.”.

And the butler ( [Sean Pertwee](/cast-and-crew/sean-pertwee)) is a condescending prig. And she could have taken more time in building suspense to the big reveal, which occurs at an ominous, masked dinner party that’s like something out of “ [Eyes Wide Shut](/reviews/eyes-wide-shut-1999).” A spa day for Evie and the imposingly glamorous maids of honor ( The young lord of the manor, Walter (a seductive [Thomas Doherty](/cast-and-crew/thomas-doherty)), is super hunky with his piercing blue eyes and his square jaw and his shirt unbuttoned one button too many. [Blair Butler](/cast-and-crew/blair-butler) merely skims the surface of exploring the racial implications of this connection. Thompson](/cast-and-crew/jessica-m-thompson) establishes an unsettling mood that suggests we’re about to enter a dark and twisted world.

Nathalie Emmanuel stars as the unwitting belle of an English manor in this middling gothic horror movie that leaves her blind to the blood-red flags waving ...

Had the movie emerged as a friskier game of eat the rich, it might have had a fighting chance of survival. Outside of the cinema, an invitation to such an abode would ring a cacophony of alarm bells and leave a guest clambering for the door. Thompson, “The Invitation” makes feeble gestures at issues of class and race, but its efforts are as diffuse as the whooshing specters haunting Walter’s estate.

Wedded bliss turns into bloodsucker mundanity in this The Brides of Dracula reinterpretation. The Invitation Review Image. Matt Donato By Matt Donato.

[movie of the same name](/articles/2016/04/06/the-invitation-review) — are like throwing darts at a PG-13 horror mood board. Visual effects as fire spreads throughout the elaborate and priceless estate are wonky at best, astoundingly unpolished at worst. The Invitation bounces between basement feeding sessions steeped in James Wan-esque shadowplay and romantic chivalry as Walter lays on billionaire hunkiness thicker than bisque — never achieving ultimate balance like, say, how [The Boy Next Door](/articles/2015/01/23/the-boy-next-door-review) packages erotic thrills. It's no Bram Stoker's Dracula, yet few are — The Invitation lands squarely in the almost-forgotten-to-okay vampire cinema ranks. Thompson's The Invitation sends, it's not dead-on-arrival. While identifiably inferior to the films it's easily compared alongside, The Invitation is creepier, lustier, and more hauntingly atmospheric than trailers detail.

In 2019 Sam Raimi announced he was developing a horror film called The Bride, and movie fans couldn't contain their excitement. Now after several changes in ...

At first, she is swept off her feet by this charming family as they invite her to a luxurious wedding but she is soon terrified to see the kind of people they are. Based on the classic 1922 German film, Nosferatu the Vampyre is a modern horror classic that embraces the rules and tone of its silent film predecessor. While still grieving the death of her only family member, her mother, she realizes she is not as alone as she thinks when she discovers she has a cousin on a DNA website. The film may not have a lot of jump scares, but it will leave you haunted by the very real horrors of a dysfunctional family. Invited by her newfound family to a lavish wedding in the English countryside, she's at first seduced by the sexy aristocrat host but is soon thrust into a nightmare of survival as she uncovers twisted secrets in her family's history and the unsettling intentions behind their sinful generosity Since then, her career has been on fire with starring roles in franchises like Maze Runner and The Fast and the Furious as well as heartfelt TV shows like Four Weddings and a Funeral. Starring as the lead in the film, Evie, is That film told the story of a woman who was sexually assaulted in New York City and covers a six-week period following the assault, dealing with its impact on her life and relationships. This Australian filmmaker made her debut only a few years ago with the 2017 film The Light of the Moon. Now after several changes in production companies, directors, and producers, the world is finally going to be able to see it under a different name: [The Invitation](https://collider.com/the-invitation-review-nathalie-emmanuel-thomas-doherty/). The director of The Invitation is Jessica M. [horror film called The Bride](https://collider.com/the-bride-dracula-cast-nathalie-emmanuel-garrett-hedlund/), and movie fans couldn’t contain their excitement.

A bright-eyed American is seduced by a creepy English aristocrat in this Gothic horro thriller with a few surprises up its sleeve.

Thompson](https://www.indiewire.com/t/jessica-m-thompson/), “The Invitation” has a distinct air of white feminism wafting through it. The pace picks up when the slashing finally begins in the third act, but it’s too little, too late to get the blood going. In her nightmares, Evie sees visions of the woman who hung herself in the house, and is startled by a bird smacking dead into the window. Initially titled “The Bride,” [Thompson recently told IndieWire](https://www.indiewire.com/2022/08/the-invitation-vampire-interview-1234754757/) they renamed the movie when the original didn’t track well with male audiences. Undeterred by the oily glee with which Oliver delivers the phrase, “Great Uncle Alfred is dying to meet you,” Evie pulls up to Carfax in total awe. [Nathalie Emmanuel](https://www.indiewire.com/t/nathalie-emmanuel/)), an aspiring ceramicist who makes her living as a cater waiter in New York.