Strangers Invitation – review

Director: Teddy Joseph

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

This film is one that might cause debate because of its obvious use of AI – though, as I’ll explain, it does seem to use it well. The AI is used to change appearances in a sfx kind of way. However, there are non-AI issues I’ll discuss with the film, mostly in story and pacing, which again I’ll get to.

It starts off at a point during the French Revolution, where the slave master (Alex Davalos) has summoned his favourite, Damien (Joseph Augustin), to give him not only his freedom but freedom from death – he is going to turn him. Now, beyond him being the favourite, we get little sense of why. What there were not, however, were slaves (or anyone else) inked with modern-technique tattoos. Clearly the actor’s ink, filmmakers need to concentrate on that little idiosyncrasy (it crops up from time to time) – if your vampires can be tattooed (iro healing) in the modern day, fine. However, having modern tattoos in the past is a filmic error – especially in a film where AI has been used to manipulate appearance, they could have been removed for that scene.

Amber and pals

Anyway, we get scenes of Damien moving through the ages until we get to modern day Miami. We then meet three women planning a night out, though Amber (Amber Robinson), a workaholic, is unsure. She is eventually persuaded – though one of the three drops out during the conversation – and arranges to meet Bri (Brianna Bethea). That night, and on the way to meet Amber, Bri is followed by Damien, attacked and left for dead. Damien then sees Amber, chats her up (despite her worry over Bri's whereabouts) and then attacks her but feeds her his blood.

newly turned Sasha

We then meet Vanessa (Kathy Morales) who has just gone through a breakup but confides she has had repeated dreams about the same sexy guy – Damien, who she has not met yet. Damien, however, has brought Sasha back to his. Gives her a choice, sort of, and turns her and then sends her to a nearby pool party to murder everyone – a test, he says, which she passes. Of course, the cops are getting worried about people disappearing, slaughters and bodies drained of blood. Finally, he gets Vanessa and turns her – giving her no choice. She is his equal, he says, and yet he then treats her just like the other two. He has essentially made a harem of three brides.

Joseph Augustin as Damien

Later in the story we get an ancient (or 600-years-old) vampire called Yasira (Yasmin Mucury) telling Damien that he and his newborn vampires are gaining too much attention (the police even have his name) and the vampire community need it sorting out – but not a lot comes of that and she even sides with him. Also, a cop, Williams (Joshua Willy Germain), starts to believe there are vampires. In an untidy bit of scripting Damien informs his gals that sunlight and stakes will kill, silver slows, garlic does nothing and holy water will burn if you believe. Almost immediately after this a psychic tells Williams and partner the same (except suggests holy items are sure-fire and garlic works). Given the pacing the only reason for doing this was to suggest she deliberately misled them, as she wants to be turned, and that could have been handled without the list being done twice so close together.

AI enhancements

The other main lore is that the older the vampire gets the more powerful they become – Damien can turn into a flock of bats. So, pacing… the film is a good two hours long and probably needs more than 30 minutes shaving off. There isn’t much more to the story than outlined and it could have been done in a much slicker way. The actual photography is strong but some of the sfx are clearly AI – most tellingly in making the fangs and vamp face appear in an attack. That’s not to say it doesn’t look good, it does, but it is obviously AI driven – the debate on the use of AI within films is not something I want to get into but the filmmakers clearly wanted it to enhance their work rather than to drive it, in this case.

sunlight burns

The characterisation also kind of lacks. I don’t know what Damien’s motivations are – the turning the women feels like harem building, so why not earlier? The indiscriminate slaughter feels just evil without motive, but we are meant to (in some regards) side with him, and the vampire society mentioned is so unbuilt it is wafer thin. That said, had the film been slicker it might have needed such character/world building less. This looks better than a lot of budget vampire flicks, and the film could have been more than it is (especially with less film there). Certainly, there is something to build upon. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK