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Exclusive: Writer, director, and producer Jessica M. Thompson has signed with Verve for representation.

She directed the Screen Gems vampire movie The Invitation, which was made for $10M, grossed $38M worldwide and was profitable for Sony. That pic starred Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Doherty, and debuted at #1 at the box office in late August 2022 and #2 when it hit Netflix.

Thompson is currently writing Pharmaka, an original sci-fi thriller series for TriStar Television. She is also developing a period-drama with Maven Pictures about Dr. James Barry, a trailblazing surgeon who was erased from history.

Previously, her feature debut The Light of the Moon premiered and won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film at SXSW. The film stars Stephanie Beatriz and heralds a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score. She also was the lead director on the critically-acclaimed Showtime/Sky series, The End, produced by the Academy Award-winning See-Saw Films.

Thompson continues to be...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Series: "The Invitation"

Where You Can Stream It: Netflix

The Pitch: Unfortunately for her, Evie Jackson (Nathalie Emmanuel) is a classic horror movie protagonist: incapable of perceiving obvious danger. Recently orphaned by her mother's death and struggling to cope with loneliness, Evie kicks off the movie by sending her saliva to a DNA testing service that reveals she is distantly related to English aristocrats. When they invite her overseas for a wedding, she agrees to attend and despite the many red flags begging to be acknowledged when she arrives, she ends up falling for the mysterious lord of the manor, Walter DeVille (Thomas Doherty). And then s*** gets weird.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter that you have great chemistry with...

The Invitation, directed by Jessica M. Thompson, is a modern-day gothic horror film that was released in late 2022. After her mother dies, Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) decides that she wants to know the rest of her family and purchases a DNA testing kit. To her surprise, she finds a long-lost cousin in England who meets up with her and invites her to the English countryside to attend a wedding and meet the rest of the family members. When there, Evie meets Walter (Thomas Doherty), and what starts as a lavish fairytale romance quickly turns dark and twisted while uncovering her family history and true reasoning for her being invited to the wedding.

USC Annenberg and San Diego State University have both released end-of-year diversity reports looking at behind the scenes representation of 2022’s biggest movies. And the results found that Hollywood severely backslid over the past year.

Both studies — USC Annenberg Inclusion Initative’s “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair” report and the San Diego State Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film’s “Celluloid Ceiling” report — looked at the number of women who directed the top 100 films of the year. This year, just 10 women — Olivia Newman (“Where the Crawdads Sing”), Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Woman King”), Olivia Wilde (“Don’t Worry Darling”), Jessica M. Thompson (“The Invitation”), Kat Coiro (“Marry Me”), Rosalind Ross (“Father Stu”), Halina Reijn (“Bodies Bodies Bodies”), Kasi Lemmons (“Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody”), Chinonye Chukwu (“Till”) and Maria Schrader (“She Said”) — helmed one of the top 100 highest grossing film’s at the domestic box office this year,...

Click here to read the full article.

As 2023 dawns, two major academic organizations that measure the progress of inclusion in Hollywood are looking back at the track record for 2022 in film.

The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s latest “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair” report analyzes the gender and race/ethnicity of the directors behind last year’s 100 highest-grossing movies in the U.S., while the San Diego State Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film’s most recent “Celluloid Ceiling” report examined the employment of women in key behind-the-scenes roles in both the 100 and 250 top-grossing movies at the domestic box office.

In the one category shared by both studies — percentage of women directors among top 100 films – the schools came up with slightly different counts (possibly because of the criteria each group uses to compile its Box Office Mojo sampling). Sdsu reported that 11 percent of 2022’s helmers...

This post contains spoilers for the 2022 film "The Invitation."

If one were to enter Jessica M. Thompson's new film "The Invitation" without any knowledge of its plot, one would find themselves quite startled by its twist. About an hour into the film, a shocking piece of information is revealed about the dash handsome aristocrat Walter De Ville which some may not have seen coming. Although, some might have after all, given that Thompson's film is rather explicitly about destroying the too-long legacy of the European colonialist aristocracy. It makes sense that the nature of the aristocracy is how Thompson envisioned it.

In "The Invitation," Nathalie Emmanuel plays Evie, a woman trapped in a demeaning waitstaff job where she and her co-workers are regularly harassed and groped by their wealthy clientele. Right away, Thompson is establishing her thesis, that is: the wealthy white elite casually abuse the working class, mostly people of color.

Amid a turbulent year for the film industry with dwindling theatrical releases and shuffling release slates, only nine wide release films from major studios had a female director in 2022 — and six of them came from just one studio.

In TheWrap’s annual survey of theatrical releases with at least one female director, Sony Pictures led its Hollywood peers with six of its 13 theatrical wide releases featuring female directors. On the flip side, Disney, Paramount and Lionsgate had entirely male-only wide release slates.

