The Invited (2010)

The Ouija Board has always been a favorite theme in horror and within five minutes past the opening credits we witness a young girl crafting her own on an wooden circle to communicate with her dead brother. It is the year 1920 and the film begins in black and white at an old farmhouse, which happens to have a family cemetery out back. The girl anxiously goes to her brothers grave to test her device with horrible repercussions.The movie forwards into the present with our protagonist Michelle, an author of children's fiction, and her husband Jack meeting a realtor at the same farmhouse. At that moment you can guess that she will find the Ouija board and unleash it's menace (especially if she uses it alone).The best thing about the Invited was it steered clear from the possession motif notable in the Witchboard trilogy and most recently in Ouija. It does offer some scares and a few gruesome effects that make you forgive some cheap CGI effects deployed. The acting is believable and the character Michelle is like able enough to keep you watching what unfolds. Any horror fan should give it a go.B+Alan Bannacheck Minneapolis, MN

This is the worst movie ever. It is entertaining to laugh at, but in no other way is it watchable. Sorry. If you read good reviews, you are being trolled! Seriously, it's that bad. I think even the director is in on the joke.The script is terrible, the special effects are unbelievable (not in a good way) and the acting could be better. However, it doesn't matter because it is one hot mess.We had fun, but kinda wished we picked something else to watch. The plot, which was possible, was all over the place. It was predictable with only the most bizarre events blindsiding your senses. It could have been so much better.Keep looking.

The problems with this movie are three: 1. It is too muddled. It is impossible to know what is real, what is a dream, what is a hallucination, what is a flashback etc.. The attempts to do it more interesting by turning the camera around and taking shots from "interesting" angles also just made it more confusing. The ending was strange and unsatisfying.2. There is simply too much of everything. Ghosts, demons, snakes, an Ouija board, a portal to another world, the magic circle, the doll, the old lady, the medium... yes even the Devil himself. Did I forget something..? One gets used to it, tires, and stops reacting by shock/surprise very early on. It is much better to chose only one or a couple of those ingredients, and concentrate on that.3. There is too much blood and gore and mutilated bodies here. This does not make the movie more scary in any positive sense - but only unpleasant.The only thing that redeems this movie a little are the very good actors - considering what they had to work with!

I also saw this film's screening at the Sacramento Film Festival and agree that it is about one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Besides some decent cinematography and nice locations, the film was a complete let-down. A majority of the acting was pathetic, and to think that director McKinney is coaching aspiring film actors at a studio in Sacramento is ridiculous. The plot line was far too simple, and the dialog left so much to be desired. The pace of the film and editing was way too slow at times, the thrilling moments seemed predictable. The only shock was at the very end, and then the film just leaves you hanging, not understanding the purpose at all.McKinney spends so much time hitting the audience over the head with religious overtones, but then you don't really understand to what purpose. A main character, Natalie Shaw, wonderfully played by Ellen Dow, accidentally unleashes this evil as a child. But she has apparently lived a full and decent life if she is over 90 years old at the end of the film! We see her with rosary beads in her retirement home, so she must have achieved some personal faith and belief in God during her lifetime. But when she attempts to destroy the evil "spirit board" the devil sucks her into hell? So... if the lesson of the film is... "have faith or the devil is going to get you" then she still ends up being sucked to hell, so where's the reasoning? Looks like a whole lot of money was spent on actors and visual effects on a real dud of a script and no direction. There is no dialog about why the mother doesn't want her baby baptized (apparently an important trait about why her character has no faith.) She screams and kicks uncontrollably while doctors are trying to help her save her baby... how unrealistic! The most annoying thing is everyone keeps going back into this house that is possessed, and the spiritual guide (a decent cameo by Pam Grier) tells them to get out, several people have already died... would you go back in? Also, in McKinney's bio he claims to have directed "over 60 films" but when you look at his IMDb credits, there's not much there. He's given the film festival's legend award? What a joke!