The Open House Review

By: Nik S



Director(s): Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote
Producer(s): Dan Angel, Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote
Starring: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Sharif Atkins, Patricia Bethune
Distributor: Netflix
Runtime: 94 minutes

Netflix, in recent years, has started to become infamous as the streaming service to binge watch some amazing new properties and other classics, but they are often overshadowed by the vast majority of just plain bad, horrible, so-bad-it's-awful movies they have to offer. The Open House is one of the latter.

The Open House is labeled a horror movie, though it's more of a suspense thriller with horror elements sprinkled throughout. The movie follows a mother (Piercey Dalton) and her son (Dylan Minnette) after the loss of their husband and father due to a car accident in a quick-mart parking lot. After the father leaves them with practically nothing the mother, Naomi, is convinced by her sister to move into the house she is trying to sell which has (as the title suggests) an open house every weekend. As the film progresses Logan, the son, starts to become slowly aware that he and his mother are not alone in the house.

There aren't very many saving graces to this movie as nothing shines through the stiff acting, clunky delivered dialogue, and poor cinematography. There is only one  scene that almost breaks through pedantic mold during a "heated" argument between Logan and Naomi. Piercey delivers the only lines that had any emotion throughout the whole film in one scene, but it's absolutely ruined by Dylan's meticulous acting that the scene falls flat rather than being an emotional turn for the characters. In all fairness, all of Dylan's acting is just unpleasant the whole time and has this monotone annoyed teen voice the entire time regardless of the mood his character is supposed to be in. Rather than making you empathetic towards his character, you instead just become annoyed and could care little for what happens to him or those around him.

The cinematography really does try to be something unique in this movie, though it just comes off as monotonous since most of the few well shot scenes are just reattempted in different set locations. For example there are two or three times Logan is walking or running, something catches his attention, he'll look in its direction, and everything in the background goes out of focus each time. There were so many sets that could have been a cinematographer's wonderland if done right with cramped dark hallways and a wide open forests. Everything with the camera work seemed done straight by the books and didn't take any risks to get any imagery that could have helped build up the suspense they were aiming for.

There is a small element of "who's in the house? What are they planning to do?" throughout the film, but there is absolutely no payoff. Any hopes the viewer had for "answers" are never answered, which in some movies really help push their mystery element, but The Open House does it in such a sluggish way that you almost don't want to even be bothered by an answer or ask yourself any more questions. The movie ends with a very predictable ending you see within the last 15 minutes.

Final Thoughts: I didn't go into watching this movie with high hopes, as the trailer didn't thrill or engage me. The movie was just about what I expected it was going to be, though part of me was hoping they'd do some shocking reveals towards the end that never happened. In all honesty, you're better off just binge watching Stranger Things again.