Paramount gave one film directed by a woman (Sanaa Lathan’s “On the Come Up”) a limited day-and-date release, while Disney moved one female-directed title (Domee Shi’s Pixar animated feature “Turning Red”) from theaters to streaming and shifted another to 2023. And Lionsgate, which has hired only one female filmmaker since 2016, released only four films on at least 1,500 screens — none directed by women.

Since TheWrap began doing its...

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Even when it’s not Halloween, there isn’t much that beats a night of curling up and watching a scary horror movie. The genre lends itself to slashers, paranormal tales, stories about witches, and more. Some of the greatest and most iconic films in cinema history are horror movies, with those classics being joined by a steady flow of new releases. Whether it’s the greats like Alfred Hitchcock and Wes Craven, rising horror minds like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster,...

On this episode of Daily Dead's official podcast, co-hosts Bryan Christopher, Derek Anderson, and Jonathan James catch up to discuss their recent viewings, including Ti West's Pearl, the documentary This is Gwar, Stranger Things 4 Vol.1, Jessica M. Thompson's The Invitation, and Rebekah McKendry's Glorious, and they also talk about the video game Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Bryan's "Hellraiser-raiser" charity streams for the Trans Empowerment Project and Sister Song on Daily Dead's Twitch channel (DailyDeadTwitch)!

You can listen to the new episode of Corpse Club right now on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, YouTube, Pandora, and SoundCloud!

Looking for more scary good Corpse Club content? Be sure to check out our Corpse Club website and memberships. Not only can you view past episodes, but you can also sign up to be an official Corpse Club member to enjoy a wide range of rewards, including a shirt...

Released into theaters last month, Sony’s The Invitation has thus far scared up 25.8 million worldwide, and we’ve learned that it’s next coming to Blu-ray on October 25, 2022.

The upcoming Blu-ray will include the theatrical version and a New Unrated version!

The film’s Unrated version is also available on Digital Now.

On that note, director Jessica M. Thompson recently revealed to Bloody Disgusting that there was an alternate “R” rated cut of the movie, and she promised we’d be seeing it soon.

“The PG 13 version is what’s going to be out in cinemas, but the R version is actually going to be online on the streamers. There’s more prosthetics in that one,” Thompson told Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro as part of an interview conducted ahead of the film’s release.

Thompson continued, “Yeah, a little bit more blood, a little bit more of that,...

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for The Invitation (2022).Though The Invitation has its supporters, it would not be unfair to say the film did not receive a celebratory reception upon release. The film did open at number one at the domestic box office, but critiques have generally been mixed, at best. Though reviews have been somewhat unenthusiastic, much praise for Jessica M. Thompson’s film has largely, and deservedly, been centered on the film’s Gothic-influenced production design.

Formerly titled The Bride, the Dracula-inspired horror movie The Invitation was released in theaters by Sony’s Screen Gems on August 26, debuting in the #1 spot on the box office charts with 6,805,468 in 3,114 theaters in the US. Now in its second week of release, the vampire movie added another 6 million to its domestic total across the four-day Labor Day Weekend.

The film’s domestic total is now 15,045,000, with The Invitation finding itself in the #5 spot on the domestic charts. Worldwide, The Invitation has sunk its teeth into 18,545,000.

The Invitation has been compared by many fans to Ready or Not, a horror movie that opened with 8 million domestically back in 2019. That film ended up legging its way to 28.7 million in the United States and 57.6 million worldwide, numbers The Invitation isn’t likely to hit.

Nevertheless, The Invitation is out-pacing expectations in theaters. And with a reported 10 million production budget attached to it,...

The Invitation Review — The Invitation (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Jessica M. Thompson, written by Blair Butler and starring Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Stephanie Corneliussen, Alana Boden, Sean Pertwee, Hugh Skinner, Virag Barany, Courtney Taylor, Kata Sarbo, Jeremy Wheeler, Carol Ann Crawford, Scott Alexander Young and Stephen Saracco. Nathalie Emmanuel of the [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: The Invitation (2022): Nathalie Emmanuel Sinks Her Teeth into a Leading Role in a Horror Film that Feels a bit Familiar...

Voltage Pictures’ ‘After Ever Happy’ tops 12 markets on 7.9m total.

