Review: The Invitation, 2016, dir. Karyn Kusama

I’m a big fan of movies that function on the principle of “the less you know, the better,” but let me tell you: They are a bitch to write about. How much is too much? Where’s the line between giving away precious details and playing too coy for your audience’s own good? The answers to these questions and all other questions relevant to the topic are almost totally subjective. There are obvious examples of do’s and don’ts, e.g.: You don’t tell everyone that [character] in Game of Thrones dies in [episode X] before [episode X] even airs. But you do tell everyone, say, that The Invitation is about a man going to his ex-wife’s dinner party.

And you don’t say a whole lot else beyond that, because the point of the film is sensation and experience. If you give away key bits and pieces of plot and character, you dilute that experience. So, in the spirit of that, I tried as hard as I could to dance around the particulars of Karyn Kusama’s latest in my review for Paste Magazine. Suffice to say that it’s really, really good, and without uttering another word regarding its substance, I will simply recommend that if you like sophisticated horror-thrillers, this is probably going to be your jam. 

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