There’s a substantial twist in “The Uninvited,” a pretty fair and reasonably scary remake of South Korean director Kim Jee-Woon’s thriller “A Tale of Two Sisters.” The twist was there in the stylish original, which I watched after the English-language re-do. If one of my film critic colleagues hadn’t guessed the twist out loud, and correctly, I might very well have been taken in by it. But you know? I’ll never know.

The Guard Brothers directed “The Uninvited.” They are Thomas and Charles, and they are British, and while much of their work here stays in strict stylistic line with the 2003 original, they supply jolts efficiently. Any idiot can frighten an audience with a “boo!” moment—the heroine turning suddenly, only to be startled by some innocent character, for example. Almost any idiot can direct a sequence involving the slow approach to a creepy, concealing object, out of which something will spring, or ooze or fly. But the quality of the surprise after the suspense, that’s what separates the hacks from the talent. The Guard Brothers cut fast and rarely steer clear of cliche, but they have a knack.

Like turning fresh cod into fishsticks, the Hollywood machine has processed the 2003 South Korean horror film A Tale Of Two Sisters into The Uninvited, essentially remaking it as The Sixth Sense. Gone is the original film’s ambiguous, psychosexual bent; it’s replaced by unsettled ghosts dropping by to parse out information in the spookiest way possible. As with most PG-13-rated horror, it’s a slick, bloodless affair that’s neither as suggestive as the classic general-audiences ghost stories of the past, nor as intense as a hard-R would allow it to be. The result is a middling Frankenstein-like hybrid of spectral mayhem and murder mystery, constructed entirely out of borrowed parts.

Arielle Kebbel Shares Music Favorites With ARTISTdirect

Arielle Kebbel found inspiration from many different places for her character Alex Rydell in The Uninvited, including the musical world. She has a diverse palette for sonic treats, and she shared musical experiences, her ideas for a soundtrack, and some of her favorite bands with ARTISTdirect.com in this exclusive interview.

If you were to create a soundtrack for the film, what bands would you pick and why?

Good question! It’s funny I am very sensitive to music with all of my characters. I actually spend a lot of time thinking about music ahead of time and what the character would listen to and maybe what Arielle Kebbel would listen to in order to help get me into that character. So for me, Incubus has significant meaning just because that was how I started my day every morning. It was one of the soundtracks that helped transfer me from Arielle to Alex. So now anytime I hear a couple of those songs—which I prefer to keep private—it takes me back to feeling like Alex for a minute [laughs].

Last fall, Paramount Pictures invited iF Magazine and a handful of other reporters to visit the set of THE UNINVITED in Vancouver, Canada which is a remake of the Asian horror film A TALE OF TWO SISTERS.

The film focuses on Anna (Emily Browning) who has returned home after a stint in the psycho ward after the death of her mom only to find her mom’s evil nurse Rachel (Elizabeth Banks) has married her dad (David Strathairn). Along with her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel), the two of them start piecing together a mystery that may reveal her mom’s death was not an accident. Along the way, there’s spooky little kids roaming around, a remote cabin, an integral mystery, and of course scares galore.

Video of Arielle been interviewed for The Uninvited.

Arielle Kebbel has every reason to be fearful in The Uninvited. In the thriller premiering in theaters January 30, Elizabeth Banks spooks Kebbel and so much more.

The Uninvited paints a family picture that is somewhat common in modern day America. Of course, minus the thrills provided by Kebbel, Banks and the entire cast. Here we have a single parent (in this case father played by David Strathairn), raising young children who as a family have to deal with the addition of a new love interest for the adult. And thus, the suspicious and often thrilling ride that is The Uninvited begins.