INVITED is a movie which plays out entirely on a computer screen, most of it showing a zoom meeting. For those not familiar with this format, movies like THE DEN (2013), UNFRIENDED (2014) and THE HOST (2020), which also used it, demonstrated how impressively far it can be taken to tell a horror story effectively.
In a clever prologue, we learn about the protagonist that she is a recovering alcoholic who has lost both her nursing and driver's licenses, having caused a car accident which left a lasting injury to her son and her relationship with her children, parents and ex-husband in tatters. She logs on to attend together with them an on-line elopement of her estranged daughter, but soon things take a horrific turn...
Although the film starts out quietly, this is one of the more intense works in the found footage genre (a term I use to refer to any movie which extensively uses formats such as purported footage being played, fake documentaries being presented, a computer screen showing events, and even everything being shown from a first-person view perspective). The intensity picks up gradually until in the last half hour or so, everything is in a frenzy.
I enjoy high intensity found footage movies, so this was welcome to me. Another positive was that there is a definite message here about how a weakening of the bonds in a family can lead to some of its members seeking those elsewhere, to the great detriment of everybody involved. There are also a few reasonablyvstaged graphic scenes, and the end credits provide the real-life historical basis for the events shown, accompanied by beautiful dreamy music.
On the negative side, some of the hostility against the mother by family members, especially her own father, seemed a little too contrived; stupid character syndrome reared its ugly head here multiple times; there was definitely a need for make-up for tears and sweat, and inexplicably, in a few scenes, the perspective abruptly changed to a different camera, taking me right out of the movie. A more skillful director would have led the change in perspective required to show us what is going on in a continuous fashion. Also, the movie is sort of open-ended, which some people may not like.
Still, I think most fans of found footage horror films will like this. I know of several other found footage movies which feature cults, but only one them serves as an explicit warning about them, namely THE SACRAMENT (2018), which I liked a tad better than this, but that is not to say that I would not recommend it.
