Invitation to Hell (1984)Upward mobility turns people into demons. Invitation to Hell (1984) is a made-for-TV horror movie about a gifted engineer named Matthew Winslow (Robert Urich), who takes a job with a rising technology corporation called Micro-DigiTech and relocates his family--including his wife, Patricia (Joanna Cassidy), and their two children, Robert (Barret Oliver) and Chrissy (Soleil Moon Frye)--to the suburbs of Southern California. Matthew soon discovers that his company--and nearly his whole new community, in fact--are members of a sinister country club called "Steaming Springs", with their secret society governed by the seductive sorceress, Jessica Jones (Susan Lucci).
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Invitation to Hell stands out as a hallmark of a certain kind of movie that doesn't really exist anymore. It is evident from its narrative structure, production values, and even casting that it was designed with a TV-viewing audience in mind. Consider how frequently scenes end with a foreboding image and accompanying music, only to subsequently fade to black for the inevitable commercial break. Additionally, the movie is paced to entice the audience to keep watching until the very end, holding back its biggest "special effects" until the climax. Invitation to Hell opens with a puzzling scene where the crimson-clad Jessica Jones (no relation to the Marvel Comics character) is accidentally run over by a careless valet ogling bikini beauties on the hilly streets overlooking some California valley. Comically, she rights herself up like one of those inflatable boxing clowns, whips around, and retaliates by launching hellfire at the driver, who promptly screams and melts. (More disconcerting is how no one else around even flinches at all of this.) This scene establishes Jessica as a supernatural demon from go, but moreover, it also alludes to more action yet to come for those just tuning, deterring them from changing stations so that they don't miss more wild doings like this. The dialogue between characters is superficial and predictable, later contrasting with the paranoid nightmare waiting for Matthew as his world is gradually swallowed up by the malevolent forces lurking beneath Steaming Springs. The earliest parts of Invitation to Hell shows the Winslow family moving into their new home (and they are unpacked with preternatural speed). It establishes the healthy family dynamic in the household through Dad tucking in Chrissy, telling Robert to turn off his video games before bed, and making gentle love to his wife, all before waking up the next morning and carpooling with his chum and colleague, Tom Peterson (Joe Regalbuto). It isn't until a fender bender with Jessica's limo that Matthew becomes acquainted with the devilish side of this high society. This encounter does nothing to engender sympathy for Jessica, nor does the bizarre amount of subservience that everyone in the community exhibits toward her, even Matt's boss, Mr. Thompson (Kevin McCarthy). It isn't long before Matt begins to suspect that there's some ulterior motive in everyone trying to get him and his family to join the country club...and he isn't wrong. But in spite of his protests, Patricia longs to feel included in her new community and takes Jessica up on the offer to join without Matthew, bringing their two children with her. And Matt suddenly finds that the family he brought to California isn't the one that remains.
Directed by Wes Craven, Invitation to Hell takes its limited resources and somehow manages to make a chilling experience from it. A score of ominous shots following equally ominous bits of dialogue emphasizes that something is rotten in the state of California. A lot of this is courtesy of the unnerving musical score by Sylvester Levay. It is chock full of Eighties-era synth, but comes across as a bit sour at times. This is deliberate, however, since it reflects how Steaming Springs has malice beneath its seemingly placid exterior. Matt's core project at the awkwardly named Micro-DigiTech is a spacesuit capable of withstanding the heat of landing on the planet Venus, and protecting its pilot with weapons systems and a HUD that differentiates friend from foe. Unsurprisingly, Matt's research becomes the only thing that can help him undo the horrors unleashed by Jessica Jones. He dons the suit to clumsily infiltrate a Halloween shindig at the club, which is itself situated upon a literal gateway to Hell. Audiences will often need to check their disbelief in Invitation to Hell, like when Matt enters a keypad-locked sauna that transports him to the underworld, one that reaches temperatures of over two-thousand degrees. (Seriously, that's some material that suit's made out of...) After exiting the first circle, he emerges into a nightmare realm where he must save the souls of his loved ones, trapped in a conical force field made from blue light and smoke. The effect has all of the cheesiness of a high school stage production, yet feel surprisingly effective when they are later used to depict Jessica's demonic powers unraveling in the face of wholesome family tenderness. Along with the hokey effects, the cast performs with an earnestness that only works in a movie like this, where hamming it up a little adds to its ambiance. The film toys with metaphors like "losing one's soul" to the seductive allure of corporate recognition and yuppie belonging, or how California seems to turn people into vain, self-absorbed monsters, predating Brian Yuzna's Society by five years. Invitation to Hell also shares more than a few similarities with The Stepford Wives, like how it depicts the subtly sinister ways that a new community can aggressively rob people of their individuality and agency. (It's no small coincidence, either, that Kevin McCarthy returns to act in yet another body snatching movie.) It seems strange, however, that everyone seems obsessed with turning Matt into "one of them", and each invitation comes across as increasingly uncomfortable. This is presumably meant to depict Matt's independent and free-thinking resolve in the face of temptation, although it occasionally has him coming off as arbitrarily stubborn. More surprising is how the rest of his family seems all too willing to go along with their conversion into evil versions of themselves, pledging "no others" before the diabolical Steaming Springs. It's understandable that they would feel somewhat ostracized, but come on...there's got to be some kind of book club or something else you could do. The ultimate moral of Invitation to Hell is that, despite the proclamations made from other Eighties flicks, greed is not good, and this is what really turns you into a monster.
