Invitation to Hell

INVITATION TO HELL

A charming but unintentionally silly made-for-television movie that aired on ABC in May of 1984, Invitation to Hell (directed by Wes Craven from a script by Richard Rothstein) follows suburbanite Matthew Winslow's efforts to resist constant pressure to become a member at Steaming Springs Country Club in the community he's just moved to with his wife Pat and two young children (Chrissy and Robbie). Quoted in Brian J. Robb's book Screams & Nightmares, Craven described the project: “The premise was that Susan Lucci was a woman who ran a country club that was attracting all the executives from these high-tech agencies, but she was really the Devil and the steam room was the entrance to hell, if you can believe that.”

As the tale begins, everything's looking up for the Winslows. In the first thirteen minutes, the family moves into a pleasant new abode and enjoys a visit from Matt's old fraternity buddy Tom Peterson, who works at Micro-Digitech (the company where Matt's just been hired). Via a scene at Matt's laboratory the next day, the viewer learns that Matt's working on fine-tuning a spacesuit intended to be used for a mission to Venus (the suit can withstand extreme temperatures, features built-in weapons, and scans the surrounding environment for threats). Six minutes later, Matt crosses paths with Jessica Jones (director of the Steaming Springs Country Club) for the first time when their cars nearly collide. A couple of minutes later, Jessica initiates Tom Peterson and his family into the club by ushering them through a doorway into a dense cloud of steam while saying, “Enter the spring and taste its power.” Twenty-six minutes in, Matt finds himself pressured by his boss (Harry) to join the club, and two minutes later Jessica (who has inexplicably stopped by Matt's workplace) also encourages Matt to join. The pressure to conform continues as newly-initiated Tom (who has been promoted) invites Matt to explore all the club has to offer. Four minutes later, Matt's wife Pat (envious of the new car that Tom's wife drives) asks Matt to join the club. Apparently sick of all the pressure, five minutes later Matt takes Pat to the club, where Tom and Jessica take them around to see the sights. Matt strays away and ventures into the foyer of the steam room, but Jessica interrupts him before he discovers that Hell lays beyond a locked door. Around the story's midpoint, Pat and her kids join the club without Matt and (after agreeing that they “forsake all for the club”) go through that door. The next day, the Winslow's dog (Albert) growls at Pat and the kids. Matt notices marked personality changes in his family, and near the one hour mark Pat asks her husband to “just give us a little bit more of yourself.” Seventy minutes in, Matt (now certain that there's a connection between the club and his family's turn to the dark side) returns to the steam room and measures the temperature beyond the forbidden door: it's eight-hundred degrees fahrenheit. Matt returns home (after apparently murdering a security guard who caught him at the steam room) and finds Chrissy beating her plush toy bunny with a crowbar. “You're not my daughter,” Matt realizes, and he locks his kids in a closet and incapacitates his wife. Matt goes to his lab, steals the experimental spacesuit, and heads to the club (where conveniently there's a Halloween costume party in full swing). At the eighty-one minute mark, Matt ventures into Hell. A ten-minute sequence in the underworld sports some truly trippy imagery, and Matt ultimately rescues his real family. Back home, Matt ventures outside where neighbors chatter about a massive fire that has burned the club down. The project runs just over ninety-three minutes before the end credits.

“I made TV movies to pay the bills and keep the lights on in my office – they don't represent my body of work,” Wes Craven once said (as quoted in the book Screams & Nightmares).

Invitation to Hell may have been intended as a satire about materialism and conformity. Patricia Winslow (who pines for new furniture, a piano, and a better car) literally loses her soul until her husband brings her back from Hell. Whatever the ambitions of the project's writer (Richard Rothstein), the final product is worth a look if only to marvel at the hairstyles and primitive computers of the eighties (and of course to enjoy the ten-minute sequence set in Hell). The project has solid production values largely courtesy of the director of photography (Dean Cundey, most famous for his work on John Carpenter projects including Halloween and The Fog).

Invitation to Hell is neither terrifying nor thought-provoking, but it is fun and entertaining.