Sometimes even good technical skill can't redeem a terrible movie.
"Have you ever thought about how, like, weird open houses are?" That's a line from The Open House, a recent Netflix film about an open house. Well, it takes place in an open house, a gorgeous mansion up in the Pacific Northwest mountains isolated from neighbors. Its main players include a mother and her son, grieving the loss of their husband/father (Aaron Abrams), respectively, who left them in such a financial state that they are forced from their home. The mother's sister allows them to squat in her mansion which is up for sale, as long as they leave every open house afternoon.
Strange things begin to happen to the pair, as dishes and phones move around the house, doors open, and things go bump in the basement. Naomi flirts with a man from town as her son Logan grows more reclusive and angsty, and each suspect the other of playing mind games, presumably in an effort to scare them out of the house and go back home.
But this film isn't smart enough to play many psychological games (a la Funny Games or, really, any other home invasion thriller worth its salt). Instead, by about the halfway point, we are shown that there is, in fact, another person inside the house, watching and waiting for a moment to strike. This is after, mind you, about 45 minutes of incredibly slow scenes that attempt to build tension. I say "attempt" because it only marginally succeeds.
The screenplay is incredibly stupid. The actors -- themselves stultifying in their whiplash-inducing turns between stoic realism and melodrama -- choke over groaners like "I am your mother and I am allowed to be upset!" And "I have so much on my plate right now that I can't deal with you too." Really, mom? Because as far as we've seen, you don't work, you have no money, you have no neighbors or friends, and you guys sit around cooking macaroni, going for runs, and watching movies together.
And Logan's part is just as awful: After he comments on how weird open houses are and elaborating on how anyone could just come inside, hide, and lie in wait for the realtors to leave, his mother scolds him mildly, noting that she won't be sleeping tonight, thank you very much. His response? "Maybe you shouldn't." Son, you get an A+ for being a jerk. And, later, when the intruder has made himself known by setting a beautiful dinner table, Logan is allowed the magnificently stupid moment of "Something is clearly going on."
A gorgeous set -- really, the woodwork will make your knees weak -- is the only worthwhile part of the film. Even this is undermined, though, as most of the action takes place in the weird little basement. It's a dark descent on wooden stairs to a stony, labyrinthine hallway. Why is this little tunnel the basement to a gorgeous, wide open mansion? Apparently we aren't supposed to ask that. On his first foray to the lower level, Logan breaks through a step on the stairs; the next two times his mother goes down there, the step has apparently been repaired. Yet, during the climax, Logan again goes down there, and behold, the broken step has returned.
Other technical moments are even more poorly executed. Again, who wrote this garbage? The pilot light for the water heater keeps going out and the characters have to go re-light it a total of three times in almost shot-for-shot repetitious scenes. While some of the cinematography is brilliant, tracking the characters through the house and, in wide shots, showing strange goings-on in different rooms at the same time, some is laughably ripped off from other (better) horror films. In fact, some of the ripoffs are so clear I wonder why this didn't debut on some fanfiction website. When Naomi enters the shower, water comes at the camera just like in Psycho. Calls come from inside the house, as they do in Black Christmas and When a Stranger Calls. The basement is almost certainly a throwback to Silence of the Lambs.
SPOILER ALERT. Doors open in wide shots and shadows move in the dark like in The Strangers; like that movie, too, the whole plot here concerns a crazy, faceless killer with no motive. The last shot shows his car driving off in search of the next open house he can, presumably, infiltrate, torment its tenants or guests, and kill them off one by one. He clearly has no motive, but even his MO isn't clear. He starts by psychologically tormenting them (ish), then he slits a guy's throat, then he leaves Logan outside in the cold to catch hypothermia, then he terrorizes Naomi, ties her up, tortures her by breaking her fingers. He manipulates events so that (in the film's ridiculous climax) Logan unintentionally kills his own mother.
Actually, that's where I'm going to stop. The first half, stupid and slow but effectively chilling, screeches to a halt by the third act. The ending isn't just bad. It's offensively bad. It's so stupid, you'll want to quit watching. People die and they seem sad about it. But you don't even feel bad because they were all so stupid. And you don't even care because the filmmakers were so bad at their jobs. Huge plot holes and thematic ambiguity and poor execution make The Open House one to regret watching.
IMDb: The Open House
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