World box office August 26-28, 2022 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. Minions: The Rise Of Gru (Universal) 17.7m 868.9m 14.9m 514.1m 85 2. Bullet Train (Sony) 15m 173.6m 9.4m 95.4m 62 3. New Gods: Yang Jian (various) 12.9m 43.6m 12.9m 43.6m 1 4. Moon Man (various) 12.2m 421.9m 12.2m 421.9m 1 5. Top Gun Maverick (Paramount) 11.5m 1.4bn 6.7m 731.2m 65 6. Nope (Universal) 10.5m 148.7m 8.3m 31.1m 79 7. Warriors Of Future (various) 9.8m 91.1m 9.8m 91.1m 2 8. Beast (Universal) 8.9m 36.2m 3.9m 16.1m 61 9. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (various) 8.8m 67.8m 4.2m 37m...

Voltage Pictures’ ‘After Ever Happy’ tops 12 markets on 7.9m total.

World box office August 26-28, 2022 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. Minions: The Rise Of Gru (Universal) 17.7m 868.9m 14.9m 514.1m 85 2. Bullet Train (Sony) 15m 173.6m 9.4m 95.4m 62 3. New Gods: Yang Jian (various) 12.9m 43.6m 12.9m 43.6m 1 4. Moon Man (various) 12.2m 421.9m 12.2m 421.9m 1 5. Top Gun Maverick (Paramount) 11.5m 1.4bn 6.7m 731.2m 65 6. Nope (Universal) 10.5m 148.7m 8.3m 31.1m 79 7. Warriors Of Future (various) 9.8m 91.1m 9.8m 91.1m 2 8. Beast (Universal) 8.9m 36.2m 3.9m 16.1m 61 9. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (various) 8.8m 67.8m 4.2m 37m...

The Dracula-inspired horror film The Invitation (formerly known as The Bride) is now in theatres, and just opened at #1 at the domestic box office with a weekend haul of 7 million. Our own Chris Bumbray was surprised at how bloody the film was for something with a PG-13 rating, and he mentioned that to director Jessica M. Thompson (The Light of the Moon) during an interview – which you can watch in the video embed above. Thompson said they had to darken the blood to get by with a PG-13… but during an interview with our friends at Bloody Disgusting, she also said that there is an R-rated cut of The Invitation that’s going to get a streaming release!

Thompson said,

I’m someone who thinks you lose the tension as soon as you reveal your monster. I feel like the longer you can hold it off, the better. So there...

Dara Taylor's score for "The Invitation" leaves a lot to the imagination. She wants listeners to ask, "What is that sound?" That question arises right at the beginning of her score for Jessica M. Thompson's horror movie, when a deranged, reversed choir comes and goes. It's one of the many recurring motifs in this score, almost a painful chant or plead for help that, in the end, turns triumphant in a 10-minute track for the finale.

According to Taylor, she was always encouraged by Thompson to think outside the box. She wanted to strike a balance between modern horror and classic gothic romances, and she did it with some surprising techniques. Recently, the composer behind "The Tender Bar" and co-composer of "Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar" told us all about how she wanted to make an audience squirm in their seats with "The Invitation."

'It'd...

Sony’s Screen Gems released vampire movie The Invitation into theaters over the weekend, the PG-13 horror movie scaring up 7 million here in the United States thus far.

The film has largely been de-fanged for theatrical release, but director Jessica M. Thompson tells Bloody Disgusting that a rated “R” cut exists… and will be released.

“The PG 13 version is what’s going to be out in cinemas, but the R version is actually going to be online on the streamers. There’s more prosthetics in that one,” Thompson told Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro as part of an interview conducted ahead of the film’s release.

Thompson continued, “Yeah, a little bit more blood, a little bit more of that, but I’m someone who thinks you lose the tension as soon as you reveal your monster. I feel like the longer you can hold it off, the better. So...

Formerly titled The Bride, the Dracula-inspired horror movie The Invitation was released in theaters by Sony’s Screen Gems over the weekend, dropping fang into 3,114 theaters here in the United States. It was a relatively quiet weekend at the box office, but the good news for the horror genre here is that The Invitation became the #1 movie in the country this weekend.

The Invitation scared up 7 million domestically in its opening weekend, with the film’s current worldwide total now sitting at 8,600,000 (via Box Office Mojo). The film was able to pass Bullet Train, now in its fourth week of release, and it also passed fellow new release Three Thousand Years of Longing, with George Miller’s latest only making 2.9 million.

How much did The Invitation cost to make? The reported production budget is 10 million, so the film still has a ways to go in order to be profitable. Even still,...

Click here to read the full article.

[The following story contains spoilers for The Invitation.]

The Invitation was Nathalie Emmanuel’s first time being number one on a major studio film’s call sheet, and now she can say that she’s led her first number-one movie at the domestic box office. Jessica M. Thompson’s supernatural horror film opened with 7 million, which was enough to top a quiet weekend at the box office, but a win is a win, especially for a 10 million-budgeted genre pic.

