The plot: After the death of her husband (Aaron Abrams), Naomi (Piercey Dalton) moves herself and her son Logan (Dylan Minnette) into her sister's house until they can get back on their feet. As they encounter the locals, and shuffle around the 'open house' schedule for the house that is currently on the market, Logan starts to notice strange things going on inside the house. It seems that there are some drawbacks to opening up one's home to other people.
Minnette is getting increasingly familiar with
playing unaware teens placed in unnerving households between this, Goosebumps
and Don’t Breathe, and that familiarity combined with his earthy delivery
serves him well here. He’s not given a whole lot to do, save for running and
grieving, but he manages to wring quite a bit out of his character’s quieter
moments. Dalton is merely serviceable, only really showing elements of a pulse
when she’s conversing with Minnette. Well, conversing and heavily arguing, as a
loud argument two-thirds of the way in is the most memorable scene she takes
part in that doesn’t involve showering.
Abrams gets some nice moments in before
his plot-mandated death, Sharif 'the psychic baseball player from The 4400' Atkins is passable as what amounts to being the film’s plot-convenience
neighbour, and Patricia Bethune as one of the other neighbours Martha does well
in providing a possible source of tension. Of course, that latter performance
ends up being wasted considering how lacking in tension all of this is.
The initial fears and apprehensions connected
to moving into a new house has been a steady stream of horror inspiration for
decades now, whether it’s dealing with actual haunted abodes or just worries
about who or what once occupied the place a person now calls home. Anyone who
has had to move house in their lifetime (which given most Western property
markets should be most if not all of you reading this) should relate to that
feeling of worry, either out of old-fashioned paranoia or just the unease of
adjusting to new surroundings. This film takes that concept and holds it close
to its core, adding in the extra discomfort of the “open house” aspect of
house-hunting. This is a point brought up rather up-front in the film itself,
but the entire idea of doing an open house is one that requires a lot of trust in complete strangers. It
means opening the doors of your home to the public, letting them walk through
all of the rooms and see all of the fixtures, all in the hope that no-one’s going
to nick your belongings while you’re unawares.
I bring both of these points up because this
domestic thriller has a pretty sturdy foundation to it for good chills,
especially since its two main concepts are ones that have tried and tested in
abundance. Of course, good concepts require an understanding of their use in
order to truly work, and it is here that the film immediately stumbles into
problems. The story starts on the pretence of depicting familial grief, feeling
like the kind of story that Mike Flanagan would have sunk his teeth into.
But
that comparison is a bit unfair because Flanagan actually takes the time out to
dissect the psychological effects of the death of a family member, whereas
directing/writing/producing duo Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote end up dropping it
with ghastly ease without even a hint of any kind of resolution. They seem to
be under the impression that building atmosphere is as simple as showing
mundane goings-on and then BAM!, there’s someone else wandering around the
house. The dramatic irony jumpscares here are really tired, both because they exist solely for the benefit of the
audience and mean nothing to the characters in-universe but also because they
are incredibly weak. The washed-out visuals from DOP Filip Vandewal don’t help
matters, making the production look as deeply unengaging as the story they’re
supposed to be in service to.
So, we have a film that is barely being held
together by the actors and doesn’t seem too fussed with actually getting to the
point in any great hurry. I was hoping for the resolution to bring everything
in perspective, putting all the disparate pieces of the narrative together to
give a single cohesive point. You know, that thing that any film worth its salt
is capable of? Well, this film admittedly does have an ending that makes sense
of what came before it, but not in any of the satisfying ways. It plays off any
hinting at the supernatural as just basic paranoia, making the viable threat
real. Nevermind how this makes a few of the bit characters rather pointless in
the grand scheme of things; this film can’t even make the Big Bad seem
interesting. It’s just some guy without a name or legible face to his
lack-of-a-name, who has some token showings of sadism.
This basically turns the
entire film into a complete dud but it also ends up reinforcing a lot of its
pretences regarding the titular “Open House”. I can only imagine that this was
created to validate the very worries I highlighted above, because all I walked
away from this film with is the sense that I should be scared of complete strangers, even if I willingly invite
them inside. I don’t like the idea of hating anything solely on principle, but
I am growing increasingly weary of pro-isolationist mindsets in films. Maybe we
should all take its advice and isolate ourselves from this thing.
All in all, this is yet another boilerplate horror flick
that can’t even manage to do that one job properly. The acting is rather decent
and if the film focused more on the relationship between the main characters,
this could’ve ranked alongside Before I Wake and Winchester as a film that
works better as an eerie drama than a straight-up thrill fest. But since this
film and these directors insist on focusing on quite banal non-events, not
having the foggiest idea how to utilise this gift-wrapped premise to their
advantage, that is not what we get. Knowing that this kind of film basically
represents the direct-to-video side of the Netflix catalogue, I can’t get too mad at it because this was likely
made as a throwaway… but that doesn’t change the fact that this film serves no
real purpose, other than accidentally appealing to worrying real-world
attitudes.
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