'The Disinvited' Review: Intriguing Ideas Undone by Poor Pacing and Flat Characters
- Nov 15, 2025
- 2 min read
By Jack Ransom - November 15, 2025
The Disinvited sees Carl (Sam Daly) crash an event he's unwelcome at, sparking a day of betrayal, violence, and heartbreak. He must decide whether to save himself or risk all for those who wronged him when other unwanted guests surface.
A Promising Premise That Quickly Falters
Only found out about this very recently when the screener became available, as the premise sounded intriguing and tonally (from the promotion) seemed to be in the vein of Tarantino/The Coen’s… however, as much as I appreciate this is an independent, low budget production with a smattering of clever stylistic choices and practical splatter in the final sequence, it is hard to get through from start to finish.
The pacing is testing, the film only clocks in at 90 minutes (including credits), however it feels nearly an hour longer. This is largely to do with the screenplay which aims for pop culture, referential witticisms (everybody from Creed to the Foo Fighters and a tangent about Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man portrayal is mentioned) and instead just comes off inane, dull and not realistic at all. The road-trip combined with context building flashbacks is a fitting idea, however there is no sense of stakes, urgency or engagement and Carl is mostly just flat out unlikeable and off-putting, but not in a layered, interesting or dynamic character way, but more so in a creepy, stalker, oddball way. Certainly someone you would actively avoid any sort of contact with, so it’s understandable why his friends did so.
As I say, the stylistic choices do standout at times. There are some slick scene transitions and a couple of genuinely solid character misdirects scattered throughout. Obviously production-wise this a lower budget affair, but they certainly utilised what they had with great effect in the final act with some swift brutal practical gore. Also, lastly the soundtrack… how many times do you need to use non-original versions of House of the Rising Sun?
A lot of what’s on display here is just shouting, awkward line delivery and tripping into over-the-top melodramatic rambling, shouting and ranting. Unfortunately as mentioned the cast aren’t helped by the screenplay, but aside from some suitably hammy and off-putting outbursts from Sam Daly & Bryson Robinson, everyone is pretty much giving the same awkward delivery.
A Concept Undone by Execution
Despite having some potentially interesting themes and some impressive stylistic choices, The Disinvited fumbles its premise due to poor dialogue, dull pacing, unlikeable and uninteresting characters.
'The Disinvited' will be available on digital platforms on November 18.
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