Review: The Invitation (Jessica M. Thompson, 2022)

 

         Walt (Tom Doherty), and Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) are dreamy in The Invitation  (2022)

Jessica M. Thompson has crafted a really fun gothic Vampire romance in her film The Invitation (2022), and I'm actually really surprised that the film has received so many milquetoast reviews, although I do agree with two complaints: the trailer gives the film away, and it's just not very scary.  Neither of these issues is a deal breaker, and as a critic who hungrily devours trailers, I knew what I was in for.  Further, while the film isn't a jump scare gore fest, I find bullying, microaggressions, and full-throttle gaslighting pretty scary, so if viewers identify with Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), the film definitely has its share of terrors, albeit more psychological than visceral.  Most importantly, in a genre dominated by white women, The Invitation stars a BIPOC woman, who is savvy, funny, and heroic!  Yes!

Evie and her fabulous bestie, Grace (Courtney Taylor) are dodging grabby hands as they cater a posh event.  Evie tries to make ends meet while pursuing artistic work as a ceramicist.  Just keep in mind that this film is all about fantasy, so no need to question why she has a ridiculously amazing apartment--just go with it.  Evie's an orphan, and her Mom, to whom she was close, passed away recently, so when she discovers a DNA kit in the swag bag she snagged from the event, she decides to give it a try.  Why not.  She soon discovers that she has family, and that she's a cousin of the incredibly posh Alexander family, who reside across the pond in London.  Conveniently, her cousin Oliver is in New York on business, and asks if they can meet up.  Over dinner, he invites her to a family wedding in London, in order for her to meet her new family, who are eager to welcome her into the fold.  Noteworthy point: the Alexanders are white, and her line on the family tree is connected to her great grandmother's dalliance with a black footman.  This plot point is also patently ridiculous, but Oliver offers a free trip to London, so Evie decides to--just go with it.

    Evie meets the "lord" of New Carfax Abbey, Walter DeVille--he immediately seems very interested

She observes some staff showing up, and accidentally bumps into a young woman carrying a tray of glasses.  Blam!!  There's a mess, she's apologizing, and Mr. DeVille's butler (Renfield) mistakes her for the help until Walter sets him straight.  The first hour of this film is just gorgeous set piece after gorgeous set piece as Evie gets seduced and charmed by Walter--spoilers, you know he's a vampire, as the film reveals "someone" feeding on the help in the dark.  Sending a maid to get a specific bottle of wine is clearly the mark of death in this film, and if anyone gets out of line, to the cellar they go, or the library, or wherever else Walter is hanging out, alone and hungry.  Interspersed with these moments are Evie's interactions with Walter, her extended family, the Alexanders, and then two other families that have shown up for the wedding.  They have rehearsal dinners, and soirees with fireworks, and each time, Walter gives Evie an absolutely beautiful dress to wear to every function.  As fantasies go, this film has it all--a dishy heartthrob suitor who is fabulously wealthy and absolutely fascinated with Evie.  Grace, whom Evie checks in with daily because "cell phones," is pretty supportive about this

potential Mr. Right, but the fact that Evie's the ONLY POC in the whole film is impossible to ignore.

                Lucy (Alana Boden) is definitely the sweeter of the two other brides (of Dracula)

I really appreciate how The Invitation gives a decent backstory to Dracula's brides, and what their origin story might be.  We meet Lucy (Alana Boden) and Vicktoria (Stephanie Cornieliussen) when they show up for the the wedding festivities.  Viktoria is not pleased by Evie capturing Walt's attention; Lucy is just eager to have a "sister" in the family.  While the film is not explicit, its pretty clear that Lucy and Viktoria are Walt's brides, women from two families to which Walt offers protection, power, and eternal life.  The film opens with the Alexander bride killing herself rather than continuing to live...like a vampire, I guess.  So Oliver sets his sites on Evie as soon as the DNA test results prove a match, however mixed race Evie is.  For vampires, the blood, and the blood line, is what ultimately matters.

                                        Evie is not a happy bride on her special day

When Evie realizes what is in store, and that the wedding is actually hers, she looks pretty disturbed and shocked.  She goes along with it all to a point, but the bloodletting/wedding ceremony is where things go wrong for Walter and his minions, all wearing weird animal masks because???  Some stuff seems to be throwing spaghetti at a wall, but quite a bit does stick.  I found the ending satisfying, but a bit abrupt, with several potential storylines unexplored.  Look for a shout out to Mina and Jonathan Harker, and be prepared to identify with Evie, but know quite a bit more than she does through the whole film.  The Invitation is currently streaming on Netflix, and definitely worth it if you like old school gothic flair.

