Movie Review: Who Invited Them?

credit: Who Invited Them

A convincing thriller usually makes the audience sit forward a little more than this movie, but it gives a nice little jolt that doesn’t really hit as shared as it should since, to be fair, it’s kind of a middle-of-the-road movie that doesn’t really give a sense that things are that all that dire until later on in the movie. When Adam and Margo hold a house party to celebrate moving into a new house, it’s evident that their guests don’t think much of them, as the comments made by everyone at the party make it clear that Adam is living well beyond his means. Margo doesn’t appear to be having much fun either, as the entire party appears to be kind of an exercise in grandstanding by Adam. As the party winds down and people start making excuses to leave, however, Adam and Margo find that a couple has stayed behind, stating that they didn’t realize the party had ended. the crime is too much to miss in this movie since it starts quickly and doesn’t appear to have an end in sight. 

credit: Who Invited Them

The couple, Tom and Sasha, come off as less scary and more eccentric than anything. 

From their charming and friendly entrance into the movie to their eerie way of trying to make nice with their hosts, they feel a little too fake, as though something is being hidden beneath the nice veneer that they’ve obviously worked so hard to cultivate. Their ability to get Adam and Margo to do and say what they’d like is kind of creepy since it makes a person feel the setup that’s being laid out. In the meantime, Adam and Margo are, without any doubt, a couple that is bound for a bad end if they don’t resolve their issues. But to be fair, meeting Tom and Sasha was not what they needed. 

Adam and Margo definitely feel like a troubled couple. 

After seeing that Margo was absent from the party, it should have been obvious to anyone that she and Adam weren’t on the same page when it came to the house party or even the house. Their inability to get along on a deeper level was taken even further when they allowed Tom and Sasha to hang around after the party. When Tom went off with Adam and Sasha and Margo went off on their own, things continued to devolve as Tom and Sasha started to manipulate their way into the trust of their hosts, planting ideas in their heads before the couples came together again, this time to sort out their issues as Adam and Margo began to tear at each other in a very emotional manner, making it clear that they were holding things back at the beginning of the movie.  The whole plan was to use a strange type of therapy of punching each other in the shoulder. Unfortunately, it’s not much of a surprise that Margo punches Adam while he refuses to punch her until he’s angry enough. Of course, the fact that she moves makes her look a little hypocritical. 

credit: Who Invited Them

One would think that things would get progressively worse, but it takes a while for the big reveal. 

Eventually, it is revealed that Tom and Sasha are not as innocent as they’re made out to be, but the fact that they’re brother and sister isn’t that big of a deal, it’s the fact that they used to be the residents of the home in which Adam and Margo now live, and that the murder that took place so long ago in the house wasn’t exactly what Adam was told. The fact is that this story, as much as it’s told throughout the movie, doesn’t really get remembered as a huge plot point. Instead, Tom and Sasha and their overall appearance is what overpowers this premise and turns this into a rather dull movie. Thrillers are usually supposed to get the heart pumping and keep the audience on their toes, but this time around, it wasn’t nearly as effective as it could have been. 

As far as thrillers go, this was kind of a snooze. 

Now and then, it does happen that some movies might need a few touches and tweaks to become what they were supposed to be. But this movie needed a complete overhaul of the script to become anything close to the thriller that it could have been. The setting was about the only thing that really worked in this story since the dialogue, the characters, and the overall plot needed a lot of tweaking that it didn’t receive, obviously. It’s fair to think that it could have been something, but someone decided to phone this one in. 

Movies that fall flat like this are easy to forget, unfortunately.