The Open House (2018)

Running Time: 1hr 34min

Release Date: Jan 19, 2018

Written/Directed by: Matt Angel/Suzanne Coote

Review by: Stacey

If you've been reading my reviews for a while now, you probably know that I never try to dissuade anyone from watching a movie, no matter how much I dislike it, so I usually follow that myself when someone tells me not to watch a movie; I like to form my own opinions, y'know?  This time though, I probably should have heeded everyone's warnings abut Netflix original The Open House.

After Logan's (Dylan Minnette) dad dies in a tragic accident, he and his mom (Piercey Dalton) move out to a relative's home which is up for sale and has open houses.  Strange things start happening around the house to suggest that maybe something sinister is going on.

I honestly wasn't expecting much out of The Open House mostly because the plot seemed not unlike movies I have seen before.  I figured it was going to be something ghosty, or a cult, hell, even all inside Logan's head.  While it was none of those, they also didn't give us anything spectacular.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Despite the back-to-back red herrings, the reveal was that the culprit behind the strange goings-on was an unseen killer with no real motive.  That's it.  The final 10-15 minutes gave us nothing to go off of as to why this person was terrorizing/killing people.  Did they know him?  Did he have something to do with the dad's death?  Was he living in the basement the whole time?  Was he connected to the realtor?? WHO WAS HE AND WHY WAS HE KILLING PEOPLE??? So many questions and not a'one answered.

I can handle a senseless killing movie (a la The Strangers) but this just lacked any real coherence.  I would have settled for a couple of lines of dialogue from the killer, even if he didn't explain WHY he was doing what he was doing.  I was really hoping for some devil cult type shit with the open houses and realtor connection.  That would have even made more sense than a stranger who likes to travel from open house to open house killing people (which I only deduced from the final scene of the movie).  What a dumb fucking M.O. for a killer. Ugh.

Usually now is when I start talking about the acting but even that was meh at best.  I feel like the only draw with Dylan Minnette for Netflix was 13 Reasons Why and the far superior horror flick, Don't Breathe that he also starred in.  I only watched the movie less than 24 hrs ago and can't even remember anything memorable about the mom's character.  Whatever, it's not important at this stage.

Despite my clear displeasure with The Open House, I'm still not going to tell you NOT to watch it.  I will, however, tell you that it's probably going to be a waste of your time.  Unless you're into that sort of thing, then by all means, have at it.

1/5

Check out the trailer below!