The Reflecting Skin--Philip Ridley (1990)

Childhood is just a series of nightmares in Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin (1990)

I think I'm running out of superlatives for all the "gorgeous," "beautiful," "stunning," and "visually breathtaking" films that I've seen at the 2015 Fantasia Film Festival, but Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin (1990), recently remastered, may be the most mind-blowingly dazzling film I've seen, or will see, at this festival--and it's 25 years old.  Having only seen the film on VHS and on a crummy DVD print, I knew that I loved the film, but had never really seen it as I should.  Well, as I said.  MIND BLOWN.  Concordia Hall was only half filled at the screening, and all I could think is that it should have been sold out.  But no, that privilege is reserved for stuff like Cop Car and Cooties. Whatever.  This film is fu**ing awesome, and I'm just irritated that more people have not discovered this film.

Seth (Jeremy Cooper) wanders through the wheat fields for most of the film

The film follows young Seth Pope (Jeremy Cooper) as a 9-year old struggling to grow up in the isolated Prairies of 1950's Idaho.  He is under the thumb of his violent and abusive mother, Ruth (Sheila Moore) and his timid, closeted queer father, Luke (Duncan Fraser).  Mrs. Dove hates her life, despises the reek of gasoline that permeates her husband's clothes and the curtains, and focuses all her love and energy on her son Cameron (Viggo Mortensen), who happens to be setting off nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.  Unsurprisingly, she does not direct any of this longing affection toward her husband or other son.  Her rapacious frustration finds them easy targets for her rage.  The rest of the townsfolk seem equally ruled by a mix of religious dogma and disappointment.

Suspicious men arrive in their shiny black car

When a bunch of sinister young thugs drive up in a shiny black car to get gas from the Dove's pumps, things start to spiral downhill in an absolutely chilling fashion.  A suicide by immolation, the kidnapping and sexual interference of some local young boys,  a fossilized fetus, and some particularly sadistic law enforcement all add to the air of unfolding menace that creeps through the film.

The widow Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) is the victim of an exploding frog

Amidst all this strange and sudden drama, Seth must contend with his simultaneous fear and fascination of the widow who lives next door, Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan).  While she's mostly the victim of Seth's unfortunate childhood pranks, he begins to believe (with the help of his father's pulp fiction) that Ms. Blue is actually a vampire, who drinks blood in order to stay young, hates sunlight, and may be feeding on the local youth.  Because the film is told explicitly through the eyes of an impressionable nine-year old boy, viewers can see the logic of some of his more hare-brained ideas.  Likewise, Seth's fear and despair are quite palpable--a testament to Cooper's performance and the film's powerfully intimate pull. 

Viggo Mortensen as returning veteran Cameron Pope

Once Cameron finally arrives home, and falls for the local widow, spectators are torn between wanting this couple to find some semblance of happiness in this bleak place, and identifying strongly with Seth's childish jealousies regarding his brother's affection and attention.  And if you're a Viggo Mortensen fan (The Lord of the Rings series), he is both understated and deeply sexy in this film.  The love scene between Cameron and the widow is very erotic, and surprise, he's the only one who gets fully undressed.  Alas, since Cam has been making snowballs from nuclear ash, he's losing weight, his hair, and has bleeding gums.  For Seth, all signs point to Dolphin's vampiric influence.

Cam and Seth against a bleak but beautiful backdrop

One's heart breaks for Seth at film's end.  He starts off as a bit of a little sh**, but we soon see how the world is stacked against him.  Once Seth finally gets to pour out his rage and despair (since he's eerily stoic throughout), spectators are right beside him, feeling every moment of his bottled up pain.  Thank you, Fantasia, for screening this remastered gem.  This film should be a well-regarded classic.  See it soon, see it often.

