Unrelated to the 1944 ghost story that gave birth to the great Jazz standard Stella by Starlight, this "Uninvited" is a clunky Americanized remake of Kim Jee-woon's 2003 Korean horror film "The Tale of Two Sisters."
The upstart sibling directing team of Charles and Thomas Guard create hamburger-helper scares in a story about a suicidal girl named Anna (Emily Browning) who returns from a stint in the loony bin to live with her father Steven (David Strathairn in a squandered performance) and his new girlfriend Rachel (Elizabeth Banks).
Anna's sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) is quick to fill Anna in on how their now-deceased mother's former nurse Rachel has dug her nails into their father's heart.
Anna suffers from hallucinations of her corpse-like mother crawling around the family's lakeside mansion, that point to Rachel as an assassin.
Perfunctory scares lead up to a would-be surprise plot reveal that instead carries the odor of a day-old tuna sandwich left out on the counter.
(Paramount) Rated PG-13. 87 mins.
