It’s fitting that Sony’s The Invitation is coming out through their Screen Gems division, as the movie really does feel like the kind of old-fashioned horror programmer we used to get from them in the 2000s. After a big summer of tentpoles, something is refreshing about a fun little horror flick, made with style, on the big screen.
Indeed, The Invitation serves as a long-overdue debut as a lead for star Nathalie Emmanuel. While she’s a very familiar face thanks to being on Game of Thrones and in the Fast & Furious movies, shockingly, she’s never played a lead before, something which I’ll admit was lost on me until told so by the director Jessica M. Thompson in our exclusive interview. Once I got the chance to talk to Emmanuel and co-star Thomas Doherty, I asked her what it was like leading a major studio film after so many years as a supporting player. All involved were super friendly and seemed enthusiastic about Thompson’s thriller, which plays almost like a gothic horror spoof of glamorous destination wedding movies like Crazy Rich Asians. Here, our lead, Emmanuel’s Evie, is invited to a glamorous remote wedding. Once there, she finds romance with a dashing aristocrat named Walter (Thomas Doherty), only to realize she’s been lured there for a deadly, gory (for a PG-13) reason.
Check out our interviews above and check out The Invitation exclusively in theaters this Friday! The less you know about it going in (the trailer gives too much away) – the better!