The film follows Emmanuel’s Evie, a floundering New York City artist who takes a DNA test that eventually connects her to a previously unknown English cousin named Oliver Alexander (Hugh Skinner). The Alexander family turns out to be quite wealthy, and Oliver urges Evie to attend a family friend’s wedding in the English countryside. Despite the objections of her best friend, Grace (Courtney Taylor), Evie makes the trip, only to...

We’ve had some bad weekends this year, but this past weekend took the cake with the worst showing for the Top 10 since late January. The big difference with this weekend’s box office is that there were actually three new wide releases, including one from an Oscar-winning filmmaker.

The #1 movie of the weekend was Sony/Screen Gems’ vampire thriller “The Invitation,” starring Nathalie Emmanuel (“Game of Thrones”) and Thomas Doherty (“Gossip Girl”), which was released into 3,114 theaters on Friday with no early reviews. It ended up taking in 775,000 in Thursday previews and 2.6 million on Friday, which allowed it to take the lead over the weekend with an estimated 7 million. Directed by Jessica M. Thompson, the movie did eventually see reviews that weren’t particularly kind, only achieving a 26 rating on Rotten Tomatoes (about half its Audience Score). That didn’t make much of a difference, since more moviegoers were...

If three new movies debut in theaters, but nobody goes to see them…

That is how Sony’s creepy thriller “The Invitation” managed to top box office charts with a paltry 7 million. Its win comes with some pretty weak bragging rights; it’s the lowest first-place finish since May 2021, when Covid was keeping people at home.

Now, it’s not the pandemic that’s preventing audiences from going to theaters, it’s the lack of appealing options. Overall, the domestic box office generated just 54 million over the weekend, the worst collective result in months.

And the bad times are expected to continue until at least late September or early October, when “Don’t Worry Darling” (Sept. 23), “Halloween Ends” (Oct. 14) and the comic book adaptation “Black Adam” (Oct. 21) open in theaters. It’s a disappointing finale to an otherwise strong summer at the movies, which fielded plenty of box office hits including “Top Gun: Maverick,...

What do vampires sound like? From inhuman growls to the oft-parodied Slavic accents ("I vont to sohk yu blaohd!"), every onscreen iteration of the bloodsucking creatures offers its own answer to this timeless question. The latest interpretation comes via "The Invitation," a new take on the vampire mythos from filmmaker Jessica M. Thompson.

Not to be confused with the 2015 Karyn Kusama film of the same name, this story follows artist and occasional freelance caterer Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) to the English countryside to meet her incredibly wealthy long-lost relatives. In the wake of her mother's death, Evie hopes to connect with her new family members and hopefully feel less alone. Instead, she uncovers some unsettling revelations about her hosts and the intent behind their generosity.

If only Evie had studied up on her vampire sounds, perhaps she'd be better prepared for all that she encounters throughout the film. But in her defense,...

There are plenty of mysteries baked into new thriller "The Invitation." There's the mystery of Evie's (Nathalie Emmanuel) lineage: a quest to figure out her family history that leads her to meet Oliver (Hugh Skinner), an apparent long-lost cousin. There's the mystery of the family gathering she attends with Oliver, an opulent wedding held at an imposing English countryside manor where the dress code seems to be "Eyes Wide Shut" chic. And there are mysteries involving unknown brides and vampiric rituals, too. But there's one small but intriguing mystery we've gotten to the bottom of as the movie hits theaters this weekend: why does Evie own an "Outlander" T-shirt?

/Film's Jack Giroux recently spoke with "The Invitation" director Jessica M. Thompson for a wide-ranging interview about the film's practical effects, horror nods, and more. Along the way, the pair touched on a notable detail from the movie: a scene in...

A new take on the Dracula mythos has swept its way into theaters in Jessica M. Thompson's "The Invitation." Serving as a modern-day "Brides of Dracula" type of origin story, viewers are whisked away to the English countryside to follow Evie's (Nathalie Emmanuel) journey in meeting her incredibly wealthy long-lost relatives after discovering a match via a DNA testing service. Things start off awkwardly, with the host, Walter (an ultra-sus Thomas Doherty), finding ways get under Evie's skin.

Of course, what happens is a worst-case scenario. Spoiler alert, but the relatives are all morally compromised individuals in support of maintaining their wealth and good fortune via courting a vampiric beastie. What's a little sacrifice in exchange for maintaining appearances, am I right? That said, the sacrificial blood and gore viewers might expect, especially in the film's final act, is greatly reduced. 

This is in part due to the film's PG-13 rating,...

“The Invitation” stars Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Doherty know how tough it can be to make a horror movie – the long nights, constant state of fear and, surprisingly, the pressure to deliver a spot-on American accent.

