My wife and I got a diner party invitation to one of her co-workers place in the next few weeks. We are not Fucking going!!

undeniably tense as fuck, Kusama works wonder on a tiny budget and also there's Lindsay Burdge, but this is the latest in a long line of kinda cheap / formally excellent domestic horror stories that feel content to be genre exercises, and deny themselves the opportunity to become more than that. it's a hell of a ride, but it's all surface... it's all putting the right beats in the right places... it works, but it might work too hard.

"... that was mercy"

the destructive, wavelike nature of grief as a communal experience that permeates every space we occupy, every movement we make & every interaction we have. kusama's formal grace is the obvious star here, the masterful staging, gestures & spatial awareness she shows off in particular, but as the film goes on & the screws tighten agonizingly slowly all the way until its haunting final image, kusama achieves something far beyond form -- her genre thrills deeply woven with a sense of the pervading, inescapable pain that, whether we're struggling to remember or forget, can blind us as easily as it brings us together.

really suspenseful thriller the whole way through. now that i know what "the invitation" is, i wonder if this film will hold up to additional viewings.

Low budget, but it works great! They managed to capture the atmosphere of dinner parties like this very well, and the acting is very solid throughout. There is a lot of cringe throughout the first half, which may turn people off, but I thought it added to the realism.

It may be a bit slow for some people, and if I we're in the wrong mood it might have been for me as well, but it pulls together and I think it worked very well.

The ending seems to split people on whether they like it or not, but I personally liked it. World buliding is always good, even if it comes off as a bit far fetched.

"Terrible. So very terrible. The last twenty minutes though, fucking bat-shit gold."

So bland. Predictable from the get-go. Nothing happens for the first 80 odd minutes, then when it finally does it's exactly what you'd expect.

where the fuck is choi?

I learnt that you should wash your hands for at least 10 seconds if you use antibac soap so I added 1/2 star for the extra hygiene tip, nice one

A fun genre movie! Doesn’t stick the landing thematically BUT the last shot is absolutely incredible.

Felt like it was one of those horror movies where there's lots of clever subtext. Except they forgot to put the text in. By the time it comes to the reveal it's so near the end I'd given up hope.

But that's possibly an expectation thing, because I had this on my hooptober list and was expecting horror. Just like The Overnight, which I also assumed was horror (purely because I'd seen it recommended on Letterboxd) and kept waiting for a sharp turn into horror territory that just didn't come.

Was almost going to bail early on, but then John Carroll Lynch rocked up.

I'm impressed by that cult introduction video they play, which managed to be both so bland and boring but also an actual snuff film.

The Invitation is a Grade-A quality nerve grinder that is best viewed cold. Skip the trailer and let your heart race. The minor criticisms I had did nothing to stop my nail biting love for this puppy.