...so I watched it, and it WAS!!! Absolutely dreadful!! Silly, tedious, ridiculous and BORING from beginning to end. Where to start?
I suppose it was meant to be "suggestive" of an Agatha Christie, so England 1930s-1940s scenario. I got very little, or any, 1930s England feeling from this. Upon first meeting, the characters very casually call each other by their first names. Wrong. A cop shows up and displays his holstered gun. No. British police, to this day, do not carry firearms. But those are just fiddly details.
Bossy Boots, I mean Miranda Green (Mischa Barton's ridiculous character) takes charge, telling everyone what to do, and they do it. Who elected her boss? A young woman (she looks about 50 but I think she's closer to 35 IRL), a complete stranger to everyone, barks out orders and everyone silently obeys. Why? "And that's not a request..." she barks, and they all do whatever it is she's demanded this time.
She seems able, either by osmosis or amazing gifts of prognostication, to know what has happened, what will happen, who did it, and why, without the slightest hint of actual evidence. "Someone banged his head with the door," she announces, although neither she nor anyone else in the room (to her or our knowledge) witnessed it. She opines that someone lost his father young because his shoes aren't well cared for. Huh???
And s-l-o-w moving?!?!? It takes minutes for a character to walk a few feet from the sofa to the door, with a supposedly ominous soundtrack to back it up. She's just leaving the room! Is this meant to be scary? The soundtrack never lets up trying to tell us "Look out! Something creepy might happen!" Might. Doesn't.
And the characters never stop spouting cliches. The script is preposterous! Cliche characters as well. The craggy American "journalist", alcoholic, gum-chewing, chain-smoking, calls women "sweetheart"... straight out of Central Casting. Bizarre accents, as well. Another review mentioned accent accuracy (!) and gave an example of having worked with Indian people and therefore knew the Indian accent was accurate. Well, I don't know what film that person watched because there is no Indian character in this piece of trash, correct accent or not.
I actually caught myself falling asleep during this, but I was determined to watch it through to the sorry end. Invitation to a Murder, a blatant rip-off of Christie's "And Then There Were None," is so bad, no doubt it will generate either a TV series or countless sequels. Heaven forbid!
I suppose it was meant to be "suggestive" of an Agatha Christie, so England 1930s-1940s scenario. I got very little, or any, 1930s England feeling from this. Upon first meeting, the characters very casually call each other by their first names. Wrong. A cop shows up and displays his holstered gun. No. British police, to this day, do not carry firearms. But those are just fiddly details.
Bossy Boots, I mean Miranda Green (Mischa Barton's ridiculous character) takes charge, telling everyone what to do, and they do it. Who elected her boss? A young woman (she looks about 50 but I think she's closer to 35 IRL), a complete stranger to everyone, barks out orders and everyone silently obeys. Why? "And that's not a request..." she barks, and they all do whatever it is she's demanded this time.
She seems able, either by osmosis or amazing gifts of prognostication, to know what has happened, what will happen, who did it, and why, without the slightest hint of actual evidence. "Someone banged his head with the door," she announces, although neither she nor anyone else in the room (to her or our knowledge) witnessed it. She opines that someone lost his father young because his shoes aren't well cared for. Huh???
And s-l-o-w moving?!?!? It takes minutes for a character to walk a few feet from the sofa to the door, with a supposedly ominous soundtrack to back it up. She's just leaving the room! Is this meant to be scary? The soundtrack never lets up trying to tell us "Look out! Something creepy might happen!" Might. Doesn't.
And the characters never stop spouting cliches. The script is preposterous! Cliche characters as well. The craggy American "journalist", alcoholic, gum-chewing, chain-smoking, calls women "sweetheart"... straight out of Central Casting. Bizarre accents, as well. Another review mentioned accent accuracy (!) and gave an example of having worked with Indian people and therefore knew the Indian accent was accurate. Well, I don't know what film that person watched because there is no Indian character in this piece of trash, correct accent or not.
I actually caught myself falling asleep during this, but I was determined to watch it through to the sorry end. Invitation to a Murder, a blatant rip-off of Christie's "And Then There Were None," is so bad, no doubt it will generate either a TV series or countless sequels. Heaven forbid!