Emmanuel stars in “The Invitation” as a young woman named Evie, who takes a trip to Europe and soon discovers that she is being wooed – not to be someone’s wife but to be one of the wives … of Dracula himself (Thomas Doherty). (Don’t you hate it when that happens?) What makes “The Invitation” so refreshing is that it reinvents Bram Stoker’s Dracula mythology through the lens of one of his wives, who are mostly seen (in other adaptations) as sexy femme fatales, usually occupying some musty pit in Dracula’s castle.

TheWrap sat down with Emmanuel and Doherty to talk about the film, where they revealed their favorite Dracula adaptations (“Bram Stoker’s Dracula...

In a summer that’s often seen only one new wide release in a weekend, a whopping three new films hit theaters on Friday: Sony’s horror-thriller “The Invitation,” George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and bank heist movie “Breaking,” starring John Boyega. However, none of them seem to be making much of an impact, as the total box office projects a sum in the 50 million to 60 million range. That wouldn’t just be the worst weekend of the summer, but also the worst since February.

“The Invitation” is tracking ahead of the other two, as it looks to claim the weekend’s top spot with a meager 6 million to 7 million gross from 3,114 locations in its opening. Critics didn’t really care for the movie — it landed a 40 approval rating from review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes — and audiences were perhaps more unenthused. The film holds a “C” grade from research firm Cinema Score,...

Saturday Am Update: The bowels of the summer box office have been reached with Sony’s new C CinemaScore horror movie The Invitation leading with 6M-7M at 3,114 theaters. Like the late Andy Rooney, I get a lot of mail from sources, but in this instance it’s about why it’s important to be gentle when covering the box office. We’re still in the pandemic, we’re not back yet, it’s not good for our business to be nasty, blah blah blah. However, simply putting random movies in theaters without any great P&a spend doesn’t do the box office, or exhibitors any favors. This weekend will rank as the lowest grossing weekend to date of summer with an estimated 54M for all titles (some even have it lower). If it makes anyone feel better, it’s not the worst weekend of the year. That belongs to Jan.

In "Army of Thieves," Nathalie Emmanuel played a jewel thief in a zombie-adjacent world, but in "The Invitation," she's no longer content to be carrying out heists on the sidelines while monsters run amok elsewhere. "The Invitation" puts her right down in the thick of things with a "sexy aristocrat" in the countryside, per the official synopsis. The familiar "Dracula" setup betrays the film's not-so-secret vampire recipe, which is further bolstered by the appearance of fangs and blood-drinking and the name-dropping of Bram Stoker characters in the trailer for "The Invitation."

Emmanuel stars in "The Invitation" as Evie, a woman without family who discovers through a DNA test that she has a long-lost cousin, "the whitest man" her friend has ever seen. She responds to a wedding invite from him in order to learn about her family history, but as it turns out, her family tree may be something of an evergreen,...

There's a new vampire movie in theaters this weekend, and it happens to share the title of a Karyn Kusama film: "The Invitation." This is not that Dracula project from Kusama, which received a stake to the heart earlier this year, but rather a different spin on the same 125-year-old mythos from director Jessica M. Thompson. "The Invitation" tells the story of a young woman named Evie, played by Nathalie Emmanuel ("Game of Thrones"), who heads out to the English countryside for a wedding with the wealthy white cousin she never knew she had.

Will it be a Red Wedding or something more along the lines of a Billy Idol song? Well, based on the trailer for "The Invitation," it looks like they'll be serving fresh-squeezed blood there, so you can probably guess the answer to that.

In "The Invitation," viewers are cordially invited to hunt not just vampires but also Easter eggs.

What would you do if you received a mysterious invitation from your so-called long-lost family for a highly-anticipated wedding? Attend without a question, of course!

Nathalie Emmanuel stars as Evie in this contemporary horror film, which surprisingly proves that attending a strangers’ wedding might not be the worst thing that can happen when discovering new familial ties.

Here’s how to watch “The Invitation” when it premieres nationwide Aug. 26.

When is “The Invitation” in theaters?

The horror film will hit theaters Friday, Aug. 26.

Is “The Invitation” streaming?

No, the thriller is not currently on any streaming platforms.

Also Read:

‘The Invitation’ Director Jessica M. Thompson Talks Reinventing Dracula: ‘I Watched Every Single Vampire Film Ever Made’ What is “The Invitation” about?

Curious about her family origins, Evie takes a DNA test and discovers she has a ties to an unknown cousin. She meets her enthusiastic family member and is...

