Written by: Phil Hay & Matt Manfredi
Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Tammy Blanchard, Michiel Huisman, Emayatzy Corinealdi
Rating: [4/5]
Dinner parties involving several individuals that have not seen each other for a while come with the potential for sweet reunification, but also where many questions remain about long absences. It can create some awkwardness as these answers get revealed and can ultimately make for an uncomfortable situation, especially when exploring the trauma The Invitation wants to sift through. Never has awkwardness felt so terrifying as in this film as it utilizes social situations in a way to make your palms sweat.
Heading to a party hosted by his ex-wife and her new partner, Will (Logan Marshall-Green) had plenty of hesitation but decided to attend with his new girlfriend. As they arrive, they sense a strangeness in the atmosphere as this gathering of old friends does not feel as innocent and well-meaning as the hosts would have them believe.
While many horror films like to play into horrors of elements out of our control such as the supernatural or extra-terrestrial, there’s something about good ol’ human interaction that can scare like nothing else. A horror where we fear awkward situations because we can actually recall circumstances where we have found ourselves in these encounters as opposed to having no real experience with getting possessed by a demon. We’ve all been in circumstances when someone says something that makes you want to crawl back into your skin and The Invitation allows these moments to fester as we try to figure out what in the world is transpiring here as our protagonist, Will, seeks to find some long sought after resolution.
The more time we spend in this Hollywood Hills home, the more the grief Will deals with stemming from the loss of the son he had with his ex-wife continues to haunt him. The grief alone caused them to divorce and go their separate ways. Evidently, as we learn more about what Eden (Tammy Blanchard) has gotten into to reckon with her grief, it displays the various paths this particular journey can take a person. For Will, he struggles to move past it each day and Eden happens to involve herself in something very strange and honestly quite scary.
Further accentuating this horrific circumstance for Will comes the editing utilized in this film that makes this setting so claustrophobic. Even within a beautifully spacious home, this feeling of being closed in makes for much of the horror of this film. So much of the credit in building this atmosphere must go to the editing in the way it cuts scenes together to eliminate any breathing room these characters have away not only from each other but the feeling this circumstance creates. It makes the stark visuals of this mostly darkly lit house feel all the more striking and really digs into the sinister elements sitting right under the surface for this film.
Leading this film is the ever-impressive but not as appreciated Logan Marshall-Green, who knows how to put in a tidy performance, and his portrayal as the audience surrogate in this entire nonsense really allows him to shine. So much of this role relies on the faces he makes and just how much we can connect with what he feels and how he just wants to scream in order to get something across or share the obvious others feel in the moment. Him representing the sane person in the bunch makes the more outlandish performance by Tammy Blanchard and Michiel Huisman shine even brighter in how they give these crazy eyes but still manage to display the smallest bit of believability in spewing what they believe. Entertaining performances all around, as this cast really embodies how these different characters would react during this trying circumstance.
Possessing quite the eclectic filmography, Karyn Kusama knows how to make a film that works your emotions. With The Invitation she makes her most emotionally distressing one where she ramps up this heightened emotion where the inside perpetually risks exploding to the outside and the way she stages each of these scenes and the conversations held display such intentionality. She succeeds in building this atmosphere where a match could ignite and blow the whole thing up, which makes it such an unenjoyable film to watch for all the right reasons.
Such a unique film in the way it navigates awkward social interactions, The Invitation will make you think twice the next time someone invites you to a dinner party. Perhaps they just want to catch up or perhaps something more sinister lies behind the surface. Every interaction and conversation held within this film just takes a toll and builds out this disconcerting circumstance, especially for Will where his perceived paranoia puts him in a place of looking like the bad guy, which only makes the finale and the final shot all the more bone-chilling.
Films with Josh 
