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!
