The Invitation
Short description
After her mother dies, Evie Alexander takes a DNA test and learns she has relatives she never knew about. A cousin she has not met invites her to a lavish wedding at an estate in the English countryside, where her newly found family welcomes her with generous attention. The handsome host, Walter De Ville, charms her, but the hospitality turns out to be a trap. Evie comes to understand that a conspiracy is unfolding around her and that her family's past holds disturbing secrets. She has to fight to survive and work out what her hosts really want from her.
The Invitation is a 2022 American horror thriller directed by Jessica M. Thompson, her second feature, from a screenplay by Blair Butler. Nathalie Emmanuel plays Evie, with Thomas Doherty as Walter De Ville and Sean Pertwee, Hugh Skinner, Alana Boden and Carol Ann Crawford in supporting roles; twenty-five actors are credited in all. Produced by Emile Gladstone for Screen Gems, TSG Entertainment, Mid Atlantic Films and Latchkey, the film runs 105 minutes and was made for about 10 million dollars. It took roughly 38 million dollars worldwide, a solid return on that budget.
On IMDb the film holds 5.3 out of 10 from around 40,000 votes. On TMDB it sits at 6 out of 10 from about a thousand votes. A critics' rating of 4.8 out of 10 from 69 reviews puts it below both audience scores, so viewers have been somewhat warmer toward it than reviewers were.
What's left behind the scenes
- Thomas Doherty replaced Garrett Hedlund in the role of de Villers.
- According to director and producer Jessica Thompson, there were two possible endings to the film: one filmed, and one that wasn’t. In the unfilmed ending, Evie would have retained vampire traits after killing de Ville and would have gone in search of other vampires; in the filmed finale, de Ville survived and returned to Romania by sea. Thompson wasn't enthusiastic about this ending, believing it diminished Evie's triumph and also allowed for the possibility of sequels. The audience at preview screenings also disliked this finale. A few weeks before the film’s release, the ending was reshot according to Thompson's original vision, but a replacement had to be found for Hugh Skinner, who was unavailable, for the additional filming. Another scene with Courtney Taylor’s character was also filmed, as she was a favorite of the audience at the previews.
- The key scene in which Evie, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, meets Oliver (played by Hugh Skinner) was filmed in a restaurant opened by Franco-British artist and designer Henri Cheban. The restaurant is located in the Prisi Udvar hotel in Budapest, the capital of Hungary.
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