The Open House

Netflix has had a string of hits within their series of original films, from their television series like “House of Cards” and “Stranger Things” to the movies like “Gerald’s Game” and “War Machine.”  With so many films to choose from and so many series to get into, you can literally spend days to months binging on these presentations and becoming a closed-in recluse as you do so.

 

Of course, I tend to gravitate to anything horror—especially if it’s a Stephen King adaptation—so when I saw this new Netflix Original called The Open House, I immediately sat down to watch it.

 

It actually caught my attention in an online article that listed the “horror movies that’ll blow you away in 2018” and had this flick near the top.  It even showcased its trailer, which I indulged myself in, and I was very impressed with it, so my curiosity was piqued.  However, as an oddity to all this, with my decision to watch this film, I also checked the IMDb page to look into the production a bit more and noticed right away that the film had an average user rating of 3.3 out of 10.  I say that’s an rarity because I usually won’t even start watching a film unless I see it has a 5 or more in IMDb.  But I was enticed and wanted to see for myself how this movie would pan out.

 

So, before getting into it, here’s the synopsis of The Open House…

 

Teenager, Logan Wallace (Dylan Minnette), and his mother, Naomi (Piercey Dalton), find themselves on their own after Logan’s father (Aaron Abrams) is ran down and killed by a car speeding through the parking lot of a convenience store.  With Logan and his mother left destitute, they decide to take the offer of Naomi’s sister, Allison (Katie Walder), to stay in her house temporarily while it’s in the market to be sold.  As the house is open for potential buyers during the day, Logan and his mother are besieged by a threatening force during the dark hours of night.  Is it a supernatural being?  Is it a malevolent individual hiding in the house?  Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to want them there.

 

Now, this movie starts off pretty well and I think the writing and directing team of Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote had some good intentions going into this.  The backstory on the two central characters are described well enough to give you an understanding on their life and how their situation comes to be, moving it to the psychological thriller portion of the film.  It definitely strings you along as we see Logan and his mom experience some very weird incidents in the house—banging in the basement, the water heater being shut off, doors slamming closed behind a character…all your typical horror movie tropes are thrown in there for good measure and are used well.  Even at that point, we get some good scares and setup, evolving the story into some paranormal insinuation, so I can’t fault the two directors on their ability on putting together a film that sucks you in.

 

The problem with this film is how completely unsatisfying it is when it ends, where so many plot points are unresolved and the answer to the main question—Who is this person responsible for everything?—never materializes.  Seems like they wrote themselves into a corner with all the little indications of other characters that appeared enigmatic, but couldn’t come up with a resultant ending to them all.

 

As I’d mentioned, Matt Angel and Suzanne Cootes were the writing and directing team behind this.  Angel has had a nice career in acting, playing bit parts here and there (he actually plays the younger cop in this film), but his directing résumé consists of two films—a film called Ha/lf and The Open House.  Suzanne Cootes, however, has had even less experience.  She’s credited as a writer for two films, a director for two films, and a producer for two films—Welcome Home, Lee and The Open House.  Now, I’m all for giving someone a chance to climb that ladder in the movie business because everyone has to start somewhere, but you’ve got to knock it out of the park or give a little something more than this.  Who knows?  Maybe it was Netflix studio interference or a lack of money for filming…it could be anything out of their power.  But the sum of it all falls here in what we see on screen…and it ain’t much.

 

I’ve got to admit, the film kept me watching, I was never bored or felt like turning off the show, waiting it out until the end.  But it left a bad taste in my mouth to wait an hour and a half to get no answer to the questions raised throughout the story.  Don’t get me wrong, I know there have been a lot of films throughout the years that use the formula of a masked killer that is never revealed, but that formula usually doesn’t include other cryptic individuals that are hinted as maybe being possible culprits.  If they were going for a vibe like The Strangers, then they shouldn’t have written these other characters in as suspects, they should’ve started with how Logan and his mom were thrown into this situation and became targeted by someone who just wanted to randomly target them, much like the movie Hush, which is a very good thriller.

 

The two biggest characters that are shown in this film that makes us think they have something to do with the strange occurrences in the house?  Martha (Patricia Bethune) and Chris (Sharif Atkins).

 

Martha—seemingly a neighbor who resides nearby, but is never shown where she lives—is the biggest question mark, showing up at strange times during the film and saying something at one time only to be contradicted later.  She was purposely written to be a candidate for the unknown terrorist of the film, but is simply cast off at the end.

 

Chris—the local store clerk who tries to befriend Logan’s mom—is another character who seems a little off.  He appears at awkward times throughout the film, even showing up at the house to see if he can look through it as he claims to be a potential buyer only to disappear without saying a word.  The character’s inclusion as one of the suspects isn’t as bad since we see his full arc of the film.

 

Of course, there’s even the hint that all the activity in the house may be on the paranormal side, seeing that Logan has visions of his dad in the house and the song that he happened to be listening to at the time of his father’s death is played by the mystery man as a way to taunt Logan.

 

I think I’ve said enough about this movie…my final bit on The Open House?

 

The story, as a whole, seems to be one big setup that does not pay off whatsoever.  We seem to have a whole lot of red herrings in this film that all come to be nothing at all.  All of this is given to us while strange occurrences are happening in the house, but nothing is paid off for us.  The problem is that the suggestion we’re given throughout the film is that one of the red herrings is responsible for the targeting of the main characters…but I guess we’ll never find out…I doubt there’s a sequel being made for this dud.  My suggestion?  Try watching any of the other good titles on Netflix and make sure to check the average rating on IMDb…I should’ve trusted it more.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

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