I’m having trouble finding words to write because this film is absolute garbage and no one should see it.
Synopsis: A teenager and his mother find themselves besieged by threatening forces when they move into a new house. (IMDB)
Starring: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, and Patricia Bethune
Writers: Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote
Directors: Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote
Rating: TV-MA
Running Time: 94mins
Trailer:
The Open House is a bland, generic, meandering, boring, nihilistic home-invasion horror with nothing redeemable about it. The story follows Naomi (Dalton) and Logan (Minnette), a family who decides to move into a relative’s secluded mansion that is up for sale following the death of the father. Because the mansion is in the process of being sold, an open house takes place while Naomi and Logan are living there and bang we having a basic horror film.
Every horror trope you can think of in this movie happens. Blaring music that turns into silence with a jump scare of something that isn’t scary? Check. A strained relationship between the family following a death? Check. A creepy basement? Check. A small town with strange characters that serve no purpose in the story other than to make you think they’re the killer? Check. The Open House is so lazily pieced together it felt like this half-baked movie was written and filmed in a day.
Moments that should have tension feel lifeless due to the constant repetitiveness of every scene. Characters are so incompetent they can’t piece basic evidence together. None of the characters are likeable or tolerable. You’re just supposed to feel bad for them because the father died and they’re poor. If the acting and filmmaking is robotic then your movie is going to feel lifeless, and that’s exactly how it feels watching The Open House.
The whole premise of “open houses are creepy when you think about”is dull. The mystery behind the person stalking this family doesn’t matter because it’s easy to not care about who it is. There’s never any closure because the filmmakers think that a lazy, nihilistic ending is actually a genius one. The whole movie becomes stale due to the script’s fascination with the antagonist blowing out the pilot light, making the shower ice cold. Only a total monster would repeatedly do that to someone.
The only decent thing about this film was that it looked good. The cinematography was bearable. The 90 minute runtime was 90 minutes too long. It felt like watching a three hour epic of boring cliches. Essentially, this movie means absolutely nothing. The ending definitely proves that. This was 90 minutes of my time that I will never get back.
Overall, The Open House is a terrible horror film that lacks any idea of what an absorbing home-invasion movie should be. Your time is too precious to be wasted on a dumpster bin like this. You’ve been warned.
Score: 1/10
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Big Star Wars Nerd. Love all kinds of movies, but my favorites are sci-fi, indies, and superhero films. I created SplittingEdge Reviews with my friend Dakota, because we love expressing our views on the different kind of music and films that are out there. You can give me a follow on Twitter: @CorbinStewart12 or Instagram: corbin_stewart
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