Recommended for: Fans of a delightfully cheesy movie that embodies the best qualities of the "made-for-TV" movie. As such, the film is largely inoffensive, with only the slightest risque content. Grab some junk food and pop/soda and veg out with this one--even on modern television sets, you can somehow still see the scan lines.
Directed by Wes Craven, Invitation to Hell takes its limited resources and somehow manages to make a chilling experience from it. A score of ominous shots following equally ominous bits of dialogue emphasizes that something is rotten in the state of California. A lot of this is courtesy of the unnerving musical score by Sylvester Levay. It is chock full of Eighties-era synth, but comes across as a bit sour at times. This is deliberate, however, since it reflects how Steaming Springs has malice beneath its seemingly placid exterior. Matt's core project at the awkwardly named Micro-DigiTech is a spacesuit capable of withstanding the heat of landing on the planet Venus, and protecting its pilot with weapons systems and a HUD that differentiates friend from foe. Unsurprisingly, Matt's research becomes the only thing that can help him undo the horrors unleashed by Jessica Jones. He dons the suit to clumsily infiltrate a Halloween shindig at the club, which is itself situated upon a literal gateway to Hell. Audiences will often need to check their disbelief in Invitation to Hell, like when Matt enters a keypad-locked sauna that transports him to the underworld, one that reaches temperatures of over two-thousand degrees. (Seriously, that's some material that suit's made out of...) After exiting the first circle, he emerges into a nightmare realm where he must save the souls of his loved ones, trapped in a conical force field made from blue light and smoke. The effect has all of the cheesiness of a high school stage production, yet feel surprisingly effective when they are later used to depict Jessica's demonic powers unraveling in the face of wholesome family tenderness. Along with the hokey effects, the cast performs with an earnestness that only works in a movie like this, where hamming it up a little adds to its ambiance. The film toys with metaphors like "losing one's soul" to the seductive allure of corporate recognition and yuppie belonging, or how California seems to turn people into vain, self-absorbed monsters, predating Brian Yuzna's Society by five years. Invitation to Hell also shares more than a few similarities with The Stepford Wives, like how it depicts the subtly sinister ways that a new community can aggressively rob people of their individuality and agency. (It's no small coincidence, either, that Kevin McCarthy returns to act in yet another body snatching movie.) It seems strange, however, that everyone seems obsessed with turning Matt into "one of them", and each invitation comes across as increasingly uncomfortable. This is presumably meant to depict Matt's independent and free-thinking resolve in the face of temptation, although it occasionally has him coming off as arbitrarily stubborn. More surprising is how the rest of his family seems all too willing to go along with their conversion into evil versions of themselves, pledging "no others" before the diabolical Steaming Springs. It's understandable that they would feel somewhat ostracized, but come on...there's got to be some kind of book club or something else you could do. The ultimate moral of Invitation to Hell is that, despite the proclamations made from other Eighties flicks, greed is not good, and this is what really turns you into a monster.
Recommended for: Fans of a delightfully cheesy movie that embodies the best qualities of the "made-for-TV" movie. As such, the film is largely inoffensive, with only the slightest risque content. Grab some junk food and pop/soda and veg out with this one--even on modern television sets, you can somehow still see the scan lines.