Discussion of the film:  The Invitation (2015) (104 min)
Director: Karyn Kusama
*** Film must be viewed prior to event.***

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: October 25, 2023

Discussant: Alex Smith, Psy.D.

Film Description:
When a man accepts an invitation to a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife, the unsettling past reopens old wounds and creates new tensions.

Presentation:

While often speculative and hopefully morbid, horror cinema is uniquely equipped to lay bare the unthinkable, shifting our fears and wishes into the realm of the far-fetched. While Karyn Kusama grounds The Invitation in expertly rendered characters and a downbeat, albeit slippery, realism, she hews closely to the mechanics of the horror narrative, utilizing fantastical motifs to meditate deeply on resurrection, grief, and the diffusion of the self. In this discussion, we will continue our celebration of the effectiveness of horror in portraying the profoundly human through the profoundly fantastical. We will work to peeling back the layers of horror to reveal the determinants driving the fantastical, exploring how The Invitation iterates on themes of death and resurrection. We will also look at the classical horror motif of the cult and its representation in horror narratives, examining its utility, and the psychoanalytic underpinnings of the fascination of horror with cults and forbidden belief-systems.