It’s not hard to tell something is off about New Carfax Manor, where the maids’ aprons are numbered and supposedly carnivorous birds roam the skies. Sitting somewhere in England’s creepiest countryside, the mansion’s implausibly cream-colored Barbie Dreamhouse exterior belies its shadowy Gothic insides; all dark corners and drafty bedrooms with bars on the windows. The grounds provide an eerie enough setting for “The Invitation,” a Gothic horror thriller in the style of “Dracula” with a half-baked attempt at “Get Out”-style social critique thrown in.

Arriving like a lamb lost in the woods (or led to the slaughter) is Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), an aspiring ceramicist who makes her living as a cater waiter in New York. When her friend swipes a swag bag from an upscale gig, she discovers a free trial for a DNA site called Find Yourself, like 23andMe for the elite. Recently orphaned, she...

In order to prepare for "The Invitation," in theaters now, director Jessica M. Thompson watched "every single vampire film ever made." The co-writer and director behind the horror film, which was originally titled "The Bride," uses elements from past horror lore to tell a more modern vampire tale. The story follows Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) as she discovers a long lost family of filthy rich bloodsuckers. In other words, it's "Downton Stabby," an online joke Thompson appreciated. 

Prior to "The Invitation," Thompson directed "The Light of the Moon" and six episodes of "The End," plus worked on "The Handmaiden's Tale" as an apprentice director. The director's latest film is a refreshingly handcrafted piece of studio horror with minimal CG. As Thompson told us, the more grounded and real, the scarier the effect. In our interview with Thompson, we talked about the dozens of vampire and horror Easter eggs throughout, the practicalities of vampire fangs,...

If the mostly by-the-numbers plot of “The Invitation,” and its eventual ridiculous twist, is tolerable at all, it’s due to the effortless effervescence that star Nathalie Emmanuel lends to this modern-day horror with gothic embellishments, as a mix-raced woman barely getting by in NYC who gets to live a British royal fantasy until it turns into a literal bloody mess.

Invoking “Twilight” and “Beauty and the Beast” with watered-down hints of “Crimson Peak,” the new feature from director Jessica M. Thompson (“The Light of the Moon”) opens with a suicide scene that insinuates the timelessness of its story. It’s here that its efforts to misdirect the audience about the type of supernatural entity we are dealing with begin.

In a more recognizable present, Evie (Emmanuel), a ceramics artist that stays afloat through catering jobs, takes a DNA test that connects her with a (white) cousin in England, Oliver...

From director Jessica M. Thompson and writer Blair Butler, The Invitation follows the story of a struggling artist named Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) who finds herself looking for family and connection after the recent death of her mother. After taking a mail-in DNA test, she's surprised by some unexpected results — and when her long-lost cousin Oliver (Hugh Skinner) invites her overseas to attend a wedding in an effort to introduce her to more extended family, Evie reluctantly agrees, finding herself at a lavish manor in the English countryside owned by a very handsome and mysterious host in Walter (Thomas Doherty). As the wedding draws nearer, strange things begin to happen around the mansion — and Evie is torn between a potential new romance with Walter and hidden horrors that may be lurking in not only the house's depths but her family's ancient history. The movie also stars Stephanie Corneliussen as Viktoria, Alana Boden as Lucy,...

“The Invitation,” a gothic horror film from Sony’s Screen Gems, made 775,000 at the box office in its Thursday night preview screenings from 2,739 locations and showings that started at 4 p.m. The film opens on more than 3,000 screens this weekend.

“The Invitation” opens in a quiet week at the end of the summer and is projected for a 6 million-7 million opening against a 10 million budget. It also opens against “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” the latest film from “Mad Max” filmmaker George Miller starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton.

For some comparisons, Screen Gems’ “Don’t Breathe 2,” which opened last August, made 965,000 in its Thursday previews starting at 7 p.m. and went on to just shy of an 11 million opening weekend. “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” made 8.8 million in its opening after getting a 1.2 million start in its Thursday previews.

Also Read:

Fall 2022 Movie Preview for Film Lovers of All...

’André Rieu’s 2022 Maastricht Summer Concert: Happy Days Are Here Again’ plays widely this weekend.

Universal’s survival thriller Beast is the widest release among the features debuting at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, however event cinema André Rieu’s 2022 Maastricht Summer Concert: Happy Days Are Here Again boasts the overall largest figure.

Beast is directed by Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur. The survival thriller stars Idris Elba as a grieving widower, who must protect his daughters from a voracious lion. It is set to play at 601 sites this weekend.

Kormakur’s best known for 2015 real-life disaster thriller, Everest, which opened to £2.4m from 567 sites.

