The mark of a good thriller is having its audience never truly certain about what’s going on…at least until the very end.
Hitchcock was a master at this, and
modern films such as Take Shelter and
The Invitation have carried on the
torch. The Invitation’s director Karyn Kusama is one of the twentieth century’s
most progressive, diverse, and underappreciated filmmakers. Since 2000—around every five years or
so—Kusama has directed a different genre film, and each time her film’s been
either disregarded or prematurely judged by the general public. Kusama—in collaboration with various
writers—has made an astounding range of film types: from the sports-drama Girlfight (with groundbreaking themes
and characterizations that, to this day, still surpass many modern female
representations), to the sci-fi-action Æon Flux (an ambitious, yet flawed popcorn
film), to the horror-black comedy Jennifer’s
Body (a great example of never judging a film by its trailers), to the
recent horror-thriller The Invitation.
The plot revolves around a house
party in California, the former home to the protagonist Will (Logan Marshall-Green). Will once happily lived there with his wife
Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and their son, until a fatal accident took their son
away, causing the couple to divorce after both experiencing mental
breakdowns. Two years later, Will and
his new girlfriend Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi) return to the house after being
invited by Eden and her new husband David (Michiel Huisman). At the party are all Eden and Will’s past
friends, in addition to a few newcomers Eden and David met in Mexico after
discovering a spiritual group called “The Invitation”.
As expected from a thriller, all
does not feel right at the party—yet is the problem with The Invitation, or with
Will himself? The film toys with its
viewers on what’s exactly going on at the party; the newcomers are certainly strange
people, as is Eden’s unusually chipper attitude, yet Will isn’t all hunky-dory
himself. The man is clearly suffering
from PTSD: blaming himself for his son’s unpredictable death and the collapse
of his marriage. His old house serves to
amplify such grief, causing Will to experience flashbacks of his life before
and soon after the accident. While
getting a glass of water in the kitchen, Will recollects restraining a
distraught Eden over the sink as she desperately tried slicing her own wrists
with a knife. While sitting down for
dinner, the group’s mirth is drowned out in Will’s mind as he begins hearing
the very tinkering of silverware and chewing in distressingly amplified clarity.
His mind is unstable, and it’s unclear whether there’s danger from The
Invitation, or if he himself is the danger.
Logan Marshall-Green does a standup job displaying such emotional
turmoil, and really sells the level of trauma Will’s gone, and is going
through.
The
Invitation wouldn’t be a complete thriller without an effective usage of
sound. From the erupting focus on
singular noises, to the more melancholy notes during Will’s somber flashbacks,
the sounds work in tandem with the film’s beautiful cinematography and
editing. Despite the film’s moderate
runtime, the remaining cast are given sufficient time and effort to develop as
characters. Will’s friends are
noticeably diverse in appearance, but more importantly, diverse in
personality. The Invitation does an effective job giving subtle character traits
to uniquely define each character. The friends’s
interactions feel natural and convincing (they really feel like long-term friends), as do their polite, yet
understandably uneasy reactions to Eden and her new friends discussing The
Invitation (which includes a bizarre video showcasing and truth game). The friends are each given one-on-one screen time
with Will: asking how he’s doing, reminiscing about old times, and/or showing
concern over Will’s steadily increasing paranoia. The writers understand how to make their
secondary characters memorable without having to provide significant screen
time, which ends up working devilishly
well for the film’s finale.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD: With thrillers, it’s more often the case that
the paranoid protagonist was right: the old man was the murderer, there is
an apocalyptic situation coming, etc. The Invitation is very good at
convincing the viewer this isn’t the case, right up to the big, damn friendship
slaughter. Yes, turns out Will’s
suspicions were correct: The Invitation is indeed a cult, and a Kool-Aid drinking
one at that. Yet when Will stops the
others from drinking the poisoned wine (by shouting and smacking glasses out of
their hands), the cult resort to more…direct
forms of murder, and it is a horrific massacre!
After getting to know—and like—most of these characters, the film has
the guts to up and kill almost every single one in the span of five
minutes! It’s intense, it’s horrifying,
and it’s absolutely engaging as the remaining characters desperately struggle
to stay alive. I was terrified the film
would have a downer conclusion where everyone died—the situation felt that
desperate. Thankfully, several characters
(specifically ones I like) do survive, and you can tell The Invitation’s a Karyn Kusama film by its subverted horror
clichés: such as having both the black and gay characters (well, one of the gay
characters at least) survive, while also giving them each a kill on a major
cult member. The entire sequence is
heart-throbbing excitement, including a gruesomely delightful scene that
parallels the opening, and a last minute twist that amplifies the film’s
haunting conclusion. MAJOR SPOILERS END
The
Invitation is a beautifully effective thriller, one that will hopefully get
more proper recognition than Karyn Kusama’s previous films. The film is available on Netflix, and unless
you haven’t been paying attention to a word I’ve written, it’s definitely worth
the view.
