Production notes

In May 2012, it was announced that Luke Wilson, Zachary Quinto, Topher Grace and Johnny Galecki had initially been scheduled to star in the film, with Karyn Kusama directing from a screenplay written by Phill Hay and Matt Manfredi, and XYZ Films producing the film alongside Martha Griffin, Manfredi and Hay. In July 2014, it was revealed that production on the film had concluded, with Logan Marshall-Green, Michiel Huisman, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Lindsay Burdge, and John Carroll Lynch starring. The Invitation is the second feature to be financed by Gamechanger Films. Kusama was influenced by the slow reveal of Let the Right One In and the unraveling family reunion in Festen. She cited the film's theme as "a metaphor for what the nightmare of anxiety really is, which is this irrational sense that people are trying to hurt you somehow".

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 116 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Invitation makes brilliant use of its tension-rich premise to deliver a uniquely effective – and surprisingly clever – slow-building thriller." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Justin Chang of Variety wrote that the "teasingly effective thriller represents director Karyn Kusama's strongest work in years." Heather Wixson of Daily Dead rated it 4.5/5 stars and characterized it as "some of the most assuredly confident and nuanced work from [Kusama] to date and one of the most devastating horror films I’ve seen in years." Dominick Suzanne-Mayer of Consequence of Sound rated it A− and described it as "supremely well-crafted," while Samuel Zimmerman of Shock Till You Drop said: "The Invitation is a startlingly adult thriller that, unlike Eden and her guests, is willing to stare down the weight our lives can bear." Drew Tinnin of Dread Central rated the film 4/5 stars and wrote: "The Invitation works so well because it taps into our general distrust of the world around us and how our survival instinct has been muted and ignored in order to maintain the appearance of being polite." Josh Kupecki of The Austin Chronicle noted that while the film offered a few interesting ideas about grief and depression, it lacked innovation within the "dinner party from hell' subgenre." Peter Martin of Twitch Film remarked that, despite the sincerity and craft evident in the movie, it reaches a "limited, unsettling level" and halts at that point.