Directed by Greydon Clark [Other horror films: Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977), Without Warning (1980), Wacko (1982), Dance Macabre (1992)]
So I’ll give the poster credit for being decent, but boy, this movie definitely has some issues. That doesn’t make Uninvited any less entertaining, but I suspect that this film, while somewhat fun once around, might suffer deeply with revisits.
Even seeing it once doesn’t lead to the best time, but the dialogue and acting is so awful, it’s almost good. The cat itself is fine, but the ill-defined creature that exists within the cat that does most of the killings doesn’t look particularly impressive whatsoever.
I do personally appreciate that this film takes place mostly on a yacht (and a few years before Jason Takes a Long Boat Ride), because more enclosed spaces theoretically should increase the tension. Of course, it never really did, but being lost out at sea without a working engine did hold with it a certain despair.
Alex Cord was appropriately campy here, and his character, of course, quite a dick. He did have a slimy charm at times, but by the end, he got somewhat hard to appreciate. Clu Gulager (The Return of the Living Dead and Freddy’s Revenge) was sort of nice to see, but he didn’t have a heck of a lot of screen-time. Better was George Kennedy (Just Before Dawn and Death Ship), who was Cord’s serious-minded right-hand man.
Shari Shattuck and Clare Carey never really caught on with me (they were cute, sure, but they weren’t winning any IQ tests). Likewise, neither Beau Dremann nor Rob Estes (Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge) blew me away, but I did really like both Eric Larson (Demon Wind) and Toni Hudson. Hudson was maybe a bit more generic, but Larson’s character was pretty interesting, and one of the only ones on board to really root for.
Toward the end, once the surviving characters get into a lifeboat, the cat-creature-thing attacks them twice, with this ridiculous music playing. The sequence was a good example of what to expect from this movie. It’s not overtly silly (though like I said, some of the performances are more than a little camp), but it almost reaches into the realm of comedy with as bad as some of these scenes are.
When it’s all said and done, Uninvited isn’t anywhere near a great movie, but it can be entertaining, and if that’s your main concern, I think you could certainly do a lot worse than this, as bad as this can get.
5.5/10
This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast. If you want to hear Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this one, then look no further.
Jiggy's Horror Corner 
2 thoughts on “Uninvited (1987)”