Content Advisory: Excessive or gratuitous violence, Substance abuse or alcoholism, Kidnapping
A family is shocked to realize that the Zoom wedding they were invited to is a cult ritual in Invited. Linda (Martina Schabron) is a recovering alcoholic, who received a Zoom invite from her estranged daughter Jessica (Beáta Imre), who is suddenly getting married to her Russian boyfriend Adrik (Michael Lake). The call is joined by Linda’s parents William (Andrew Bee) and Susan (Kris Langille), estranged husband James (Sean Irvine), wheelchair-bound son Logan (Alex Di Brita), and the very pregnant Maddy (Mandy Magnan).
Invited Synopsis
Invited is a ScreenLife horror film directed by Navin Ramaswaran (Poor Agnes, Late Night Double Feature, Chasing Valentine), inspired by a real Christian cult that originated in Russia and seems to be making a resurgence. The film is told entirely in the form of a Zoom conversation from the point of view of the protagonist Linda, who is currently the black sheep of the family, due to her history of alcoholism, which resulted in an accident confining her son Logan to a wheelchair. Over the course of the wedding ritual, performed by the Church of Infinity, Linda has side conversations with Maddy, who warns her of the disturbing information about the church she has learned.
My Thoughts on Invited
Four years after Rob Savage’s Host demonstrated how Zoom could be used to pull off a horror film, Navin Ramaswaran gives it a shot with Invited, to admittedly mixed results. While the film has some shocking and intense moments, as the ritual turns quite graphic, the film is marred by wooden acting and dialogue that doesn’t feel quite natural. In fact, the history and photos at the end of the film, showing the real cult the film was inspired by, is arguably more interesting than the entire rest of Invited. However, with a very brief running time of just 73 minutes, Invited is at least worth a watch.