Despite some ambitious efforts by director Jessica M. Thompson and screenwriter Blair Butler to revitalize hoary horror movie tropes with allegorical commentary on race, class and male privilege, “The Invitation” is too wearyingly hackneyed for too much of its running time, and too often laugh-out-loud funny as its plot relies on the age-old convention of a smart yet naive heroine who makes one bad decision after another. It would not be at all surprising if, at some screenings, exasperated members of the audience shout rude things at the screen each time the endangered protagonist fails to act in her own self-interest.

Evelyn (Nathalie Emmanuel of “Game of Thrones”) is a free-spirited twentysomething New Yorker who insists that everyone, even total strangers, call her Evie — and she insists quite frequently, just so we don’t miss the fact that she is indeed a free spirit — and scrapes by as wait staff...

The Invitation, now playing in theaters nationwide, draws from Bram Stoker’s Dracula for its modern gothic reimagining. More specifically, it spins a contemporary gothic tale inspired by the three vampire women referred to as the “sisters,” more commonly known as the Brides of Dracula. The Invitation wants to shroud its gothic romance in mystery but rooting the story in a classic text means its protagonist is the only one left in the dark.

Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) struggles to make ends meet. The artist lives paycheck to paycheck through her catering gig, where she’s put upon by an unkindly boss and lecherous guests. Evie’s also still grieving over the loss of her mom, the sole family member she had left. Or so she thinks. Evie’s best friend gifts her with an ancestry test kit, which puts Evie in connection with relatives she never knew existed. They invite...

You're invited to the wedding of the season! Set in a beautiful English mansion, the guests include old weirdos in masks, obscenely wealthy creeps, racist butlers, disposable hired help, and oh yeah, vampires. "The Invitation," a moody but poorly paced modern-day take on "Dracula" from director Jessica M. Thompson, plays its cards pretty close to the vest and doesn't let on that it's a vampire movie right away. But all the marketing has given that twist away, so I feel no problem stating it here. Besides, if you're well-schooled in vampire lore, especially involving Dracula, you'll figure things out pretty quickly. I mean, hell, the big mansion the majority of the movie is set at is called New Carfax Abbey, and Carfax Abbey was the plot of land Dracula bought when he came to England from Transylvania. Later, characters named Jonathan and Mina Harker pop up. And there's even a Lucy.

Thomas Doherty and Nathalie Emmanuel in The Invitation Image: Marcell Piti The Invitation opens with a classic scenario: lightning illuminating a Gothic mansion as thunderclaps roar. A gaunt woman, lit by candlelight, prepares to launch herself from the second floor banister. The shadows seem to be whispering. There’s something eerie,...

From director Jessica M. Thompson and writer Blair Butler, The Invitation follows the story of a struggling artist named Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) who finds herself looking for family and connection after the recent death of her mother. After taking a mail-in DNA test, she's surprised by some unexpected results — and when her long-lost cousin Oliver (Hugh Skinner) invites her overseas to attend a wedding in an effort to introduce her to more extended family, Evie reluctantly agrees, finding herself at a lavish manor in the English countryside owned by a very handsome and mysterious host in Walter (Thomas Doherty). As the wedding draws nearer, strange things begin to happen around the mansion — and Evie is torn between a potential new romance with Walter and hidden horrors that may be lurking in not only the house's depths but her family's ancient history. The movie also stars Stephanie Corneliussen as Viktoria, Alana Boden as Lucy,...

Don't you just hate it when you go to spend time with your newfound, wealthy, very white family at their luxurious estate in the countryside, only to learn they're all a bunch of evil a-holes who came about their fortune by immoral means? No, I'm not talking about Radio Silence's sublime 2019 horror-comedy flick "Ready or Not," I'm referring to director Jessica M. Thompson's "The Invitation," the first of many upcoming horror films inspired by Bram Stoker's classic novel "Dracula."

Missandei herself, Nathalie Emmanuel, stars in "The Invitation" as Evie, a woman who takes a trip to England to meet the long-lost relatives she never knew, only to discover they and their host "Walter" (Thomas Doherty) are not what they seem (spoiler: they have a real taste for human blood). The film began with a script by Blair Butler ("Helstrom"), which Thompson was "immediately drawn [to] because I hadn't seen...

After a 19 increase in the box office last weekend, which was the first upswing after five weeks of decline, the numbers will drop again this weekend which will likely be the lowest grossing of the past six months. It’s likely that no film will pass 10 million, a statistic we haven’t seen since May 2021, but unfortunately may see a few more times over the next month and a half. There are three new wide releases this weekend, all with potential, but none are likely to draw a huge audience as the box office drought continues.

Sony’s vampire film The Invitation will be the biggest of the new releases and could beat out the holdovers to hit number one, and it also has the largest launch with 3,000 theaters. Nathalie Emmanuel stars as a young American woman who discovers a long-lost relative in England through a DNA test. He invites...

