THE INVITATION

Should I? Status: Would Watch

Available From Netflix

What You’re Afraid Your Ex Will Be(come)

THE QUICK AND DIRTY DEETS

• Sub-genre: Psychological Horror, Your Ex Isn’t The Best
• High on ultra-reality; you’d be scared too cuz it could happen to you
• Low on jump scares; ultra-low on CGI

THOTS

It’s funny, there’s no obvious reason why this movie should remind me of Hush, but it does. I think it’s the subgenre here that really leads me to tie the two together: although one is a robbery story, and one is an attempt-at-redemption-gone-wrong, they’re both really psychological thrillers on a core level. The Invitation, like The Silenced, was a bit of a surprising departure from good ol’ favorites for me, and a random Netflix choice. However, it proved eminently satisfying, and I recommend it with clear conscience. 

The Invitation is the kind of movie that begins to get you because it’s inherently quite possible. Although one might wonder why any ex would agree to a dinner party hosted by their previous partner, the reasons the film gives are both solidly built and, indeed, after a movie’s worth of explanation through dialogue and interaction, fully believable. As horror movies go, this lends the plot an undeniable satisfaction, not to mention a creepy thrill. You could see this happening to you, maybe in 10, or 20 years, depending on your age, but happening nonetheless. I think that’s what I love about The Invitation: it’s one of those horror movies you can believe. It’s unlike all the fantastical ones where reality is warped or you have to suspend your skepticism about the fact that a serial killer is supposedly both cancer-infected and on the loose long enough to justify 7 films (yes, I’m looking at you, Saw series). This is the film’s greatest strength. And, for the first time, I’d like to call out a film’s acting – every person playing each character in The Invitation does a very solid job.

There are moments where The Invitation will make you doubt the MC’s sanity. And there are moments where it will make you doubt yours, for believing in his.

The Invitation provides a satisfying script with dialogue that’s believable and lays down, time and time again, both context as well as emotional depth into each of our characters. While, at the end, it’s not one of those movies that keeps one up at night, fretting about what’s going bump under the bed, the movie’s very fully worth the time investment. It might not come back to you when you’re walking alone on a street at night, but it’ll come back to you when you talk to your friends after they experience trauma. It’ll come back to you when you’re meeting people for the first time. It’ll make you wonder, who are they, really? And what, exactly, are they capable of?

I heavily recommend The Invitation. I’ll even be honest – by this time last year, I’d felt I pretty much exhausted Netflix’s offering of “best” horror movies, left with dregs in the vein of The Houses October Built and similar. The Invitation and The Silenced have really encouraged me to dive into Netflix’s horror offerings once again. The streaming service seems to have upped its game, or at least, mixed up its movie selection a sufficient amount (at last – finally!) 

I hope you enjoy watching.

WILLOW CREEK

SHOULD I? STATUS: Meeeeeh-commend

Available on Amazon Prime – Shudder Add-on Subscription

THE QUICK AND DIRTY DEETS

Suggested Alternate Title: Big Baby After Bigfoot

• High on: Build-Up, Bad Camping, Bigfoot Lore
• Scares: 6/10
• Genre: Found Footage; Urban Legends/Folklore
• Low-to-Moderate Jump Scares, Low Follow Through, Shorter Length

THOTS

I decided to watch Willow Creek because I’ve been doing a lot of camping lately and I thought it would be fun to watch something more along that theme, instead of sticking to my typical favorite genres (feminism and haunted house movies). It was relatively high rated on Amazon, so I settled in for a little over an hour’s of entertainment without much by way of expectations, excited mostly for the camping.

Here is the essential plot of Willow Creek: Bigfoot believer dude and his non-believer, but loving and tolerant girlfriend, are on an expedition to re-create the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage. As a point in the film’s favor, I learned more about Bigfoot during the 79-minute run time than I had ever cared to know before. All the facts and legends the couple seem hellbent on exploring in Willow Creek prove, upon a little Googling, real, established, “facts” and legends of the Bigfoot myth. That’s – fairly impressive. It’s nice that the film mines truly extant legends and folklore for its premise, and in fact, much of what drives its story arc.

Now here are the downsides of Willow Creek: the two main characters constitute a couple which, at almost every turn of the movie, the audience wonders why they are together. Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson have virtually no on-screen chemistry. Gilmore’s hot, and Johnson’s certainly good-looking, but he comes across like a douche, and she – well, we wonder why she’s with Johnson at all. He’s insistent upon the existence of Bigfoot and angered when she compares the urban legend to, for instance, leprechauns. There’s a single cute couple moment in the entire movie, which is when Johnson’s character proposes to Gilmore in their tent. But wait: during this scene we realize the two don’t even live together, have probably not been dating that long (let’s estimate a year or less, based on contextual remarks), and in short, why the hell does this guy think he wants to marry this girl? Because she tolerates, even enables, his Bigfoot obsession?

To return to the realm of positive commentary, there is more to be said about Willow Creek. The film has a great build-up. There’s a lot of back detail provided, and it’s complete with the typical “locals warning intruders not to intrude” and so on.

Unfortunately, when Gilmore’s character says, at over 30 minutes into the movie, “I have no cell reception…the beginning of every horror movie,” all it made me think was “So why did it take this one thirty minutes to get there?”

All in all – the movie wasn’t bad. But the ending is virtually inexplicably by way of motivation and reason, despite the fact that it may wake you up in the middle of the night with thoughts of dark figures standing by your bed. I wanted more out of Willow Creek, and I started it without even wanting much.