Therapy for a Vampire--David Ruhm (2014)

Freud (Karl Fischer) analyzes Count Geza von Kosznom (Tobias Moretti) in David Ruhm's Therapy for a Vampire (2014)

Okay, it's official.  I just do not like horror comedies.  So many of them are just plain sexist, and women are often the brunt of the joke.  This film is not that offensive, but it's not that memorable either.  David Ruhm's Therapy for a Vampire is an amusing little film that brings out the occasional chuckle, but it's really just a trifle.  A little bite-sized concoction that is momentarily delicious, but then rather forgettable and not very satisfying.  White chocolate instead of some 80% dark chocolate (Fair Trade) from Madagascar.  Okay, I clearly need some chocolate in order to write this review...

The best thing about this film is Freud, who happens to be hanging around a vastly underpopulated Vienna in the 1930s.  I'm not going to go into the fact that real Freud is way older than this character by this point, etc., etc.  It's Freud (Karl Fischer), and he's just some schmoe instead of a world famous psychoanalyst, and he just happens to be a therapist to Count Geza von Kosznom (Tobias Moretti).  The Count is bored and sick of immortality, mostly because he hates his wife, the lovely Countess Elsa (Jeannette Hain) and all he can think of is killing her.  Elsa's not too happy either.  She can sense that the Count is not really interested in her, and over hundreds of years has become more and more insecure because she cannot see herself in any mirrors (of course), and thinks she's not beautiful enough for the Count.  By the way, she's completely, utterly gorgeous, and I wanted to own all her fabulous costumes.  To turn this elegant woman into an insecure nag is just unjust.

The Count is also pining away for his one true love, Nadila, a woman he lost in the past (a villagers-with-torches tragic scenario).  Coincidentally (or not), she happens to look just like the girlfriend of Viktor (Dominic Oley), a struggling artist hired by Freud to illustrate Freud's dreams.  Every woman that Viktor happens to paint or draw looks like Lucy (Cornelia Ivancan), but an idealized version of her--a blond, elegant, sensual sophisticate rather than her smart, spunky brunette self.  Lucy, following up on the "women are insecure" theme in this film, transforms herself into the slinky blonde of Viktor's dreams, and catches the eye of the Count, who now sees his reincarnated lost love.

Countess Elsa (Jeannette Hain) gets Victor (Dominic Oley) to paint her portrait

The Count decides to take care of two problems at once.  In order to steal Lucy away from Viktor, he convinces his wife that the painter has a special technique that will be able to capture her beauty on canvas.  While Elsa is busy with Viktor, the Count tries to seduce Lucy.  Hijinks ensue.

Countess Elsa attacking Lucy for stealing her man.  Eye roll and yawn.

So, in this film we have two women who struggle to gain the attention of the men in their lives, are obsessed about their appearance (because of said men), and the men see them as nagging wives or girlfriends who they actively manipulate and/or successfully get to change.  Nice.  And so hilarious!!

As I said before, the interactions with Freud were the only moments that I found really rather funny, and that's because of all the sly asides to Freud's writings (Totem and Taboo, The Wolfman, The Interpretation of Dreams).  Likewise, the Count's "Renfield" character, Ignaz (Anatole Taubman) steals quite a few scenes away from the key players as he bumbles around and messes thing up.  I was pretty disappointed by this film, but I should have known better.  After all, Sigmund Freud referred to femininity as the "dark continent"; it looks like this film is pretty clueless about women as well.

Nicholas Grimshaw (Jason Flemyng) confronts a curse from the past in Kevin McTurk's The Mill at Calder's End (2015)

In fine Fantasia form, the short screened before Therapy, Kevin McTurk's The Mill at Calder's End (2015) is a really fantastic and beautifully-made puppet film.  Created through a successful Kickstarter campaign, this powerful little short follows Nicholas Grimshaw (Jason Flemyng) as he tries to end a curse that has plagued every male Grimshaw, and may come for his newborn son as well.

The Inimitable Barbara Steele voices the Apparition at the Mill--looks just like her!

The puppets are incredible and really lend to the Uncanny and unsettling atmosphere that permeates this film.  The lighting and soundtrack truly enhance the film's tangible dread, and the puppets' emotional realism is conveyed through sophisticated expressionistic lighting. In a casting coup, the apparition that haunts all these male Grimshaws (and other men that fall into her "web") is played by Barbara Steele, looking like she just made a side trip out of Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960).  McTurk has made a really cool making of documentary in case you're interested, and hopefully the film will be widely available once it rakes in the awards on the festival circuit.  It's a truly unique and wonderful film.