The Uninvited

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre horror Starring Shin-yang Park, Ji-hyun Jun, Seon Yu, Ok Jeong, Ju-shil Lee, Directed by Su-yeon Lee Publisher Panik House Entertainment External Links Official Uninvited Website Official Panik House Entertainment Website

The basic premise is about an interior designer, Jung Won (Shin Yang Park), who relapses into seeing the ghosts of two dead girls that he met in the train. In trying to solve this phenomenon, he eventually ends up meeting a woman, Yun (Ji Hyun Jun) who can also see the dead as she lost her child when a deranged friend threw her baby out off the balcony of a high-rise apartment. And together, they have to confront the mysterious events caused by The Uninvited.

The film tries to be a great supernatural/horror like Sixth Sense, but whether the direction was intentional or not, this film was not scary at all. It wants to be suspenseful, but perhaps due to its painfully slow pacing, it misses the right mark, therefore entering the dangerous zone of it being boring and predictable or even worse, don't really care. What is also evident is the lack of timing for scary moments and the weak usage of sound efx which ultimately add to the agony of already slow film.

A good example is when Jun Won sees those two girls. It is obvious that the director wanted to somewhat mimic the shocking image of the twin girls in Kubrick's The Shining, but these uninvited girls were not creepy, rather it was almost funny. If anything, hiring the twins with same outfits with faster editing, could have achieved something much more.

If anyone rents or buys this DVD thinking this is a traditional "Asian" horror, they will be disappointed, but it has its own charm about it. In its Special Feature section, I found that this is one of the first Korean titles that had subtitles for the special feature section. "The Making of" section is typical with all interviews and steady dissection of story and characters by the filmmakers. "Reminiscence" section is an interview with the two stars, which covers their motivations of their characters and the personal take on the project itself.

The English commentary didn't sound like the director was making them, rather it was being read by a third party which I found kind of odd. The two-piece artwork for the DVD jacket is quite impressive and it also includes a mini poster inside. Originally titled "4 Inyong Shiktak" and it translates to "Dining Room Set for 4." However, this DVD lands somewhere between "Pass and Rent."