THE INVITATION

Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) works for a catering company who are hired for swanky, posh New York elitist parties; however, her true passion in life is her art (ceramics to be more specific). Being an only child with no family as her mother passed away recently, her perpetual victim coworker Grace (Courtney Taylor) swipes a goodie bag from the party that houses a free DNA test kit and gives it to Evie. Feeling she has nothing to lose and everything to gain, Evie completes and submits her DNA test when in short order, she's contacted by her 2nd cousin Oliver (Hugh Skinner). He's in New York on business and is quite insistent she come back to England with him for a family wedding (all expenses paid mind you) to meet the rest of the family. Once there, Evie quickly falls for the lord of the manner Walter De Ville (Thomas Doherty) but also begins to worry about her safety. The trailer unfortunately spoils too much here as the audience already has an idea where the story goes before it has a chance to unfold. Plenty of undertones dealing with racism and sexism as basically the entire cast consists of white males outside of Nathalie of course. I imagine she wants to cash in on her post-GAME OF THRONES success and prove she can be a leading actress but this was not the project to attempt to flex those muscles on as there's very little here to work with. This is supposed to be a horror/thriller and while the gore elements are there to satisfy the horror fans, the thriller aspect is anything but as jump scares as telegraphed from a mile away. Pepper in some woke dialogue about Brits, the monarchy, and colonizers with the addition of a black female lead and you've checked a couple of boxes for those who care about those sorts of trivial matters as well. Seems that's the direction this project was interested in going rather than a quality film with any substance. 3/10