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The Uninvited – Movie review

The Uninvited – Movie review

I guess I missed the first scene of the movie, I starting watching from when Anna comes home from the mental institution with her father.

Read the plot of the movie which said actually nothing Anna Rydell returns home to her sister (and best friend) Alex after a stint in a mental hospital, though her recovery is jeopardized thanks to her cruel stepmother, aloof father, and the presence of a ghost in their home.” but simply that, just the words Ghost and cruel stepmother prepared me to watch the movie.

Losing her sick mother in a fire accident has lead Anna’s sanity to a psychotic break. Anna’s nurse shares the home with her father after her mother’s death, which she obviously didn’t like. If I would have noticed (no one else ever sees Alex, or talks to her except Anna). This plot is revealed at the end of the movie that Alex her sister has emerged throughout the movie has just an apparition / hallucination from Anna’s head.

She keeps telling in the movie “I saw mother. She was trying to warn me” – to her sister Alex.  When Anna finds her mother’s belongings like the bell that was tied to her hand when she was sick. Alex yells at Anna to throw it away because the nurse bought it from some pet shop and had tied it around her mother’s hands. And another belonging the chalk board that was hung around the kitchen where Anna’s mother used to leave them messages, is also thrown in to the garage by her step mom. She strongly believes that her step mom has caused the fire and has eventually killed her mother to stay with her father.  To bring evidence to the beliefs the two sisters tries to unwind the secrets behind.

She first meets Matt, while he delivers the groceries and supplies and confronts Anna that he knew exactly what happened at the night of the fire. Because he was following Anna back home after a brief break up of their date. But before she could hear what Matt had to say her step mom cuts into the conversation and orders Matt to leave.

Anna strongly believes that the step mom has set the house on fire to stay with her father.  That midnight the sisters plan to meet Matt at the rock. Rachel asks the sister if they want to accompany her with shopping for the party that evening.  Taking this as a chance to meet Matt Anna agrees to go with her. In the restaurant Rachel tries to explain how hard her life has been “Cleaning butts, however smelly they were”. The only thing that made her do the job was that she was convinced that “They will die very soon.” Anna is carried away from the conversation when the apparitions of the three kids appear, trying to tell her something, but is awaken to reality by Rachel.

She then meets Matt and asks him what he saw the other day. Then they plan to meet that midnight to know the story. The sisters sneak out of the house and wait but return home emptily when Matt does not show up.
That night Rachel sees Matt, through window completely drenched and his back broken. He says “That his mother warned him, but he did not listen”. He tries to hold her and at that minute Anna shouts and leaves the room, to find out that it is already morning.

Next the local sheriff show up, saying that Matt is dead, he could have fell down the rock , probably hit by a timber and broke his back. The Sheriff consoles Anna saying that it was not her fault and to go home and take rest. But Anna sobs and tells her sister that she is not crazy but she really saw Matt. When Alex tries to push away the thought she shows the finger prints in her hands, which shows that Matt was there and held her.

They again think that the Rachel has killed Matt, from keeping him away and revealing the truth. To collect evidence that Rachel is the culprit, first they try to find Rachel’s real identity. When they call the nursing agency to find out about a Rachel Summers… they don’t find anyone by that name.  Then they go to the Matt’s obituary services where Anna again sees the 3 children apparitions. Taken aback she follows them, which leads her to the “Wright children cemetery”.

When they are back home they Google for “Wright Children Murders”, and find out that a nanny was obsessed with the Wright children’s father and has eventually drugged them and continuously stabbed them to death. Also her name was Milfred kemp and that she was never caught by the police.  Also in a picture they see the pearl necklace that Rachael owns belongs to Mrs. Wright. and remembers Rachel saying that, “It was a gift from an old patient”.

The two sisters decide to steal the necklace as an evidence that she was not the real Rachel Summers and she is Mildred’s new identity.

Anna convinces herself, as she tries to convince the sheriff, that Rachel is Mildred, the murderer of the Wright children (the three kids that are haunting her). The sheriff obviously doesn’t believe. He calls up Rachel  for help. Ra

Anna IMAGINES that Mildred was never caught (though at the end we see she has been institutionalized all along), and that Rachel. Therefore, Anna’s account of Rachel’s identity, which he wouldn’t if he knew the real Mildred Kemp, was institutionalized. Rachel sedates her and takes her home. Anna wakes up and believes Alex killed Rachel in self defense. Then the father comes along, snaps Anna out of her delusion saying that “Alex has died along with her mother” and we see that Anna killed Rachel.

The story unveils:
In flashbacks you see what actually happened months earlier on the day the mother and Alex died in the fire…

Anna was angry after seeing her father having sex with the nurse Rachel so she went down to the boathouse to get some fuel to set fire to the big house. Alex stops her “what are you doing?” but Anna quotes, “it is not our house”.  Anna doesn’t turn the valve off completely causing the fuel to leak out (which Anna didn’t do that part on purpose) and Alex stumbles in and causes the lantern to fall, igniting the fuel and the boathouse.  Alex is called by her mother, as Anna walks half way she finds out that the boat house explodes. So the mother and Alex die in an explosion that was pure accident. Though it appears that Anna did want to burn something that night, it wasn’t supposed to be the boathouse; it was just a horrible accident.

So in order to cope, she IMAGINES her sister is still alive (watch again, no one else ever sees Alex) and she imagines the nurse planned the mother’s death (I guess because it is too stressful to admit her actions caused it). This is where the Mildred Kemp murder stories come in–Anna IMAGINES that Mildred was never caught (though at the end we see she has been institutionalized all along)

I believe the haunting from the mother’s corpse and the children were trying to make Anna aware of her part in everything and trying to bring her to reality. Rachel did change her identity, but as the father said, I guess it was to escape an abusive relationship. And when Anna’s caretaker asks her if she is fine back in the psychiatric centre Anna says that, “she finished what she started”.

I believe she meant that she finally killed the woman that she originally intended to harm the night of the fire, the woman she caught having the affair with her father–Rachel.

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One response to “The Uninvited – Movie review”

  1. […] here to read the rest: The Uninvited – Movie review By admin, on August 9, 2010 at 12:18 pm, under Latest Updates, Movies. Tags:comes-home, father, […]

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