“The Invitation” (2022) stars Game of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel as Evie, a struggling artist and student, who gets invited to a wedding after connecting with a long-lost cousin. Despite some misgivings about hanging out with her newfound wealthy relatives, the Alexanders, the host of the wedding, Walt (Thomas Doherty), charms her. Their mutual attraction erases her concerns until a dinner reveals that she is in worst danger than she ever suspected.

“The Invitation” preview that I saw gave away the denouement and seemed like another “Ready or Not” (2019) so while I wanted to support Emmanuel, I was not enthusiastic and rushing to theater. Various app algorithms freaked out when I did not see the film opening weekend and started literally screaming, “the vampire movie!” Oh, I missed that, and I know that I am not the only one because when I began referring to it in that way, other people said the same thing and got interested. If I saw “Morbius” (2022), I clearly would watch any vampire movie. I have since seen other previews that make it more obvious that it is a vampire movie and would not recommend watching any promotions because then the movie will not hold any surprises.

“The Invitation” is complete fun. Emmanuel does a great job playing a relatable, likeable protagonist from the opening scene. Despite being gorgeous, because of race and class/finances, she is the underdog. The film taps into our Cinderella fantasies so it is very easy to empathize with her desire to be treated as special, belong in a community that she was always outside yet not forget or try to erase her roots as a black woman and a worker in the hospitality industry. The film silently capitalizes on Meghan Markle’s story as open to entering a community, but refusing to adhere to their standards when it offends even if there is a risk of being rejected. She knows that this community must be problematic because of her family history of exile and the continued erasure of her last name, Jackson, by being called Alexander, but while they seem open to accepting her, she is willing to work with them. 

“The Invitation” accomplishes something that most movies have been unable to do since my twenties. I was rooting for the most attractive people, Evie and Walt, to get together. Y’all Emmanuel and Doherty have amazing chemistry, and Doherty is hot. The only real red flags were that the people around Walt were jerks, and good people would not ride so deep with assholes. To be fair, Walt is transparent about trying to impress Evie. Hear me out. We have been through some rough years with Presidon’t and multiple pandemics. It is nice to have a handsome, charming monster for a change. Also I love brutal, monstrous vampires from “30 Days of Night” (2007) or “Salem’s Lot” (1979), but it was nice to bring sexy back. Yes, some of his evening wardrobe decisions looked straight out of the Amish swank collection, but chef’s kiss to the three unbuttoned shirt and the tank top. Despite it being obvious that he is a bad decision, you will still root for Evie to hook up with Walter. There are worst fates.

“The Invitation” also gets points for using the vampire story to explicitly tackle the horrors of today’s world. By the denouement, Evie realizes that all these nice people are indifferent to murder and atrocities if they remain financially successful. It depicts our labor market as filled with meaningless tasks so we are distracted from the real goal-our dehumanization, a product to be consumed.  Within this system, there are relative advantages, but ultimately it turns everyone into monsters to survive. Human sacrifice is not much of a leap these days considering many pleas for people to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of business during the early days of the pandemic. Evie’s ability to still be shocked and refuse the offer reveals her precarious acceptance. Soon her race, gender and class are thrown back in her face, and the façade of respect drops. 

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While I loved “The Invitation,” I was disappointed that it only made references, but did not explicitly explore the mythology of vampires in this retelling of the Dracula story. Did these three families get chosen because they saw an opportunity and made a deal with the devil or was there something special about their blood specifically? What would happen if no third bride-supernatural oblivion or just contract clause violation? Lucy (Alana Boden) explains that there are a lot of misconceptions about vampires, but Dracula’s brides still stick Evie in a coffin why? Is it just hazing? I loved the dragon sculpture kicking the knight’s ass-huge red flag. Also Gotham butler (Sean Pertwee). Why is ceramics so integral to these people?

I really enjoyed that Evie was a practical character. She worried about the cost of a plane ticket. She checked in with her friend daily. By the end, all semblance of logic is abandoned, and now she is killing everyone involved in the vampire supremacy global conspiracy, which is fine, but how is she funding it? Also just because you explicitly point out and dismiss the idea of the archetype of the sassy black side kick best friend, Grace (Courtney Taylor), does not mean that you are not still doing it. I wish that there was more of a way to weave Grace into the story, and between Grace and Evie jogging, it felt very “Get Out” (2017). If Evie gets a demerit, it is jogging at night after hearing about carnivorous birds. 

Considering there were so many people there for the wedding, it was strange that the only people that Evie interacted with in the manor for the first half of “The Invitation” were Mrs. Swift (Carol Ann Crawford) and Walt. I wish there was a scene with her at least passing other bedrooms with people getting settled in and looking for the servants’ quarters to get to know them, but then being discouraged from doing that. It would have fit her psychological profile and introduced internal conflict with her new status and her established identity. Just learning their names was not enough of a connection. Also there needed to be a scene where she visited Oliver (Hugh Skinner) in his room at Walt’s place.

I adored Dracula’s brides, Viktoria (Stephanie Corneliussen) and Lucy. Viktoria was very 1920s, chief mean girl, patriarchy enforcer who is still pissed but can only exercise that frustration on other women. Lucy had been stuck with no friends for one hundred years and was ready to risk it all for Evie because Evie was nice to Lucy. Because Lucy was a little dumb, she could not quite stick the landing. I loved the brides scenes together and thought it was a great microcosm of the issues with feminism and debunking the dehumanization of  women by assuming solidarity because of gender.

Evie becoming Blade was fun, and I wish that we had more time watching her character embrace her heritage. She is a halfling in multiple ways: race, class and species. “The Invitation” did not let Walt put up much of a fight, which was a mistake, and I missed the scene where Evie apparently took martial arts in her spare time so she could drop kick Walt into a fire while screaming, “This is Sparta.” I was here for it.