“The Invitation,” in theaters later this week, is a retelling of the Dracula lore with a twist – instead of coming from the point-of-view of the count himself (played here by Thomas Doherty), it’s told through his brides. Specifically, Nathalie Emmanuel’s Evie, who is being courted to join his undead harem. Set in modern-day, it’s an exciting mixture of old and new, Gothic and modern.

TheWrap spoke to director Jessica M. Thompson, who told us about her journey with the film (which started out as a Sam Raimi production), what she watched for inspiration and combining styles and aesthetics for a new take on a classic story.

This movie was obviously a development for a long time, and it had different producers. What was your take on the material that finally got it into production?

When it came to me, when Blair Butler’s first script came to me,...

After a crackling summer season, movie theater owners have been sounding the alarm on the disturbingly light release schedule this fall. And yet, three new films will open in theaters nationwide over the weekend.

Perhaps the bigger issue, in the case of this weekend’s crop of newcomers, is that hardly anyone is making plans to go to the cinema. Of the trio of fresh offerings — Sony’s eerie thriller “The Invitation,” director George Miller’s dark fantasy “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and the John Boyega-led heist drama “Breaking” — not one is poised to make a splash at the box office.

Based on projections, it’ll be a close race between “The Invitation” and last weekend’s champion “‘Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” to claim the No. 1 spot in North America, with each release on track to bring in around 7 million. And to the victor goes…some pretty anemic bragging rights.

[Editor’s note: The following article contains light spoilers for “The Invitation.”]

When early test audiences checked out Sony’s latest horror offering, the men had a complaint: They didn’t like the title. Originally known as “The Bride,” director Jessica M. Thompson’s sophomore feature soon became “The Invitation.” The twist: No matter the name, it’s still a feminist vampire film.

“I loved ‘The Bride,’ I thought it was a great title, but it really wasn’t tracking well with male audiences, which is disappointing,” Thompson told IndieWire during a recent interview. “Obviously, ‘The Invitation’ is a play on vampires having to be invited into the house, things like that. There were a couple of others that I also thought were good contenders, but the audience overwhelmingly said that they loved this one. … The thing is, I was an independent filmmaker before, this is my first studio film, and Sony is an incredible partner. Anything I asked for,...

Formerly titled The Bride, the Dracula-inspired horror movie The Invitation sinks its fangs into theaters on August 26, 2022.

Jessica M. Thompson directed the contemporary horror movie that reimagines classic literary characters from the world of Bram Stoker. Ahead of The Invitation‘s release in theaters, Bloody Disgusting spoke with Thompson and SFX makeup and prosthetic designer Iván Pohárnok about the film’s vampires.

Pohárnok said of the design process, “On films like this, which are slightly smaller, we still have some creativity and some creative input that we can add to the project, which is very nice. That’s how it started. We got some designs we developed, enhanced, and sent pictures to Jessica. Then we sent pictures of makeup tests.”

Pohárnok took a unique approach to a pivotal scene involving an extensive prosthetic process.

“What was interesting was that we didn’t sculpt the makeup, but we started with a 3D print,...

The Dracula-inspired horror movie The Invitation sinks its fangs into theaters this Friday, August 26, 2022. Described as “a contemporary horror thriller,” The Invitation tells “the story of a young woman who is courted and swept off her feet, only to realize a gothic conspiracy is afoot.”

That conspiracy involves bloodsuckers of the classic literature variety. Ahead of the film’s release, Bloody Disgusting spoke with director Jessica M. Thompson about the modern interpretation and its production. The filmmaker shared with us that she filmed her vampire movie in a castle that shares ties with blood-obsessed serial killer Elizabeth Bathory.

But first, why was Thompson interested in Blair Butler‘s script in the first place?

She explains, “It was to me, the Bride of Dracula origin story. That was what captivated me because we haven’t seen that. We’ve done Dracula so many times; let’s do the brides. There are...

There are currently a handful of horror movies playing in theaters, including Nope, Beast, and Orphan: First Kill, and another brand new one is being added to the mix this week.

This week is a bit of a quiet one all around on the horror front, but with the Halloween season fast approaching, we promise you this is merely the quiet before the spooky storm…

Here’s all the new horror arriving August 22 – August 28, 2022!

First up, we may be a couple months away from Halloween but a new indie horror movie titled The Day After Halloween kicks off the season on VOD this Tuesday, August 23rd.

The film is being billed as “The Hangover meets horror.”

Directed by Chad Ostrom, and written by Danny Schluck, “this frighteningly fun genre treat sees two lifelong buddies forced to unravel the circumstances that led to a corpse in their bathtub in the wake of a Halloween party.